Constant Reader discussion

Decades ago I was a good student with very good grades. However, punctuation and spelling were boring things required for school. I must admit, often I'd study for exams yet fail to retain what I'd learned for everyday usage. I enjoyed writing but never really expected to be an author. My poor editor must have grown weary correcting my work. I guess the saying about "use it or lose it" is correct. So, please forgive my poor application of proper punctuation in posts.

I'm amazed by authors who produced work prior to computers with cut & paste and spell check. Are there authors you muddle through despite grammatically incorrect sentence construction?

Can't think of one off the top of my head, Janet. Poor grammar and spelling is for me like fingernails dragged across a blackboard. It would probably bother me enough that I'd put the book down.

As for you, I've never noticed anything untoward in your posts. If you've goofed, it hasn't been in an obvious way. Besides, this is informal conversation here, it's not being immortalized in paper and ink.

Your posts always look fine to me, Janet, and I admit to being picky! I have started books where the grammar and punctuation are off, but I become too frustrated to finish them. I become far more infuriated with the editor than the writer, however. It just screams "lazy editor" to me! Your editor is doing his or her job.

I become particularly annoyed when the author is African American, because I suspect (with no proof, other than my life experiences) that the editor is not holding the African American author to the same standards as everyone else. I'm not talking about cases where the "alternative" grammar, punctuation, or spelling serve the story - that's fine. But just letting things slide is condescending.

Wilson Rawls wrote several books for young adults. According to my dad, who I think must have seen Rawls at an appearance, Rawls was so ashamed of his spelling and grammar that he burned several manuscripts. His daughter found out about the burned up stories and helped him put them back together again. But they were only able to complete a couple of them before he died.

I think Wilhelmina touches on an interesting part of grammar and spelling. They are highly political topics. Noah Webster changed many spellings in his first American dictionary as a specific political protest against the British.

Formalized spelling, if one goes back farther in history, begins to fall apart. The printed versions of Shakespeare's original folios have many many spelling inconsistencies, I think there's even historians who suggest Shakespeare spelled his name differently on different documents. Over the course of history, it seems, spelling and grammar were formalized and simultaneously turned into tools of political control. The educated and the powerful could obviously master the formalizations they invented and could use them to keep the less educated from threatening the status quo.

I tend to think that if Person A wants to correct Person B's grammar, the grammar is just a little tool Person A is using to establish her dominance over Person B.

Obama's former minister Jeremiah Wright is fond of invoking Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), the second principal of Kawaida, which states: To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

I think it's a nice articulation of a group's right and even its prerogative to use its language to define and defy injustice, kind of like Noah Webster did. When the Jeremiah Wright controversey sprang up, I thought the people who had a problem with his words were really rather threatened by the notion of this community of African American's utilizing their right to speak, utilizing their right to use the language to define themselves and their social agenda. Wright's articulation was a threat to the status quo, and was quickly refuted by the ruling class (which I think is ultimately a disservice to the country).

Short answer: no. But there's always a longer answer.

Writing is about spelling and grammar and punctuation. There's room for debate over which spelling is correct, or whether it really is incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition, etc., but all that's just a red herring. When it comes right down to it, spelling and grammar and punctuation form the narrator's voice, and prose is all about narration.

Good writers have control over it. Good writers control the rhythms of their sentences, not just the words.

There's lots of room for style. Jim Harrison, for example, uses very few commas. He simply leaves them out. The result is a droning rhythm that's peculiarly his. But this isn't wrong, it's a question of style. (No doubt the young Harrison got back a lot of marked up manuscripts.)

If on the other hand you persistently use commas incorrectly, if you put them where they don't belong, it ceases to be a question of style. It's no longer something that defines your voice; it's an error that obscures it.

And (Wilhelmina) it's not up to the editor. It's not his by-line on the cover. The author is the author.

Good writers control the rhythms of their sentences, not just the words.

Absolutely. Something I could never get across to a friend of mine who asked me for feedback on her novel-in-progress.

