McKean’s law – my new motto

I hadn’t heard of Erin McKean until this morning, but she’s clearly a woman after my own heart:

McKean’s law:
“Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error.”

… And she should know – she’s an American lexicographer, formerly the Chief Consulting Editor for American Dictionaries at Oxford University Press and was the Principal Editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary, second edition.

I’ve added her lexicography blog to my Blogroll, to accompany that of our home-grown wordmeister, David Crystal.

My colleagues at SfEP tell me there’s another law similar to McKean’s:

Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation:
“Any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror..”

Boom, boom (… read à la* Basil Brush)

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* Wonder if there’s a word for “read in a voice that sounds like…”?

Melvyn Bragg hits the hot spot

Quote of the day, aka “How to get one over on Today’s pompous and self-important anchor man, John Humphrys”:

Trailing his show In Our Time (which immediately follows Today, at 9am on Thursdays) Melvyn Bragg said:

“So, the science of heat with … [names of guests].

“It’s extraordinary to think that until 1700 almost all the world was heated and lit by fire alone. Since then, we have discovered many ingenious ways to generate hot air — John …”

[Noises off: not-so-muffled laughter and noisy protestations from Mr H!]

Time: 8.35 (2:35 minutes into Today)

Who will edit the editors?

It's all very well being a writer/editor, but it's pretty nigh impossible to edit your own words.

On several occasions I have embarrassed myself in editorial email fora/ums by accidentally mistyping, or scrambling my words as I edit and re-edit a message in the vain hope of ending up error-free. Now I find I'm doing it on my very own blog. Dammit.

If I wasn't trying to maintain my anonymity (for the precise reason that I don't want fellow editors to come here and carp), I'd offer a prize for readers who find errors. But I'd run out of prizes pretty quickly…

Editing someone else's writing is much easier, and I do have happy clients to prove it.

Brand or bland? The editor’s decision is final

Thanks to Messrs Brand and Ross for knocking the Credit Crunch out of the headlines for a day or two (though I’m already bored of their story too). I don’t want to comment on the detail of the incident, but I do want to talk about the editor’s role in the palaver.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Kelvin McKenzie actually said something sensible (on Today, R4) this morning: it’s the decision of the editor – or more specifically, the editor’s line managers – that should be called to question.

I'm not saying they should be sacked, suspended or anything else, but I do think that they are the ones who need to be out there justifying their decision, not B&R (although they’ve had the sense and/or PR advice to apologise).

This wasn’t a live show; it was recorded. The editor apparently took the tape to line management for approval and someone somewhere in the chain of command decided to approve it. Now they need to stand up (or 'fess up) for their decision.

Being an editor is a tough job; they don’t tell you that in the careers guidance. But I do try to tell would-be editors that, when I get the chance. You need to be thick-skinned, and you need to be able to stick to your guns if necessary, but you also need to be quick to hold up your hands if you’re wrong. And that’s as true for editors of books and journals as it is for those in charge of national newspapers and radio shows.

On my first outing as a trainer of editors I likened the role to that of Graham Poll, the international footy ref whose error during a World Cup game led to his resignation. This certainly wasn’t the first time GP had made very public errors, but he wasn’t afraid, when necessary, to stand up to international football superstars.

Editors need to do the same. Even if it’s just a simple matter of defending your stance on a grammatical construction, or choice of illustration, or whether or not to publish the damned book at all…

You don’t often hear young people saying “I want to be an editor”, do you? But we’re actually an awful lot more powerful than people realise. Not just the big names in the national press or TV, but right down to the humble freelance book ‘editor’ who wonders whether she should strike out the author’s phrase ‘cradle-land’ and use ‘place of origin’ instead. (Go on – live a little. Let that new word fly!)

Meanwhile, I’m currently being edited myself. It’s a dull technical book I’ve been working on for 9 months; and now that the gestation period is nearly over, the editing process feels nearly as uncomfortable as Braxton Hicks contractions. Having spent 2 hours late last night responding rather tetchily to the editor’s queries, I now realise I need to rein myself in a bit and let the beleaguered editor get on with her job.

