Memorable Moments in Virginia Horse Journal

Every so often, I accomplish something. This month, Virginia Horse Journal graciously agreed to publish a little piece for its Memorable Moments section. I am here on page six. You'll have to wait for the PDF to load and then magnify it to read, but really, truly, there I am in my preferred universe--the one of hard copy.

When my riding instructor contacted me excitedly to say she had read my work, I asked her to read it to the horse who inspired it. Wonder if he gives out hoofprints as an autograph?

In Response to "Impact" and Other New Verbs

You'll have to pardon me for not posting regularly this past week. I have been swamped with jobs, travel, kids, and some rather time-consuming issues regarding the house we live in. I haven't forgotten to write--I simply haven't had the time to rework and then edit what I've got. So in light of some constraints on time, I'll borrow from my friend David who wrote a beautiful comment after my discussion of the word impact last week. With his permission, his words are reprinted here, where I thought they fit better than in a little comment box. Another reader also posted beautifully, but her comments are already published, her quoted reference to "dumb shadows" still haunting me in the way that poetic language does. Thank you, Elizabeth, for your beautiful honesty of describing when she learned the true meaning of dumb.

In response to the discussion about the changing use of words, David wrote:

This is why I envy my sister, as she has a full copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. The nature of all language is that it evolves along with the society it is embedded in. As I frequently have to explain to my eldest son, who has a great dislike of words such as "knife", because, according to him, they have extra letters, our language did not emerge from the hills of England, fully formed like Boticelli's Venus, but (has) evolved of centuries of trial and error. Someone once said that English evolved because Norman Frenchmen were trying to pick up Anglo Saxon barmaids. To some extent this is true, and just like the results of such trysts, our language has many bastardized kludges that suggest that it wasn't easy. 


American English is also evolving away from the more formal queen's diction, given not only the influences from our own version of linguistic "genetic drift", but the inclusion of more Romance derived languages such as Spanish, and to a lesser extent Portuguese . We may even find the infiltration of Chinese and Hindi as power and population trends change. Technology is also a big influence as well. "Jawbone", "Bluetooth", "Phone", "Tablet", and "Pad" are all changing their meaning. Also we "email", or "ping". We can "text" or "chat". 


Max and I were discussing this morning about pay phones, phone booths, and their disappearance. He couldn't understand that once upon a time, phones were big bulky affairs that required a land connection. In another generation, I would be willing to bet that phone booth disappears from everyday English. As man continues to evolve, so will his languages. Once upon a time, the lingua franca of business was Latin, then French. At the time of the Revolution, most of the founding fathers were fluent in not only English, but Latin, Greek, and to some extent French. Jefferson had also mastered Hebrew as well. It was only with the rise of the British Empire and the eventual ascendance of the American Republic, that English has usurped French as the language of commerce, though in this hemisphere it may soon take a back seat to Spanish. But let's face it in those parts around the fondly remembered woody groves of Oxford (Mississippi), you are more likely to hear a conversation like this: "Hey y'all, youwanna commonback to the house overtheyar?" "Naw, Igottaget, momanem need me."

By David on The Neo-Verb or Noun Redux on 7/29/11

How lovely that David and his son discuss language. I certainly hope his boy inherits David's skill with words and aptitude for drawing parallels of things with time, space, history, and relationships. I think it's wonderful that anyone would want to meet the subject of changing vocabulary head-on, particularly when spicier pop-culture topics lead the headlines (Kardashian's? Excuse me?). But I digress and must return where I belong--a spacious desk in an office filled with the light that bounces off the wooded lot outside. An afternoon of "post-it-noting" and such awaits. ;)

Sonnet 73 for Proofreaders

If Shakespeare had been a proofreader for a Fortune 500 company, he might have reworked his Sonnet 73 into something a bit like the one I played with below. Having just finished a big project and had some time to think about my relationship with my copywriting team, I particularly enjoyed crafting this parody.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
when copydecks, or few, or many, do pile
upon my desk which drowns in work of old
and books of syntax, grammar, and style.


In me thou fears red-penned corrections:
"Please rewrite this!", "insert", "stet", and "delete",
"transpose", "spell out", and other suggestions,
which trusty copywriters must complete.


In me thou seest the yearning and desire
for king's English mellifluous and right.
Of perfect punctuation, I'll not tire.
For flawless composition, I do fight.


This thou tolerates, which makes my heart grow warm
For thee, writers, and work that thou perform.