It seems to me that grammar and punctuation have one function: to help the author communicate. If I'm reading a long sentence with no punctuation, I sometimes lose the thread of what the author is trying to say.

While, as Andy points out, the correct spelling of a word is somewhat arbitrary, when I see an egregiously misspelled word, I cannot help but feel that the author doesn't care enough about what he or she is saying to bother with spelling the words correctly or at least close to correctly.

I live in Hong Kong so sometimes I use American spelling and sometimes British and sometimes both in the same sentence. No one seems to mind.

The experiment with "ebonics" in Oakland, California was a disaster because, while it worked for the Black teenagers it made no sense to the broader community within which these kids had to operate. We use language to communicate not to differentiate.

BTW, anyone who corrects another's grammar without being asked is, to my mind, a thoughtless boor.

I don't think online communication like this needs to be as formal as other typeface. If the writing is published, then I expect it to be largely conforming to grammar rules, but if it is informal, then the idea is more significant than the method of transmission. I know my internal editor is a bit lax at times.

BTW, anyone who corrects another's grammar without being asked is, to my mind, a thoughtless boor.
I tend to agree, Ed (unless the person in error is me and then it becomes all about approach). How do you feel about pronunciation?

Ed, ebonics is what happens when an interesting academic idea is completely misapplied to the real world. As a linguistic pattern found in some African Americans, usually with lower levels of education, it was worth studying and useful in understanding why some students made particular grammatical choices. It was interesting to trace these patterns back to West African languages. But I would love to find the complete screwball who thought that this should be viewed as a primary language for Black children. I would not be responsible for my actions. This was insane. I have had long conversations with well intentioned people who actually believe that the majority of Black people speak ebonics. I have very patiently explained that I have, by choice, lived in urban black communities all of my life, that my African American parents and grandparents grew up in small Southern towns and rural areas, and that NONE of us could speak ebonics without a course at Berlitz! (Do they still have Berlitz? I'm feeling old.)

All that little experiment accomplished was to prevent Black students in Oakland from learning the same standard English that every other ethnic group learned. That's why the Public Schools were established! No one tried to teach Polish immigrant students "Polonics" or Jewish children "Yiddishonics". Teachers simply explained, as they should now and certainly did in the 95% African American schools I attended, that you can speak any way that you would like at home and with friends, but that there is a standard for communication in school and at work. To do anything else is not teaching, it's condescending.

Andrew, I'm not a writer, but I always thought that editors caught mistakes and inconsistencies in the manuscripts with which they work. I'm not talking about deliberate choices on the part of the author. I just finished reading Toni Morrison's A Mercy and she uses very different voices for her characters and does it beautifully. I'm talking about errors and carelessness and poor writing skills. I know that the buck stops with the author, but doesn't a editor catch these things?

I appreciate all these responses. Perhaps I have become overly sensitive as many authors or artists can become. Thank you, Andy, for the Wilson Rawls example. One of the two editors I worked with on my book pointed out errors that did not conform to rules in the Chicago Manual of Style. When I reread her comments, I was reminded she had a good many good things to say- but I had remembered only the critical.

As far as spelling goes, thank goodness for spell check on the computer; I'd be lost with out it.
I am most vulnerable though with punctuation. I am guilty of improper comma (sorry Andrew) and semi-colon usage.

For me it's quite simple. Writing, as with speaking, has various registers. If I'm texting a friend, I'm not going to be punctillious about my punctuation or spelling. Ditto about informal email communication as some recipients find it off-putting.

The problem is not the use of the basilect in written communication. That is fine as long as it is appropriate to the communication in question. The problem is when you can't and don't know how to use standard spelling, grammar, and punctuation when the need arises. People who communicate using Ebonics or some other form of patois have every right to do so. It can be a way of creating bridges with other people. But if you need to, say, write an official letter or an essay, and you are unable to do so in a standard manner, then the only result will be a failure of communication. I may well agree to defend to the death your right (if you so wish to exercise it) to be incoherent and incomprehensible, but let's not call it coherent communication.

I may well agree to defend to the death your right (if you so wish to exercise it) to be incoherent and incomprehensible, but let's not call it coherent communication.

