Writing Good, Part 1

There’s a mistake that shows up a lot in news copy (and in everyday conversation). It’s most common in direct quotes, but often appears as an attribution: Smith said he could care less if the park is built near the highway.
This is wrong. But it happens so often it’s in danger of becoming part of the vernacular, despite its semantic shortcomings. Appearing in print is often the first step bad language takes toward permanence.
I could care less.
Sounds right, doesn’t it? You’ve heard it many times. Probably said it, too. Someone’s boring you with gossip about people you barely know, so you roll your eyes and say “Honestly, I could care less.”
But you’d be wrong.
“I could care less” means the exact opposite of what people think it means.
Let’s break it down. When you say “I could care less,” what you’re actually saying is “I care.” So you’re not getting the message across. You’re saying this: I Could Actually Care Even Less About That Than I Already Do.
It’s “I couldn’t care less.” I Could Not Care Any Less Than I Do Now. Your News Is Not Important To Me.
Say it again: “I couldn’t care less.”

It’s the responsibility of journalists to write clear, concise, accurate copy. When we start repeating errors like “I could care less” we run the risk of polluting the vernacular … and that would be a failing of one of our primary roles in society. Wow, me sound smart when say that.

Writing Good, Part 2

Today we’re going to talk about the use of commas, particularly when it comes to titles and descriptives. Here we go:
This is wrong: Human resources director, Joe Blow said the company had no choice but to order the layoffs.
This is also wrong: The company’s human resources director Joe Blow said the company had no choice but to order the layoffs.
Here’s how it works. If you’re using a ‘The’ before the title, you need a comma after it. If there’s no ‘The,’ then there’s no comma. It’s that simple.
Wrong: Coach, Bob Smith wants his players to work harder.
Right: Coach Bob Smith wants his players to work harder.
Right: The coach, Bob Smith, wants his players to work harder. (Note the second comma after the name)
But grammar has a way of turning odd corners on us, and this example is no different. Which one of these is correct?
His daughter Mary Jones came to visit.
His daughter, Mary Jones, came to visit.
It depends on whether Mary Jones is his only daughter. If he has more than one, then the first example is correct. If he has only one, then it’s the second.
Unfortunately, you may be on deadline and not be able to confirm the number of Jones daughters there are out there. In that case, it’s best to go with the second example. It’s your safest bet.
Before we go, some CP style reminders:
… Adviser, not advisor.
… Superviser, not supervisor
… Children under 16 are identified by full name on first reference, first name on all subsequent references
… It’s No. 3, not Number Three
… Items in sequence take a numeral and a cap: Phase 1, Grade 3, Aisle 6, Room 8
Now go forth and write good.

Writing Good, Part 3

OK, let’s deal with ages. Including a person’s age is standard operating procedure in pretty much any story. Aside from being just good basic reporting, it provides context to the reader, who has to get a sense of how this person relates to the world – age is often a key factor in this.
The best way to include age is with a numeral. The CP style for numerals doesn’t apply here. So:
Joe Smith, 38, and his son Billy, 3, spent the day watching the empty space where the camel used to be at the zoo.
Don’t do this:
Joe Smith, 38, and his son Billy, three, spent the day watching the empty space where the camel used to be at the zoo.
There’s another way, which is better suited to feature writing or to break up the monotony of a long list of people:
Five-year-old Sam Jones was the first-place winner of the race.
In that context, the numeral is spelled out. I know, it’s confusing. That’s CP for you. As Prof. Gillespie noted in regards to Part 2 of this series, sometimes CP doesn’t always make sense.
A final note, unrelated but important: stop using hyphens with -ly words. The hyphen is not necessary, as the -ly does the job.
So it’s Barely literate editor, not Barely-literate editor.

Spring Hopes Eternal

From the Archives

April 2006

Last week it was snowing. Now it’s sunny, warm and breezy. Spring hits fast and hard here in the Patch, and the Weather Station is ready to report. So —
Some Signs of Spring in the Patch, as seen over the past few days:
- A guy in a red Mustang convertible, top down, pulling a trailer with a snowmobile on it.
- A guy with no shirt on, a tattoo of a dragon on his back, passed out drunk at 2 p.m. on a picnic table outside the Little Caesar’s Pizza near my house, a slice of the $5 pizza still in his hand.
- Dog poop. But you expected that one.
- A whole lot of crap revealed by the melting snow, much of which is leftover signs from defeated candidates in last fall’s municipal elections.
- A guy riding a bike while balancing a 12-pack of Laker (that’s the cheap stuff, for you foreigners reading this) and trying to smoke a cigarette. Wait, you see that every day around here.
- On the same street, the ubiquitous shirtless skinhead strutting along with his pit bull, also shirtless.
- Girls who shouldn’t wearing bikini tops, smoking outside the mall.
So it would seem spring is here. We always get one last blast, of course, so I haven’t packed away the parka and longjohns just yet. But for now, I’m just enjoying my first spring since my ability to smell returned — fresh, clean air and bright skies.
I’ve been strolling in the sunshine, browsing the sidewalk stands on Bookseller’s Row, taking the kids to the soggy park, thinking about a $5 pizza … life is grand, folks. Grand.
The compass is pointing in the right direction for a change.

UPDATE: The guy with the dragon tattoo on his back made the newspaper today (names deleted to protect the stupid):
A city man found sleeping on a picnic table in the middle of the day Tuesday now faces a drug charge, city police said.
Officers found Oxycodone on the man, who was on a table near XX Avenue and YY Road around 2:35 p.m., police said.
John Doe, 26, is charged with possession of a narcotic.
He is to appear in court April 26.

