As John McIntyre, a former president of this organization, has noted often in his entertaining blog, “You Don’t Say,” many of the rules we were taught as the signs of educated discourse are 1) Victorian Latinate intrusions, 2) other pedantry, or 3) right then but overtaken by linguistic change. I’ve been around long enough to have had teachers in grade school who condemned the slogan “Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should” while feeling no need to say anything negative about smoking; today, the opposite would prevail.
McIntyre has noted, for example, that while there is a distinction between “attorney” and “lawyer” — which lives on when a defendant “acts as his own attorney” — realistically they are interchangeable, and that the rule for a copy editor should essentially be: Does the distinction really matter? If not, don’t worry about it and move on to something more essential.
But our annual run of “you biased liberals” calls brought to mind one distinction that, while minor, is worth keeping yet seems to occur to almost none of our reporters. That is the distinction between “earns” and “is paid.”
Admittedly, it’s not a distinction you’ll find in Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate, for which the first definition of “earns” is: “to receive as return for effort and esp. for work done or services rendered.” The distinction between that and “pay”: “to make due return for services rendered or properly delivered” — is so small as to put this as hair-splitting on McIntyre’s list. (Indeed, it may already be there, though I couldn’t find it easily.)
But then I put myself in the mind of our more critical readers, particularly those of a tea-brewing disposition. If one is trying to read the original intent of the Founders, one is not going to be put off by the equivocation of a modern dictionary. One is looking everywhere for the sort of modern jiving used to try to pull blue wool over the eyes of decent patriots who seek for virtue to be rewarded and rewards to be tied to virtue. As we have seen, they are a lot of our readers, particularly for we who labor to put out a wonderful print newspaper that some tell us is read only among the Golden Agers.
For many of them, the definition of “earn” would be tied to M-W’s second entry: “to come to be duly worthy of or entitled or suited to.” The example given is of “earning” a promotion. But consider this from an EducationNews Colorado story on a possible new superintendent in Las Vegas who was an official in Colorado:
“His wife, Jenifer Jones, earns a $110,000 salary as executive director for school turnaround efforts in Denver Public Schools.”
Now, I know nothing about Jenifer Jones and what she does. I have no idea if she is overpaid or underpaid. She may be the only reason Denver schools open each morning. But if I were in a throw-the-bums-out mood — or was going to vote for D.C. mayor based on how I felt about Superintendent Michelle Rhee and reading a similar story there — I might be saying to myself:
“Earns! What does she do to EARN my money? She sits in her office passing papers while hard-working Americans can’t get a job. We need someone like that big guy in New Jersey to show people exactly what ‘earn’ means!” And so forth. Pass the cream and sugar.
The dictionary can’t really tell us that the confluence of the two meanings of ”earn” means to a number of readers that an hourly wage is to be earned just like an honor of merit, rather than simply being paid based on a contract or agreement. Our aim should be to not get readers upset about what we don’t want them to be upset about, because we are going to tell them plenty that they should be upset about.
Saying “his wife, Jenifer Jones, is paid a $110,000 salary as executive director for school turnaround efforts in Denver Public Schools” costs the story nothing, and simply states the fact. Jones is paid it. It doesn’t matter if she works 90 hours a week or five. In fact, the reader might feel more neutral or even positive about Jenifer Jones — who is only in this story by virtue of marriage — if he or she did not have the word “earns” sticking up like a red flag, inviting a value judgment.
Does this mean I can stop writing “5 percent to 6 percent” and just write 5 to 6 percent? Does anyone really think writers mean the numeral 5 in these cases?
Our stylebook requires us to write “5% to 6%.” I have worked with a variety of stylebooks — AP, APA, GPO, Chicago Manual of Style, etc., and internal stylebooks. The job requires following the stylebook on your desk.
Be careful about writing “$5 to $6 million,” which means only: “$5″ snd “$6 million,” a wider range than “$5 million to $6 million.”
As one of the many who enjoy John McIntyre’s column, I write to thank David Sullivan for enlightening me to a distinction that does have a difference.
However, I have wondered for a while about several phrases prevalent in newswriting, for print and broadcast, that prompt me to ask irritably: “Who teaches this writing?” I hear it not only on National Public Radio and its affiliates but also on the CBC and (gasp!) the BBC.
As I started working in my first newspaper job, I was taught: Write what happened, write clearly and write factually and fairly.
Newswriters and editors may have forgotten or never learned this dictum from their editors or teachers. Their writing doesn’t make sense; it didn’t happen that way, or it couldn’t happen that way.
Examples:
“His visit came amid …” His visit didn’t come or go; he did. He made a visit, or: He visited …
“Amid” seems to be an overused substitute for “during.” We can stand amid a crowd of spectators, or protesters, or amid stalks of corn or flowers in a field. It’s a physical position, not a metaphysical concept.
“He was arrested for [crime or charges] …” This writer has just convicted someone: “arrested for” means “arrested because he did it.” The Fifth and Sixth Amendments protect the arrested, accused or indicted person from newswriting that convicts him before trial or guilty plea.
“He told a press conference …” The press conference, or news conference is the setting, the event, the occasion. It cannot hear anything, but the reporters or others attending the news conference can hear what “he” told them =at= a press conference.
“Monday’s [event; a storm, a press conference, an arrest, a meeting ...] A day cannot possess anything, so the possessive form doesn’t fit. The day, week, month, year tells when something happened, not whose event it was. “The press conference [when?] Monday …”
In my editing copy and listening to newscasts, encounter many other examples of nonsense and strays from any stylebook, not only The Associated Press Stylebook — often by AP writers and editors who don’t know or consult the AP Stylebook.
It’s frustrating, but I wonder how to turn these problems into a good article — snd sell it for a good price.