Ian reports: Guys, I hope you don't think I'm skiting, but for a time this was my desk as I assessed Slips of Speech. Perhaps, even, I could claim to have literally heaps of dictionaries, style guides, writing manuals and the like. Sounds obsessive, but for more than fifty years these were some of my tools of trade as a journalist. As well as my own books, the photo shows a few I borrowed from the local library to help me check how Slips of Speech stands up against modern guides.In my previous post on May 17, I outlined some questions to be answered. First, can a book published in the US in 1895 help today's writers and speakers? I had been sceptical about 19th century advice – but the fundamentals of sound English usage don't change much over time.
Perhaps that shouldn't surprise. Cornell University professor William Strunk published The Elements of Style in 1918, and his little book still forms the core of the better known editions expanded by E.B. White. Over the Atlantic, Henry Fowler published Modern English Usage in 1926.
Decades later, their advice still helps us write and speak English which conveys our meaning with precision and vigour. Still, some word meanings and usages do change over time. When I began as a cadet journalist, I received a copy of The West Australian's style manual – a set of galley proofs. When they changed a ruling, the editors would just replace a few lines of metal type and have new proofs pulled.
I recall, however, that they hadn't got round to replacing: "Aftermath is the grass that grows after mowing. Do not use in any other sense."
In 2001, senior journalist Lucinda Duckett prepared an excellent style guide for Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper empire, but she was already out of date with "e-mail" instead of "email", and perhaps in putting a capital letter on internet.
Guides published in 1895 or 1918 or 1926 or 2001 remain valuable, but writers must keep their craft up to date. As for the differences between US, British and Australian English, we'll just have to learn to live with them. Levelling or leveling? Jewellery or jewelry? Criticise or criticize?
The Globusz guys in New York may be scratching their heads over "skiting", used above, but in Australia it's a well established synonym for boasting.
Strunk's readers in the rest of the world may be misled by his instruction to write "red, white, and blue" rather than "red, white and blue". An American football hero may get an answer he doesn't expect if he asks an Australian girl to root for him.
Some Sydney newspapers previously used the US spelling labor, and by some quirk our ruling political party is the Australian Labor Party, but otherwise Australia follows the UK with labour.
[Any writer who needs to know how UK and US styles differ would find The Economist Style Guide invaluable, particularly the hard copy version. Writers should also mark the guide's opening words: "Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible."]
Do you need to know terms like participle and infinitive and gerund to understand Bechtel's advice? No, you do not. Where you need to understand them, Bechtel offers clear explanations in plain language.
My extensive research has failed to uncover much about Bechtel (OK, I tried Wikipedia, and nothing came up). I suspect he wrote for the newly literate class which would have emerged in the 19th century after the US government brought in compulsory schooling. As in Britain and Australia, the desire for self-improvement probably drove many people to improve on their rudimentary education.
Unlike some authors of English usage manuals, Bechtel didn't assume his readers were already well versed in the terminology of grammar. He organised Slips of Speech into sensible chapters. To assess his guidelines for apostrophes, I looked up the chapters on Contractions and on Possessives. His explanations were clearer than you'll find in many modern books.
The Globusz edition retains the original index, but the reader cannot use it to look up individual entries because the original page numbers no longer apply to the digital scan.
Globusz author Eugene Binx was kind enough to post a witty comment to my May 17 post: "Good'ay Ian. Just a thought; perhaps the Apostrophe should be abolished as its' uses are possibly not an exact science."
As it happens, I can – just – remember a short-lived newspaper which did abolish apostrophes. Described by veteran journalist Mungo McCallum as Richard Neville’s "attempt at hippiedom in which he wrote under the pseudonym Harry Gumboot", The Living Daylights was a product of wild young Australian radicals in the mid-1970s. If you share my nostalgia for those manic days, follow this link.
Seriously, though, I think apostrophes are too valuable to discard – too many contractions or possessives would become confusing. We just have to learn to use them correctly.
And now, class, before we go, let's check out some more sightings:
- An email from Telstra BigPond tells me a new plan could take effect from 12am the next day.
- A receptionist confirms my appointment for 12pm.
- "I think the onus is on the Minister to ensure that there is a proper, objective and fulsome investigation of this leak" – Australia's ABC Online quotes Senator Nick Minchin.
When the clock is spot on 12, it can be neither ante nor post meridiem – it's 12 midnight or 12 noon. And as the News Ltd style book says: "Fulsome does not mean full or abundant, but overdone, insincere, disgusting, sickening. Fulsome praise is anything but positive."
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