Justice? No

From the Archives
April 2007
A drunk driver who chased down 24 beers with a half-bottle of whiskey before getting behind the wheel and killing a 23-year-old cyclist got house arrest yesterday after pleading guilty to impaired driving causing death.
House arrest. For two years.
The cyclist’s mother is understandably upset. “With our own kids, if they did something wrong, which didn’t meet with our approval, he was confined to the house and he had the car keys taken away from him,” she told the Canadian Press in Fredericton, New Brunswick yesterday. “But he didn’t kill somebody.”
“I thought that the judge was going to be the one that stood up and gave a harsh sentence,” she said. “But to me he just kind of gave him a slap on the wrist.”
That wasn’t going to happen, though, because the sentence wasn’t about the crime. Here’s the driver’s lawyer:
“They’ll have programs on the outside that he can look at, whereas in prison, especially if you’re in the provincial system, there’s really nothing you can do.”
See? Sentencing is aimed at helping the killer, not punishing him. Because he killed someone as a result of drinking, he’s considered a victim, too.
The judge told court the driver was clearly remorseful for his actions and that he’s realized he needs to make significant changes in his life. And he also said the message has to go out to the public that drinking and driving will not be tolerated and that it’s dangerous.
So where’s the message? Here it is, courtesy of the judge: Get loaded, kill someone, stay home for two years and get some treatment. You don’t complete the treatment? Ah, your sentence is still up in two years.
This is the problem with current attitudes toward drug and alcohol addicts. They can do whatever they want, as long as, once caught, they get a little treatment, pick up a certificate and express a little remorse. Judges support this. The courts endorse it. Social services agencies think it’s a great solution.
But it doesn’t work. It’s an enabling mechanism of the worst kind. It gives validation to the actions of killers, rapists, abusers, thieves and other winners by telling them their addictions give them a free pass.
I don’t know this guy in New Brunswick, but he sounds like a real peach. After all that drinking, when his relatives tried to stop him from getting behind the wheel, he apparently told them there was no one “big enough” to keep him from driving. He didn’t kill by accident. He made a conscious decision to drink an ungodly amount of alcohol, followed by a conscious – albeit inebriated – decision to drive.
He is responsible for the death of another person, but the old excuse flares up: “I have a problem, and I need help.”
The courts have to stop thinking about helping these addicts and killers and start focusing on punishing them. That’s what the courts are supposed to do: pass sentence, incarcerate and punish. Rehabilitation is part of that process, but not the primary focus. Convictions have to serve as deterrents to other idiots who might consider the same actions, not as avenues for addicts to get free treatment.

Accident: Your Reporter at the Scene

March 2006

So here I am again, couching it in front of the TV in the small hours, when I hear the screech of tires on wet asphalt and the crunch of bumper on bumper. I slide open the screen door and look outside.
Sure enough, two vehicles are involved: a crappy silver compact and one of those SUVs women drive. The SUV has rear-ended the compact, but they’re both able to drive a couple of hundred yards so I can get a better view, thank you very much.
They stop. The passenger door of the compact flies open and a young lady staggers out, screaming those magic words heard at minor bumper-crunchers worldwide: ‘Oh, my neck, my neck …’ She’s holding her head in her hands and staggering around.
Buddy jumps out of the SUV and starts apologizing. ‘It was me, it was all me,’ he says, proving he’s never watched an episode of Judge Judy. The driver of the compact, another woman, this one in teetering heels, wanders out and goes to look at the back of the car.
The passenger is angry. ‘I can’t f-in believe this f-in a-hole hit me f-in right in the f-in street!’ Buddy is apologizing. The driver is walking in circles. The F-word lady walks away from the crash site, now shouting louder: ‘This f-in bastard just wrecked my f-in car, totalled my f-in car!’ The pain appears to have suddenly vanished; anger can do that, you know.
The driver jumps back in and follows her around back. The guy in Ms. SUV follows, and they go right past me. At this point, I, your friendly voyeur, can report that the damage to the compact amounts to one smucked taillight. The SUV looks fine. Considering that the makers of the compact used to lease this model for $196 a month, zero down, I don’t think the taillight damage amounts to a ‘totalled f-in car.’ Well, it was never that good a car, so maybe it does.
Anyway, while I was thinking up that part about the lease deal, the cops showed up. Three cruisers came prowling in, I guess because it’s a slow crime night, and also cracked taillights are a fairly major crime around here. Oh yeah, the passenger is screaming that she’s going to kill the guy in the SUV. So the police have come by.
(When my house was burglarized a few years back, it took the police nine days to return my call. But I’m not bitter. Nine days.)
After a while I see the cruisers pull up alongside each other while the officers compare notes. I can’t see the accident vehicles any more, but I can hear the passenger roaring her tickoffitude from the darkness. Wait, here she is again – yeah, she’s still ticked. ‘F-in …’ ah, I can’t repeat it. I’m a parent.
During all of this, a grey sedan, some kind of big old four door, slows down as it approaches the scene. There are five or six shadowy guys in it, and it’s 2:30 a.m. At the sight of the three police cruisers, the sedan slows, backs up a bit, then does a three-point and drives away in the opposite direction.
I would suggest that they have just realized they had taken a wrong turn, and the sight of the police officers reminded them of that.
Ah, well. Let’s wrap it up. The cruisers are still here, arranged in a nice little formation. The shouting lady is still shouting. The SUV guy is remembering that you’re not supposed to confess at the scene, and realizing that the insurance company has already started licking its lips. The taillight is on special at Canadian Tire right now for $19.99. And those guys in the grey sedan are probably burglarizing a house.