Friday, August 05, 2005

August 5, 2005 @ 2:17 PM An old man talking to himself. There was a time when we instinctively made space around people who talked to themselves. Crowds parted, seats were taken at tables removed, children were told not to stare. Who knew what voices were being heard, what sense was being made? In our modern world such people move unremarked on through crowds and public spaces. Hands to their ears they are hearing voices from some other part of their personal forests, they are doing business, making appointments, on their cells. But in the corner of the terrace the old man stares down at a pile of papers, his lips moving, hands gesturing, his head sometimes nodding, sometimes shaking and the tables around him are empty. His hand is not to his ear. He is learning a part. Children are told not to stare.   2:18:26 PM    comment []

August 5, 2005 @ 7:52 am Have you ever read an Arizona Daily Star story and asked yourself, "Who edits this stuff?" Here’s a case in point. In this morning’s Tucson/Region section there is a tidy little story by Anne Minard that makes the point that you shouldn’t drive into flooded washes. If you live in wetter parts of the country it might surprise you to learn that folks out here do that with some regularity. It’s dry so much of the time that we don’t always bother to build bridges; or culverts to carry water under the road. When the road floods we push on through…undoubtedly on some version of the theory that common sense caution is not required in our case. We get stuck. The story opens with, "It was just after dark on Tuesday." The next sentence starts "Myself, a photographer, and a photography intern were starting a 140 mile drive…" and it is here that Minard has driven us into a flooded grammatical wash. Under the aspect of eternity this is probably not a great sin, grammatical or otherwise, but it stops some readers dead in their tracks while they ask themselves, "Wait a minute, can that be right?" The answer, of course, is no. Take the reference to the photographer and intern out of the sentence. Would she say, "Myself was starting the 140 mile drive home…?" I suspect not. She could have said, "A photographer, a photography intern and I were starting…" or "I was driving home with a photographer and photography intern…" Hey, under pressure of deadline we are all likely to make this or some other grammatical gaffe. That’s why there are editors. Minard could have used a better one. Read her story here. 8:41:11 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Arthur Jacobson.