Do I need 'Psychologies' magazine?

I'm vaguely worried about the appearance of Psychologies on the newsstands of the nation. I say 'vaguely' because I admit that I haven't succumbed to buying a copy, so it's perhaps not fair of me to pass judgement … But here I go anyway!

It came to my attention via ads in the Guardian's G2 section, and I've surfed around the mag's website to try to get a handle on what it's about. Skimming over the contents of the latest issue, it looks like the usual mix of celebrity interviews, problem pages, and {skincare/healthfood/holiday}-vendor-driven items masquerading as helpful health-related info. What worries me is the mag's title/raison d'être. What could be interpreted as research-driven reportage is more likely the same old women's mag guff dressed up in a pseudoscientific overcoat*.

The main reason why I'm concerned about the emergence of this publication is that I don't like the way that the popularisation of knowledge about human psychology is taking hold in society. [Originally I'd posted a second reason, but I've just deleted it for fear of a lawsuit from the mag's contributor I was moaning about.]

It's so easy for people to read a few articles about, say, posture or gestures, then sit in a meeting (or worse, a job interview) and analyse every move you make. This has become engrained in our society to such a degree that I find myself consciously wondering whether I'm making eye contact often enough when talking to friends (never mind interviewers), and uncrossing my arms when waiting at the school gate for fear of looking unapproachable, when really I'm just feeling chilly!

All in all, I'll stick to New Scientist for my weekly insight into theories of human behaviour, thanks very much.

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* Talking of overcoats, I see this month's issue has an article on "What Your Clothes Say About You: How our life journeys are woven into our wardrobe". They'd better not come round here to analyse me. I'm still wearing yesterday's clothes (saggy old trackies) pulled on in haste at 7:00 so that I could get straight to the computer to meet a 9:00 deadline…

Talking to the animals is not as daft as it sounds

Libby Purves (very irritating Radio 4 presenter) has just been speaking to Miranda Carey, a woman who gets people to talk (and listen) to horses as a form of psychotherapy (Midweek, Wednesday 24 September). Sitting alongside her in the studio was actor Ted Danson (ex. Cheers), who amusingly objected to Libby’s suggestion that this was all a bit “Californian wacko”. But is she right? An article I read in New Scientist (23 August) suggests this might not be quite as barmy as it sounds.

I wasn’t convinced by all the arguments put forward by Miranda Carey. She uses horses that have been traumatised (e.g. racehorses who’ve been stabled too much when they should have been out running in a herd in the fields), and gets her patients (one example was an abused and confused former prostitute) to work with the horses in a form of mutual therapy.

I could see the point of getting ex-cons to work with horses as a way of boosting their confidence. Why should a horse (or any other animal for that matter) care about your criminal record? They take you as they find you, and if you treat them right, you’ll be a friend for life. But I’m not so sure about the work she does with people who have more serious mental health problems. Even Libby expressed some concern (albeit in her infuriatingly jokey way) over the question of whether the animal needs to have been traumatised in order to fully appreciate the human’s worries… (Thank goodness Paul O’Grady – a well-known animal fanatic who apparently takes a sheep for a walk through the woods near his home in Kent – was in the studio to lend a bit of Northern commonsense to the proceedings!)

But there is something in Carey's argument. Kate Douglas, writing in New Scientist (23 August, pp33–35) says that over the thousands of years we’ve lived alongside dogs, the human-canine relationship has had a significant impact on dogs’ mental skills. If you think your dog’s trying to tell you something, you’re not just anthropomorphising.

Dogs, it seems, have developed an acute sense of right and wrong; they also have a repertoire of barks to tell us different things; and researchers in Cambridge (UK) have found that dogs can use human-like gestures to get their message across (e.g. pointing or staring at the thing they want). Dogs even learn in the same way as children – watching others complete a task, then copying and experimenting until they achieve the same goal.

None of that is really new to me, as a dog owner. I’ve learnt as much from my dog as he’s learnt from me (that’s why he can wind me around his paw to get what he wants). And if it’s true for dogs, why not also for horses, who’ve also been close companions to Homo sapiens for millennia?

