Tag: Editing

The Savage Reviewer, Part 2 (or, Revenge Isn’t So Sweet!)

§ Revenge isn’t always so sweet, Author Who Cannot Spell! §

As I mentioned in the post “The Savage Reviewer”, I depend heavily on reviews when selecting the books I read, and return the favor by writing reviews. I was a lot more hesitant to criticize—much kinder, and certainly far more generous with praise–when I was initially writing book reviews. Now, having gotten into the swing of the game, I’ve become far more critical…and a lot more honest.

This all came to mind a few weeks ago as I was clearing out spam from the Comments section of this blog. I admit it with wholehearted shame: I am really, really bad about checking the Spam section and removing comments that have been diverted there! I’m far too trusting of WordPress’s excellent spam filters, which seem to catch most problems. Regular comments arrive in a notification to my e-mail, with a request that they be approved—or not. I rarely fail to approve a comment, since most of my few followers are friends and family members who are actually quite crazy enough to enjoy reading my weekly maunderings.

But an occasional genuine comment gets diverted to the Spam section that I am so dilatory about monitoring. And so it was that a few weeks ago, as I ran a “search and destroy” on the multi-car pileup in that folder, I came across a rather snide remark responding to an older post.

The commenter observed that my essays were “so rife with misspellings that it made what should have been a pleasure into an ordeal”.

Hmmm.

Now, while I’m not precisely spelling bee championship material, I’m can say, in all honesty, that I am “knot to bad” (pathetically poor humor, yes) at spelling. During elementary school, I usually received an “A” in that category on the majority of my report cards. And while my abilities have declined a bit since that long-ago era, I am wise enough to NOT trust the spell-checker. Oh, I rely on it—I just don’t trust the darned thing. I’ve never forgotten that brilliant little poem, Candidate for a Pullet Surprise, by Dr. Jerrold H. Zar, that circulated so constantly several years ago:

I have a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
I ran this poem thru it
I’m sure your pleased to no
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh
My checker told me sew.

But, spell checker or not, since I am editing my own material, an occasional error does slip through. Nevertheless, I felt that “rife” was pushing matters just a bit. So I began to comb through recent posts, coming across a mistake or two here and there, most of them more in the form of a typing mis-stroke than an actual spelling error. I checked with some friends, also, who read my blog posts regularly; they claimed to have rarely found spelling errors. Having satisfied myself in this regard, then, I deleted the obnoxious comment.

Yet something about the remark still bothered me. I finally put my finger on the problem: They were my own words.

You see, the site where I post most of my book reviews has a Profile section. And that profile mentions that I am a blogger and states the title of this blog. Any author whom I disparage–or praise–can run a quick search and locate my blog.

That comment was lifted, word for word, from one of my own reviews–a rather negative review that I had posted about a book I’d tried to read—tried to read, and found painfully unreadable, due to the fact that it was, indeed, rife with errors in spelling and grammar.

I began to regret having blithely deleted the unkind comment without noting the name of the person who’d attempted to post it. As I have, in years of writing them, placed several hundred book reviews on the site, I realized that it would be a complete waste of time and effort to scroll through all of them attempting to discover the author whose work I’d so disparaged.

But I had to admit to a sensation of evil glee as I realized how bitterly furious the resentful author must have felt when the attempt to turn my own (honest) words back upon me failed so completely. Even had their comment survived the Spam filter to land in my in-box, awaiting approval, I would never have permitted it to be posted. By ending up as Spam, though, it caused me to dig a bit deeper, and to come up laughing with snide delight at the failure of the maligned author to troll me.

Revenge isn’t always so sweet, Author Who Cannot Spell. But I’m just rotten enough to admit that having the last laugh surely is!

(If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to check the archives for “The Savage Reviewer”, posted on 09/02/2020; “Book Reports: Do Kids Still Have to Write Them?, from 09/23/2020, or “To Review or Not Review”, posted 12/13/2017.)

Mindless Headlines

I prefer to read, rather than watch or listen to the news. I click the X at the top of nearly every news video, scrolling to read the story beneath, sometimes punching out to my favorite search engine (NOT Google, but that’s a story for another post) to find further information or explanation and detail.

But to do this, I must suffer the monotonous and apparently endless onslaught of absurd “human interest” stories that populate the sides and bottom of my screen as I attempt to determine what is and is not actually happening in the world.   “Remember her? What she looks like now is insane!” multiple headlines trumpet—insane apparently being a finalist for the Misused Word of the Year. “Local Mom finds solution….” – Mom having somehow transmuted to code for “trustworthy person”.  (Grandmother runs a close second in this ridiculous portrayal.) “Her shocking sex confession…” Oh, for the love of heaven. Nobody is going to be shocked, and who the hell cares, anyway?  “This famous person’s horrible health habit…”  Which is probably something that three-quarters of us do, and while we may consider it less than healthy, it isn’t horrible. “This photo is driving the internet crazy…”  No it isn’t.  Nobody cares, because it’s not even interesting. “His cancer journey” another caption or three or four declare.  Listen, I’ve had cancer and it’s not a journey,  nor a trip, a voyage, or an expedition.  It’s a slowly-unwinding nightmare of tests and surgeries, of tears and emotional anguish, punctuated by bouts unremitting fear.

The English language is full and flavorful, and there are numerous better adjectives, captions, headings and descriptors than those that are so constantly bandied about. It’s a pathetic form of journalism which selects a single simple, mindless word or phrase and lodges upon it for months to years at a time.

No doubt those who write these inane headlines use such repetitive phrasing because they believe it will capture the attention of a populace that, by and large today, does not read. (Either that, or the writers are as cluelessly incapable of composition as their subscribers are of discernment.) In any case, their philosophy seems to be: Hook ‘em quickly and reel ‘em in, and they’ll be sure to punch out to the click bait with all its accompanying inescapable ads.

I think this sloppy attitude does a grave injustice to the reading public, but then, I like to read—not to be read to, not to view.  For much the same reason, I don’t order the accompanying audible stories to my e-books.  I want to read a story—to invest the author’s words with my own subtle interpretation of phrasing and emphasis—not to listen to another’s version.  (I felt much the same way when, as a high school student, I listened to a recording of T.S. Elliot reading his poem, “The Hollow Men”.  It was awful. Simply awful. I much preferred the version of his poem that I heard in my own head.)

All of this may just go to prove my complete arrogance regarding my own skill in reading, but the simple truth remains: I am a reader. I chose to be informed and entertained by reading.  I find delight and sometimes surprise in a well-turned phrase, and in detail that easily escapes one when merely viewing or listening to a story.  I search carefully in each news story for subtle sarcasm, for overt editorializing, and for contradictory statements.  None of those details are available in the sound bites of a news video.

As for the monotonous scattering of repetitive nouns and adjectives limning so many headlines, they simply insult my intelligence. Sadly, though, with regard to all too many members of the populace, I fear discernment in reading is a fast-fading skill.