Absolutely, Whitaker!

I'm talking about errors and carelessness and poor writing skills. I know that the buck stops with the author, but doesn't a editor catch these things?

I look at that from a different angle: isn't a writer supposed to have good writing skills?

You expect editors to catch errors -- typos, missing words, etc. that you might miss because you're too close to the text. But things like punctuation? This is part of your voice.

I have to confess, things like typos never annoy me to the extent that they seem to annoy others. But for poor writing, I never blame the editor.

When it comes to non-fiction books, a lot of authors are given book contracts not for their ability to write but rather for their skill, prestige, or degree of knowledge in another field. And they may have spent more time networking and self-promoting than they have writing.

For many non-fiction books you have an author who is very good at, say, programming a computer or career planning or making birdhouses, but not so good at, say, writing. Which is a big pain in the butt for the editorial staff at companies where such books are published.

There's all kinds of economic considerations, too, I suppose. It just costs more money to make an error-free book. It takes more time and you have to pay copy editors and proofreaders, etc. You have to take the time to run the changes past the author. You have to pay people to enter the changes in the manuscript. Just like in other industries, not every publishing house sets out to be the Cadillac of books. Some of them are quite content to be the Ford Focus of books. You get what you pay for?

I agree, though, that errors are annoying in books. I read a non-fiction book, on career planning, that was obviously not even spell checked. That was a bit frustrating just because it takes a flash of mental energy to register the mistakes whether you want to or not.

I worked in the publishing industry (textbooks) for years. Our rule of thumb was that it took a year to publish a book with a few errors, whereas it took another year to eliminate those few mistakes. So we just read the comment cards and corrected the errors in the next printing.

That is very enlightening, Ed.

LOL! Ed, are we talking typos here or factual inaccuracies?

Completely off topic, but since we have two ex-editors here, I've always wanted to know how a particular font gets chosen for a particular text. How does a publishing house decide, for example, that Gilead should be printed in Garamond and not Times New Roman? And for the readers here, is it something that matters to you? Or that you would notice?

I agree with Lincoln! Punctuation adds personality to an author's work and also gives the reader literal pause--breathing room. Some works depend on line length (poetry) and/or rhythm (lyric prose/stream of consciousness), which often omit punctuation and are effective in autonomic ways. Manipulating the breath and pulse of a line or sentence also affects the reader's own autonomic function.

I'm a free-lance proofreader/copy-editor and I'm currently working with an author on a biography of a wonderful actress. He is an author I admire, and he's written two well-received biographies of two other actresses for a small press in the States. The press is so small that the authors are informed that if they want the items proofed, they need to find someone to do it for them.

My "boss" is a fine author and I love his work - since I've started working for him, I've become fond of him as a person, as well. I love his turns of phrase and his research is beyond reproach. He loves me because I catch typos, punctuation errors and the occasional misused word, so that he can concentrate on what he does best, researching a life and telling that life's story.

He'd never make it as a proofreader because catching typos and commas just isn't his thing. I would never make it as a biographer because I find research the most painful and boring aspect of putting together any book. Together, however, we make a fairly good team.

Speaking for myself as a reader, because I proof and copy-edit for my manicure money, I notice typos and editing problems, and they do annoy me. Unfortunately, I can't turn that part of my brain off when I'm reading for enjoyment; sometimes I wish I could.

Whitaker: We are talking both types of errors. It is amazing, though, how few typos get through.

On type-style choice: the designer generally decides unless the author has a particular choice.

Wilhelmina: Thanks for enlightening me on the source of Ebonics. I should have known it didn't spring full-blown from the mind of some P.C. educator.

Great comments here, all.

Mina, I was bemused by your explication of ebonics. I remember it well. My feelings were exactly the same as yours: why, oh why, would anyone want to keep students from learning how to communicate in the mainstream of their lives? My family has its own patois, a mix of old New Englandisms, some early 20-century New York speak, and lots of incomplete sentences, all of which are completely and immediately understood by family members. However, that speech would require translation for anyone else. So: I think one should fit the speech/writing to the audience, unless, of course, one is an experimental writer trying out new forms. Those forms may succeed or they mail fail. (Finnegan's Wake, anyone?)