And, if Paul O’Grady is right, why not sheep too?

Yet again, I’m glad I’m a vegetarian.

Battle of the Dictionaries: Collins vs the OED

Collins is stepping up its PR in an effort to win the ‘battle of the dictionaries’. Today’s ‘stunt’ caught my attention via Radio 4’s Today programme. Meanwhile the Oxford English Dictionary is keeping a lower (but more thoughtful?) profile, by sending one of its key researchers to talk to editors at the recent SfEP Conference.

Collins have issued a list of words that they want to omit from the lexicon and have lined up the usual household names to champion a word each. Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, for instance, has chosen ‘skirr’; and Steven Fry has chosen ‘fubsy’. Their challenge is to get these words mentioned in public places as many times as possible between now and January, in order to merit a place in the Collins’ corpus.

Good stunt*; but should we really take this seriously?

My recent experience of teaching newby copy-editors suggests that many people really don’t understand how dictionaries, and the English Language itself, work. Does this matter? Well, it certainly does if you’re an editor. If you never go further than GCSE, it should, in theory, be acceptable to use a dictionary to check your spelling and not to worry too much about the origin of words and where they might be going. But use of English (or more to the point, mis-use) is a ‘Class Issue’ – not just because of the all-too-familiar debate over ‘political correctness’, but because so often a person’s use and mis-use of English is seized upon by the snipers and gripers as a stick with which to beat those who persistently fail to conform to “the rules” (whatever they may be!).

[John Prescott springs to mind. His political opponents (and sometimes even his friends) ridicule his linguistic jousting, and pick over his words like vultures would a carcass – reveling in every malapropism and mispronunciation, claiming his inability to string together a coherent sentence makes him unfit to govern. Whereas anyone who’s seen him speak at a Party Conference will know that it’s the passion he puts into his speeches that pulls him through every time (and I’m sure he’ll be sorely missed this week in Manchester, if they don’t let him on the podium).]

But if you’re a professional word-smith, you will know that English is ever changing, and in fact you have more influence than most over which words actually make it into the dictionaries, because the best are evidence-based rather than rules-bound, and we editors are the ones who are tweaking the words of the great and the good, and checking their usage: “Did you mean ‘disinterested’ or ‘uninterested’?”.

Both Collins and Oxford (and other publishers too, I dare say) collect examples of usage from all sorts of media, and record that information for posterity.

As Charlotte Brewer, Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, told SfEP Conference, the Oxford English Dictionary now runs to 20 volumes. Originally it set out to provide historical evidence of usage, but that meant it was not helpful on matters of ‘correctness’. This, says Brewer, has been an on-going dilemma for the editors of the OED. For example, in the 1890s there were two different meanings for ‘disinterested’: not interested (with an example from Donne; 1612); and impartial, unbiased (dated to 1659). Despite this evidence some modern readers will feel the former is ‘wrong’.

First Murray and then Burchfield wrestled with their consciences when it came to ‘editorialising’ (ouch; I’m sure neither would like that word!). These acclaimed OED editors were particularly troubled by pronunciation and profanity:

“It is a free country and a man may call a vase a vawse, a vahse, a vaze or a vase…” said Murray, who then contradicted himself by insisting that the silent p in pneumonia should be voiced because it helped people understand the origins (etymology) of the words.

Burchfield, working on a supplement to the OED in the 1960s and 70s, faced controversy over the definition of the word Jew (including death threats!), and dilemmas over which ‘rude’ words should be included (as Brewer pointed out, the literati were still reeling from the Lady Chatterley case).

He couldn’t resist the temptation to have his say on some of the ‘new-fangled’ words that were suggested: insinuendo (“tasteless”, said B); opinionnaire (“of doubtful usefulness”… well, he was spot on with that); and prioritize (“a word that at present sits uneasily in the language” … but which we’re now quite content to use!).

So next time you’re ‘embrangled’ in a debate over usage, remember that the greatest minds in the linguistic world are similarly troubled – and they don’t have all the answers either!

