Sunday, April 26, 2009

Worth reading

I haven't been reading William Safire's On Language column as often as I used to. His stuff just isn't as interesting to me as it used to be. But I'm glad I got past the lead of today's piece, in which the New York Times language guru discusses some interesting new books on language.

I'm most intrigued by two of the titles. The first is Carol Fisher Saller's "The Subversive Copy Editor," of which Safire writes:

It’s an insider’s book to cure writers who can’t stand “damnable nitpicking” while shoring up editors with “it’s not the author’s right to offend or confuse the reader, defy the rules of standard English, fail to identify sources or lower the standards of your institution.”

I don't think I've ever met a "damnable nitpicker" myself. Myself? Oh, yeah, myself.

The second book I'm interested in is "100 Words Almost Everyone Mispronounces," by the editors of American Heritage Dictionaries. Some of the words they discuss, according to Safire, are "almond" (don't pronounce the "L") and "often" (leave out the "T).

I hope they take on "height." I cannot stand to hear it mispronounced as "heighth." Do you say "weighth"? No. Why not? Because neither "height" nor "weight" includes a -th. You do say "depth" and "width. (Note the -th in each.)

I guess that's enough nitpicking for today.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

What did they learn?

My Advanced News and Feature Writing class has gone really well. The class, which is the capstone for news-editorial students, will soon publish its very own news Web site, the 410 Forum. As part of their final project, I asked students to blog about what they learned in the JMC major. And guess what? They learned a lot. They also offered some advice for those starting the program. Check the posts out on the right-hand menu, just below my profile.

Photo by Trent Gillespie.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

A style all its own

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt discusses his paper's style manual in this week's column.

Here's what I think:

I still can't understand why the Times uses courtesy titles in every section but sports. And why on Earth do they continue to refer to Queen Elizabeth II as Queen Elizabeth 2nd? And while we're at it, when will the Times begin using modular design? Oh right, that's so 20th century. Better to figure out how to make money on the Web.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

I'll take a slice

Thank the sports gods, baseball season is here at last, and with it comes the first of many editing errors, I'm sure. The New York Mets opened their new ballpark to much fanfare. On Monday night, Hall-of-Famer Tom Seaver threw the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Piazza, who should be in the Hall in a few years.

A brief story in The New York Times referred to the big-hitting catcher as "Pizza" in the third paragraph. The error has been cleaned up on the Web site, but it made it into my national edition Tuesday morning. I guess that's an easy one to misplay. The spell-checker won't catch it. That's why I continue to remind my students that spell-checking is NOT editing.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

One at a time, please

I saw some really stinky mistakes today while perusing a certain sporting goods store, which shall remain nameless because I have no idea what it was called.

The following line appeared on a bunch of TOILET SEATS that were emblazoned with the colors and numbers of some NASCAR drivers:

Drivers seat

And saw the following on a couple of seats that sported NFL colors and logos:

Coaches seat

I don't think those things are made for more than one person to use at once. The presentation was advertising plural drivers and plural coaches. What I mean -- for you non-grammar geeks out there -- is that the seats literally advertised that they were made for more than one driver and more than one coach.

What they should have been advertising was the singular possessive format -- that the seat belonged to one driver or one coach. The proper usage would be the following:

Driver's seat

Coach's seat

Of course, if drivers and coaches want to go two at a time, that's fine with me. I'm just glad they didn't have any in my team's colors. That would have been really embarrassing.

Now, I'm not going to get all riled about why in the world somebody would want to advertise his or her favorite team on a toilet seat. Seems to me you'd want the other team's logo for that. But that's a conversation for another blog.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Students on the Web

The Advanced News & Feature Writing class is the capstone class for journalism students with an emphasis in news-editorial -- what we used to call "print journalism." The emphasis is really about learning how to report, write and present news that's factual and easy to read.

Every year my students write great stories, but most don't get published. So this year, we've decided to create a class Web site. With the help of our college webmaster, Tom Trelogan, the site should be up and running soon. This will give students a chance to showcase their work to prospective employers.

Blogs are another way for students to show off their talents. My students have created blogs about the beats they're covering. It's a way for them to reflect on what they're doing in the class. You can do something well but not take the time to figure out why and how. This project will force students to ask themselves some important questions about what they're learning and what they can improve on. And it's a great way to practice writing for the Web.

We've got an interesting mix of beats. Mindy Day is covering the small town of Hudson. Desiree' Beckett and Trent Gillespie are tackling religion. Dan Mauro and Drew McConnell are two of the many students examining the arts. We've also got a few students covering sports. Paige Mackenzie writes about snowboarding, and Rebecca Skeim covers lacrosse. And for something that truly says "Northern Colorado," check out Kelli Osgood's blog on the cattle industry.

Check out all the blogs on the menu at right titled "Student Blogs."