The Non-Standard Standard

Showtime cable TV network airs a series called The Tudors, depicting court life during the reign of Henry VIII. The casting is predictably Hollywood (and therefore unrealistic), the historical accuracy is nonexistent, and the steamy sex scenes gratuitous. In British historian David Starkey's words, the [corporation that sold the series to BBC] had translated the Tudors into the crass world of the American soap series.”

Ouch. But check out his next comment:
“It is brutal dumbing down. It’s okay for the Americans to do it but is it ok for the BBC to wreck one of the greatest parts of history?”

It's okay for Americans to do it. Dumbing-down has become a way of life which offends my writerly sensibilities to the very core. It's bad enough that the educational bar is lowered to accommodate lower-functioning students, lest their self-esteem suffer from the stigma of "special education." But when incorrect language is so ubiquitous that it becomes acceptable...well, Britain has a right to feel superior.

Take the word regardless. It has so long been incorrectly used as irregardless that it's listed in the dictionary, albeit with the qualifier "nonstandard," indicating that the word is technically incorrect but sufficiently commonplace to warrant a listing. A good portion of America feels that if it's in the dictionary, it's legit. Hence, the non-standard becomes standard.

I justify my obsessive-compulsive grammatical disorder by saying that cross-genre authors are hyper-aware of human speech. In order for dialogue to ring true, an author must write what is realistically spoken instead of what is grammatically correct. This opens the door to all kinds of controversy over dialect, such as used in Gone With the Wind. Margaret Mitchell masterfully captured the essence of Civil-War-era slave speech by phonetically spelling relevant dialogue (ex. "What mah lamb gwine wear?"). Yet when I began writing, it was under the auspices of the no-dialect rule (I think the fear was that we would rely too much on dialect instead of composing our own mellifluous prose). With the advent of new "languages" used in texting and urban slang, however, I think all bets are off.

Then there's the hyper-correction. Somehow, we've become so conscious of the incorrect "her and me" that we substitute "she and I"...even when it's not correct. We grew to flinch at the awkward timbre of "her and me," no matter its grammatical role in a sentence. No argument about "the only ones left were she and I" taking precedence over "the only ones left were her and me." The problem is "he left the tickets for my brother and I." If only English grammar hadn't been replaced in the school curriculum in favor of more pressing educational issues like avoiding internet predators, Americans would know that "he left the tickets for my brother and me" is correct.

I'll go a step farther (that's right, farther, not further!). Most Americans incorrectly make fun of Boston accents. Aside from Johnny Depp, who perfectly nailed a Boston accent in the movie Blow, the only actors to get it right are native Bostonians like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. So when people think they are good-naturedly imitating a Boston accent by saying Bahston, Matt, Ben, and I have the last laugh. The familiar pahk my cah in Hahvahd yahd is all about the "r." It doesn't mean every vowel combination gets the same treatment. So listen up, all you self-styled comedians out there, remember it's Bawston, not Bahston. Say it with me: Go, Red Sawks!

I leave you with a final thought on America's standard of non-standards. Several famous writers (Dave Barry, Mitch Albom, Stephen King, and others) comprise a musical group known as the Rock Bottom Remainders. I don't know when the greatest-hits collection comes out, but no doubt it will include the band-member-written hit, Proofreading Woman:
...she's got a big dictionary, real good grammar/she never says "between you and I."

www.cynthiapolansky.com

RULES FOR WRITERERS

With school back in session, I want to share a great article I found last year. Well, it's not really an article, more of a list of grammatical rules in which the rules themselves have cleverly been broken. I sometimes hand out copies to the midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy who come to the Writing Center for my help. They don't fully appreciate the irony in it because they have never heard of terms like "split infinitives" or "hyperbole." Seems that basic English grammar has been replaced in high school curricula by more applicable subjects like date rape prevention, Facebook indiscretions, and the impact of Nintendo on Asian-American relations.

So I present for your amusement the following 34 rules that all writers must obey in order to succeed commercially. My personal favorite is #34. If writers followed this rule faithfully, I would be hard up for Typos of the Week. Enjoy!

34 RULES FOR WRITERERS*

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.







*source: www.orfe.princeton.edu/~rvdb/RulesForWriterers.html

www.cynthiapolansky.com

IN THE BEGINNING...

So often I am asked if I have always known I would be a writer, or how I knew I wanted to be a working writer. The answers to such questions are always blurry, just as the art of writing is. There are no cut-and-dried, witness-stand answers. Yet I do have a very clear answer to a question nobody's asked me yet: who inspired me to start writing?

I owe my writing career to two people: good friend Cheryl Cohn and author/instructor Jim Gray. I had always enjoyed writing and had been told as a child that I "had a flair for it." But when I received my first magazine rejection at age 17, I naively misinterpreted this author's-rite-of-passage as a "you don't have what it takes, kid" stop sign. It wasn't until I was twice that age that I decided to revisit writing. After helping Cheryl compose a business letter, she had remarked, "Wow, you really missed your calling!" I realized at that moment that I didn't want to look back at my life someday and wonder "what if..."

I enrolled in an adult-education writing course taught by Memphis author Jim Grey. I began a short story that Jim believed should be written as a novel, instead." I could never write a novel," I protested. If only Jim knew the powerful impact of his reply! Just four little words -- "of course you can" -- changed my life.

That short story I was writing? "Far Above Rubies."

If anyone knows where Jim Gray is, please help me track him down! He is the author of suspense novel "Bring Back the Night" published by Colonial Press in the early 1990s. He taught an extension-course creative writing class through Memphis State University, now called the University of Memphis.

Jim Gray, if you're out there and happen to read this blog, please let me hear from you so I may say "thank you" more personally. I am one lucky writer to have had you in my destiny.