Part of this, I am sure, can be blamed on the fact that I'm an old teacher and sort of an anal-retentive type to boot. Recently I read "The Thirteenth Tale" and was put off in a very slight way by the author's occasional use of incomplete sentences in what was otherwise very formal writing. Somehow, that sort of thing just jars.

Graceanne, I used to be a proofreader, too. Years and years ago. I was a bit of an expert in typefaces, because I had to match fonts for reprints of books for a small publishing company. I never was in on the choosing of the typeface, but when they published an original book, readablility was the biggest issue. Also some typefaces just look more scholarly than others, and this company had a connection with a university press. While I was doing that work, I found it very difficult to read for pleasure. I kept seeing the book and its print and words as things to judge, instead of things to enjoy. I loved the job, but I didn't love that. I really get annoyed when I see a typo in a book. It jars me out of the experience.

When I was at a book signing by Laurie Moore for her Birds in America, she personally corrected a typo in the book. I love that she did that. It made the book signing go a little slowly though.

I have a copy-editor in my head, too, altho she has only gotten paid to copy edit one book, she insists on doing it for free with every book I pick up.

I've noticed some books, literary fiction titles generally, sometimes have a note on the typeface in the back of the book. Sometimes it seems the artist or editor or author involved may find a new or unique font that somehow relates thematically to the story. Either that or one of the people involved knows a person who designs typefaces and wants to give that person some business. In these cases, the time and conversations that go into choosing the typeface theoretically add value to the book, like an author spending a great deal of time on the story itself.

There are many books that are a part of a series, the advantage there is that the publishing company only has to make visual decisions once for the whole series. The design of the book, the font, maybe even the number of pages are already predetermined so no extra time (money) has to go into making those decisions for every individual title.

At the company where I worked, many of our books were not really parts of a formal series, but they were parts of the imprint, which I guess could be considered a kind of informal series. The books in the imprint (essentially a brand) were all created with a particular audience in mind, they were all structurally very similar, topically very similar, etc. In general, the designers would create a few different mock-ups of the book's design, then would sit down with editors and discuss things like readability, esthetic appeal, thematic cohesiveness, etc. Sometimes the designers would feel inspired or have some extra time on their hands and try to angle for a really out-there font, especially if there was something unique about the author's presentational style, the designer might try to come up with a font that complemented the content, but of course all those decisions had to be approved by the department's managing editor, and then there would be an awkward dance with the author about the font and design, etc.

As far as the title typeface, where I worked, the front and back covers were actually owned by the marketing department. Meaning the editors and designers had plenty of input and did essentially all the legwork (giving input on rough ideas, arranging photography, designing mock ups) but the marketing department ultimately signed off on what the cover would be. And that includes the font for the title. It was always a goal to try to get the cover to cohere esthetically to the inside of the book, but that doesn't always happen. And since the marketing department had final approval of the covers, the awkwardness between editorial and author got especially dicey around covers, because the author would inevitably hate the cover (and even the title itself, which was also signed off by marketing) but there was all kinds of bureaucracy and politics involved in making changes, etc. All was further complicated by the fact that the covers had to be created at least six months ahead of the rest of the book in order for the catalogs to be printed and the marketing materials prepared and postings to go up on amazon for pre-orders etc.

I've noticed some books, literary fiction titles generally, sometimes have a note on the typeface in the back of the book.

Andy, you've hit on exactly what I was thinking of. I've come across a few books like that, and I've assumed that it indicated a deliberate choice of the font. But for the life of me I could not see why that would have been done. I had in my mind a conversation going like this:

Editor: Well, you see we think that Helvetica tells your story better.
Writer: I don't agree. I think Garamond is more suited to the novel.
Editor: Well, how about this new font that we found.
Writer: Oh, that works beautifully. That font really conveys the mood of the story I'm trying to tell.

Boggled my imagination!