As for who wins the battle, don't ask me! I bought a new Concise OED after Brewer's talk (so the PR worked on me!) but I don't care for its design which is goes for legibility over detail. So I'm still dipping into my trusty old Chambers for the meatier stuff (favourite: paragoge/paragogue ns. an addition at the end of a word, as t in against, amidst, amongst, whilst).

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* Actually, not such a good stunt. Despite wasting a fair few minutes surfing and Googling, I can only find one primary link to this ‘news’ apart from the Radio 4 prog. – an article in the Times (online). What’s up with the Collins press office?

Crystal on txtng and blogs at SfEP Conference

(The post formerly known as: "A blog a day keeps the sanity inspectors at bay")

Some people have suggested that blogging is the worst form of vanity publishing - unmoderated, unedited outpourings from all and sundry - but I'm pleased to report that two 'experts' this week have confirmed my view that blogging is an activity that's, so far, been underestimated as a communications technique.

Students of journalism may already be drafting their final year dissertations on "…The symbiotic relationships between bloggers and journalists…" [insert quasi-academic phraseology of your choice] but when a highly respected and serious academic says that of all the various forms of 'electronically mediated communication' (EMC), blogging looks set to have the greatest impact on the English Language, I'm happy to bow to his greater knowledge.

David Crystal, speaking at this week's Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) annual conference, gave an entertaining insight into the impact the World Wide Web is having on the English Language.

He was on to a winner with me from the start, because he's been studying how people behave when they communicate electronically - a topic that's been getting under my skin for quite some time. Why do some people get so snippy in chatrooms and newsgroups? Why do I feel nervous when an unknown correspondent emails with a cheery "Hi, X" instead of "Dear Ms…"? And why did one client accuse me of being 'brusque' when I thought I was 'saving time by getting straight to the point'? But enough of my anxieties…

DC started out by explaining that 'conversation' is so successful because you look at the other person while they're speaking and there's an element of 'simultaneous feedback'. The listener isn't passive; they're making gestures and helping the speaker to keep on flowing by 'offering corrections', that is, clues about how the recipient is reacting to what the speaker is saying.

He rightly pointed out that although we call it 'chat', that's not really what goes on in a chatroom or a newsgroup. He compared the chatroom to being at a party and trying to chip in on all the conversations that are going on around you. In real life, it's neither possible nor sensible; but in a chatroom (i.e. on-screen) you can do this - though it's a skill that some have yet to acquire.

For example, an interesting snippet from his research is that there's a limit to how many times you can bat an email back and forth before one or other of the readers loses the plot [tell me about it!]. Email programs helpfully 'frame' the replies for you, by flagging the previous comments down the left hand side of the message with a coloured line. But DC suggested people can only handle up to about six iterations before, in my case, I throw up my hands in despair and pick up the phone instead.

He didn't say anything about how this might affect people in newsgroups such as SfEPline [I guess he wanted to make it to the conference dinner without getting his shins kicked] but it's easy to see how some people get discombobulated by the multiple threads and iterations, and tempers start to fray.

All of which was in interesting diversion on the way to his main point (fair dues, he had a book to plug) which was that, contrary to 'popular opinion', the growth of EMC does not signal the ruination of English-as-we-know-it.

DC's book, txtng, aims to allay fears that the next generation will mangle the English Language to such a degree that us oldies will be cast out to the fringes of pedantry. Sensibly he points out that "You have to know how to spell before you can txt"; and that we've been using contractions and abbreviations to communicate for donkeys' years.

If 'txtng' is harmless, what then of 'blogging'?

Well, DC reckons that blogging could have the greatest impact on the English Language, because it's grass-roots opinion, unmoderated and unedited - a communications methodology we haven't seen since the Middle Ages. He's seen some amazing examples of English usage (and abusage) on his travels in cyberspace: "It's the written language in its most naked form". Of greatest interest are the blogs that pay little heed to the usual conventions - ungrammatical, lacking punctuation - and yet are still perfectly intelligible.

What does that tell us about the endless rounds of "should it be a comma or a semi-colon" that twitter away in an editor's brain? Well, another speaker at the SfEP Conference (Charlotte Brewer, talking about the Oxford English Dictionary) had plenty to say on that subject, but I'll have to leave that for a later post.

