English gathers no moss
This summer I have introduced my 9-year-old daughter, Kelly, to my first love: Nancy Drew. Being the obsessive person I am, we started with the first book, The Secret of the Old Clock, and just finished the second, The Hidden Staircase--in that order. They are above her reading level, so I am reading them out loud to her.
Nancy has been updated for the new millennium, just like Aunt Jemima and Betty Crocker. She has a cell phone and doesn't wear knit skirts and pumps like the youth sleuth I read about. (I don't know this firsthand but rather from the book review pages of my local newspaper.) I avoided the updated, modern Nancy Drew books and checked out the 1959 versions from our local library. I wanted Kelly to experience the Nancy Drew I grew up with.
I'm thinking now this may not have been the best idea.
As I read aloud to Kelly, I saw so clearly what I tell my business writing seminar attendees. And that is, "English is a very dynamic language. It is constantly changing and evolving." To illustrate the point in my seminars I give two dictionaries to two different members of the group. One dictionary is the Webster's I used in college (printed in 1982) and the other is a Webster's from 1998. "Look up the work 'icon,'" I tell them. And what do you think happens? The 1998 dictionary has the wood panel, religious drawing definition PLUS the symbol used to depict a computer program's function added. This is completely missing from the 1982 Webster's. The dictionary people did not make a mistake. That meaning of the word didn't exist in 1982. Just as blog is not in my 1998 dictionary. (I have Word 2003 and it flags blog when I write it in text. Another example of how fast the language changes.) In fact, English is so dynamic, your dictionary is outdated if it's five years old.
This is a very important lesson for those people who count the time past since they studied English composition and grammar by decades and not years. What you were taught as "proper" and "acceptable" in 1960 or 1970--and probably even in 1980 and 1990--is not the way you should write today.
Let me share an example from Nancy Drew. Here is a sentence from the 1959 book as Carolyn Keene wrote in the vernacular of the day. As we meet up with our heroine on page 98, Nancy is trying to get to a summer house across a lake by boat to snoop around for the Old Clock, and the fickle motor has left her stranded.
Nancy knew that the tank held plenty of fuel, for she had checked this before departing.
When I read this sentence out loud, I stopped and put the book down. I said to Kelly, "Wow. This is just not how we write anymore." She asked me what I meant, and I launched into my English-is-a-very-dynamic-language speech. She cut to the chase and said, "Well, how would you write it today?" I said:
Nancy knew the tank had plenty of gas because she had checked it before she left.
Kelly saw the difference right away. And I hope you do, too.
Why? It has to do with the reader-friendly aspect of writing. Your reader wants to get your message quickly, in as little reading as possible. Language that doesn't sound familiar to your readers' ears may not make it to their brains for processing.
Just because you learned to write a certain way 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago isn't a good enough reason to keep writing that way anymore. (Personally, I have met only two or three high school and college English teachers who teach how to write for today's business world. Topic sentences in paragraphs are still a lesson plan. And yet topic sentences are useless in the real world.)
The simple fact is, English changes with the society it serves. You don't have to like the changes. You don't have to agree with the changes. But you have to give in to them if you want to be the most effective writer you can be. The alternative is what happened to Latin.
Virtually everything I bring up in this blog has to do with reader-friendly issues. There is a great deal of research on what readers like, what they prefer and what turns them off. And most of the reader-friendly tools are best practices used by newspapers and magazines. I'll share those in future posts.
Learn from them and successfully publish. Or perish.
Nancy has been updated for the new millennium, just like Aunt Jemima and Betty Crocker. She has a cell phone and doesn't wear knit skirts and pumps like the youth sleuth I read about. (I don't know this firsthand but rather from the book review pages of my local newspaper.) I avoided the updated, modern Nancy Drew books and checked out the 1959 versions from our local library. I wanted Kelly to experience the Nancy Drew I grew up with.
I'm thinking now this may not have been the best idea.
As I read aloud to Kelly, I saw so clearly what I tell my business writing seminar attendees. And that is, "English is a very dynamic language. It is constantly changing and evolving." To illustrate the point in my seminars I give two dictionaries to two different members of the group. One dictionary is the Webster's I used in college (printed in 1982) and the other is a Webster's from 1998. "Look up the work 'icon,'" I tell them. And what do you think happens? The 1998 dictionary has the wood panel, religious drawing definition PLUS the symbol used to depict a computer program's function added. This is completely missing from the 1982 Webster's. The dictionary people did not make a mistake. That meaning of the word didn't exist in 1982. Just as blog is not in my 1998 dictionary. (I have Word 2003 and it flags blog when I write it in text. Another example of how fast the language changes.) In fact, English is so dynamic, your dictionary is outdated if it's five years old.
This is a very important lesson for those people who count the time past since they studied English composition and grammar by decades and not years. What you were taught as "proper" and "acceptable" in 1960 or 1970--and probably even in 1980 and 1990--is not the way you should write today.
Let me share an example from Nancy Drew. Here is a sentence from the 1959 book as Carolyn Keene wrote in the vernacular of the day. As we meet up with our heroine on page 98, Nancy is trying to get to a summer house across a lake by boat to snoop around for the Old Clock, and the fickle motor has left her stranded.
Nancy knew that the tank held plenty of fuel, for she had checked this before departing.
When I read this sentence out loud, I stopped and put the book down. I said to Kelly, "Wow. This is just not how we write anymore." She asked me what I meant, and I launched into my English-is-a-very-dynamic-language speech. She cut to the chase and said, "Well, how would you write it today?" I said:
Nancy knew the tank had plenty of gas because she had checked it before she left.
Kelly saw the difference right away. And I hope you do, too.
Why? It has to do with the reader-friendly aspect of writing. Your reader wants to get your message quickly, in as little reading as possible. Language that doesn't sound familiar to your readers' ears may not make it to their brains for processing.
Just because you learned to write a certain way 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago isn't a good enough reason to keep writing that way anymore. (Personally, I have met only two or three high school and college English teachers who teach how to write for today's business world. Topic sentences in paragraphs are still a lesson plan. And yet topic sentences are useless in the real world.)
The simple fact is, English changes with the society it serves. You don't have to like the changes. You don't have to agree with the changes. But you have to give in to them if you want to be the most effective writer you can be. The alternative is what happened to Latin.
Virtually everything I bring up in this blog has to do with reader-friendly issues. There is a great deal of research on what readers like, what they prefer and what turns them off. And most of the reader-friendly tools are best practices used by newspapers and magazines. I'll share those in future posts.
Learn from them and successfully publish. Or perish.
posted by Joan McCain at 2:27 PM
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