Suffice to say that my take on DC's presentation is that blogging isn't a waste of time. For me, at least, it's a way to flex my writing muscles without being bogged down with my clients' expectations. And I'm pleased to hear that it's also good for my mental health (according to Joanna Moorhead's article in Tuesday's Guardian; though I hasten to add I'm well aware my problems are as nothing compared to those of the folks she's writing about).

Thought for the day: "Blogging: 'syrup of figs' for the 21 Century."

CERNtainly not a whimper

Well, we're all still here, folks. We haven't yet been sucked into a Black Hole as a result of the scientific shenanigans in Geneva this morning. But I gather the scientists did commission a study a while back, just to be certain that turning on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) wouldn't be the end of life on Earth (well, Earth itself, actually).

Twenty years ago I'd just finished my Finals (BA Joint Hons) in Physics and Music. I had never set out to be a physicist; all I wanted to do was gain an appreciation of this fundamental science. My final year dissertation was on "Potential applications for superconductors" - the technology that's today powering the beam of particles round its 27km circuit somewhere underneath Geneva. Guess what? I didn't predict this! But it was, I now realise, my first piece of 'science communication', because basically it was a literature search/summary of what was going on in physics labs around the world in what was then a pretty esoteric topic.

Fast forward 10 years, and I had just finished a Diploma in Science Communication at Birbeck. In the first year of this (then) two-year course, one of our number was from the CERN press office. I wonder whether he's still there? And I wonder whether he's one of the science communicators who, it seems, have learnt a thing or two from the 'spin doctors'.

Because this morning's coverage in the UK broadcast media is testimony to the CERN scientists' expertise as communicators. The Big Bang end-of-the-world-is-nigh-style coverage has grabbed the imaginations of small boys of my acquaintance (hopefully small girls too, but I haven't talked to any this week). I don't entirely approve of taking this tabloidese tack, but you have to admit, it's got a result.

Am I jealous of those science communicators who've finally got physics on the front pages? You bet! But I'm more niggled by the up-coming programme on Radio 4 this morning that's going to talk to 'celebrities who like science' in Physics Rocks.

Why should that get up my nose? Simple: the most enjoyable part of the Diploma for me was the Radio topic. I scripted and produced a radio programme aimed at schoolchildren on great careers in science, which included our take on the TOTP of celebrity scientists - Brian May being the best known back then. The intro theme tune for our programme "Free to choose" was Oasis's "Whatever" (You're free-ee, to be whatever you…) and we wound up with The Verve's Bitter Sweet Symphony. And now I can't hear either of those tracks without being transported back to the BBC World Service studio where we put our programme together under 'live' conditions.

I loved it. I loved the teamwork, I loved the live action; and it was great working in the studio with all the slidy-fader-doodahs (reminded me of recording projects for the music half of my weird degree); and for a little while I really did think that a career in radio beckoned. Science radio - what better use of a degree in Physics and Music?

But just a couple of months later I made the ultimate 'choice' and gave up my freedom for ever (OK, slight exaggeration there; call it poetic licence). What am I on about? I became pregnant.

So yes, I'm jealous - a bit. But I made my choice and I don't regret it. Who knows, one day I may get back into the studio. In the meantime, well done to all the scientists and engineers at CERN - and three cheers for the fantastic internationally collaboration which goes to show that we can all work together when there's something we really want to achieve (please solve climate change next, chaps!!). But I'd like to give an extra cheer to the CERN press officers and all the PRs who've done a grand job in getting this story into the headlines.

Weird radio

I don't usually listen to Classic FM, but my desk-side radio is still tuned in because I was working over the weekend (when R3 goes a bit jazzy).

I'm interested in demographics, and how advertisers tap in to same to get us all to buy stuff. But they've got me worried this morning.

My ear'oles were assaulted by a weird ad for the Classic FM chart show: "Will the Three Tenors knock the chanting monks off the top of the chart?" [Ans: "Do I give a damn?"] followed by the programme sponsor's 'ident' which went something like:

"The Classic FM chart, brought to you by Pedigree Joint Care - putting the bounce back into old dogs."

Conjures up some very strange images in my mind (surely Classic FM's listeners would be better off sticking to the Viagra?)

Big Read (aka I nicked this from Dougalfish)

Spotted on Dougalfish's blog, and so hard to resist:

Big Read

The rules:

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) [Bracket] the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list on your own blog.

1. [The Lord of the Rings], JRR Tolkien
2. [Pride and Prejudice], Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy], Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. [Winnie the Pooh], AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. [Jane Eyre], Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. [Wuthering Heights], Emily Brontë
13. [Birdsong], Sebastian Faulks
14. [Rebecca], Daphne du Maurier
15. [The Catcher in the Rye], JD Salinger
16. [The Wind in the Willows], Kenneth Grahame
17. [Great Expectations], Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. [Gone with the Wind], Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. [Alice's Adventures In Wonderland], Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. [A Town Like Alice], Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. [Anne Of Green Gables], LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. [Anna Karenina], Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. [The Magic Faraway Tree], Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. [The Secret History], Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

53/100 - not quite as many as I thought I'd read. Odd.

Far too difficult to choose a favourite. I'd normally say Rebecca, but can't ignore Jane Eyre, Catcher in the Rye, Pride and Prej, Lord of the Rings, blah blah.

Am now even more aware that I haven't read a good book in ages. (Too much time wasted on blogging and such-like?)

Shame on Daily Mail subs

Whoever came up with the barmy idea of today's Daily Mail front page splash? (I shalln't dignify it by adding a URL)

Fancy putting gold-medal-winning Olympic Champion Christine Ohuruogu alongside washed-up-rocker and child-abuser Gary Glitter! It beggars belief.

Totally and utterly insensitive. I'd suggest a more appropriate front page:

Best of British: Christine Ohuruogu
Worst of British: Daily Mail journalists

The price of spin

Writing in the current issue of the Journalist (house magazine of the NUJ), Paul Ilett warns the wider media of the dangers of criticising public spending on "press officers" ['Don't bite the hand"; p31; Journalist, August 2008].

Ilett is a press officer with the NHS and is worried about a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request by his local paper, which wants to know how much of the local NHS budget is spent on 'spin'.

He rightly points out to the NUJ audience (many of them, local hacks) that local newspapers would struggle to fill their pages without the work of his team.

"I spent six years as Head of Comms at MORI. MORI's local government research showed that councils that invest in good communications have much better approval ratings than those that do not. The truth is that people like to know what is going on," writes Ilett.

Quite right; and that goes for national politics too. Party political spin doctors have given government communications officers a bad name they don't deserve. The Opposition might think they can add information officers to their hit list for 'cost cutting' measures, but who'll be left to publicise the (pifling) amount of public money they saved along the way?

Did I really say that?

New Scientist's 'Last Word' feature last week had a question about why people can be so aggressive in on-line forums. It's a question that's of great interest to me and my fellow editors.

It's not just that the polite world of SfEPline* can occasionally degenerated into a free-for-all slanging match; communicating via email can be problematic too.

For example, I still can't get used to writing emails to my mother or mother-in-law; their replies don't 'sound' like them, whereas I'm pretty sure my emails 'sound' like me - but do they?

Work-related communication is even more fraught with potential difficulties. I once clattered out an urgent work-related message and fired it off into the ether - apparently without carefully checking whether I'd added enough caveats and requisite 'chit chat'; for the the virtually instant response said my message was 'curt'.

Oh dear! Having built up a rapport with an e-correspondent you would think it's not always necessary to go through the "how are you; thanks for your last message; have a nice day" rigmarole, but apparently not.

(Or is it just that I'm 'curt' in real life too? …Don't answer that, thanks.)

Anyway, I hope that the New Scientist article and the link I gave to a research paper on "email sociability" in the NS blog will get picked up by researchers somewhere. At the very least, business email users could benefit from general guidance as to what is and is not deemed acceptable e-speak.

* SfEPline is a Yahoo group used by members of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (of which I'm an Advanced member).