The Neo-Verb or Noun Redux

According to the 2005 Miriam Webster Dictionary and a few other sources, the word impact has now graduated from noun to verb, and it is accepted both in formal and informal speech. Old school academics poo-poo this notion, and even I, this very week at work, deleted impact from four instances of usage as a verb, and then recommended appropriate substitutions. I think, however, that I should be more understanding of the trend. After all, aren't writers supposed to embrace with creative spirit the ever-adaptability of words, much less the very enthusiasm of using impact to describe with passion the action of hitting something forcefully?

Considering this development, I began to ponder other nouns that could benefit from growth--from the name of an object to the suggestion of movement. Walking about the office this afternoon, I could only find nouns that had already become action verbs: squirrel, suit, tile, pen, tag. (And if you are wondering, yes, I can see squirrels from my office window. No, they don't wear suits.)

But then, on my desk, I found it--a noun just clamoring to become a verb for the very first time. Words, I explained to the department administrative assistant (Weren't these ladies once called secretaries? See the change?) develop and alter in meaning with every advancement in technology and business. And here was the perfect example: my Jawbone (or for those of you that have one of its kin, a Bluetooth.) Note the use of it as a new verb in the sentence below:

Jane couldn't respond to the begging vagrant because she was deeply jawboned in conversation with her mother.

Do you see what this implies here? What the wireless earpiece has done to our culture? Suggestions to contribute to this post are not just welcomed, but requested. And to my wonderful friend David at 80 West: This means you in particular!

Freelance Writing Center: Unethical and Suspect

This week, in the search to dig up better work, I came across a firm called Freelance Writing Center. I applied, took a grammar test, and then received a request to write a research paper as an audition. Something about this reeked of odd, unethical. I did some research and found another writer who had the same experience. I discussed this with my husband who was charmed that I could be so naïve as to not know this was an academic paper farm—the kind of firm that sells papers to students who will turn in work to their professors and therefore falsely claim original creation of the paper.  He said I could surely do this and make a comfortable living, but putting the firm on my resume would be the death of me should I later apply to a university or respectable publisher.

Here is the first letter to me from an anonymous administrator at FWC. I received it after pointing out typographical errors on the test I was required to take. Note the disorganization of thought in the paragraph below. There are also spacing errors and punctuation omitted.  The biggest flaw, however, is in the main question I was to answer. What kind of professional writer states this so poorly? Immigration is not a society, but a process. But read, on…

Thank you for your feedback.
Prior to uploading your own samples we ask that you please take our test essay. To avoid upload problems please save it as Immigration. The next step in the application process is to provide a test essay due no later than June 27th 2011. Instructions are: Explain why you think immigration is one aspect of society that you think will experience the greatest amount of social change over the next ten years and explain why you think this is the case. You may NOT use Wikipedia, any encyclopedia or any dictionary as a source for this paper. You must research this topic and express your view on how this social institution/ phenomenon will change over the next ten years. Make sure you answer the following questions and include the following information What is changing? How much, how fast, and in what direction? What are the engines driving change? What data is there to demonstrate that this change is likely to continue and is occurring? Why do you believe this topic will experience more social change than other areas/topics in the next ten years? Which theory of social change (functionalist, conflict or symbolic interaction) best explains this change and why? Please make sure it is 2 pages, double spaced in Times New Roman Font, with 3 sources in APA format. Thankyou"

I initially responded to this seeking clarification of the main question. Does the administrator really desire a discussion about the effects of immigration on society or how the process of immigration would change? Then, after writing my lovely husband, who smacked me over the head with what this firm really is, I did some research and wrote the following letter to the administrator:

Dear Administrator,

I did a little research on your question. I found that the subset of main questions was plagiarized from an article here:  http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Wilensky/wilensky-con5.html.

AND I found that another writer at this website found fault with your request as well. You can see his comments here: http://www.magi-creations.com/ on his post for April 11.

Perhaps I was so naive as to not realize that this job meant getting paid to anonymously write other people's schoolwork. Do you mean to imply that plagiarism does not include the willful relinquishment of one's work so someone else can make an A on it?

I cannot ethically write someone else's work for a university, but I can edit student work. I can write informational articles where my name is attached to the project publicly.

Like the writer at Magi, I agree that the sudden request for an essay mid-application is suspect. I also think that a more professional organization would not have typos in the test for the job and that the request for the essay would have been more properly organized and written. My even having to write you for clarification on the question itself should have been a red flag for me.

Unless you can make assurances of ethical intentions, I am not interested. And by the way, I don't need to write on this topic in your suggested format for you to know I am a skilled writer. Any research you had done on the links posted in my resume would have answered that question.

Of course, you can imagine that like the writer at Magi, I will be told I am not a good fit for this position. That’s fine, because it’s just prostitution of words, and who wants to be the quintessential representative of those who write so others can have a beer instead of doing their homework. I’ll let you know what FWC tells me, but I think you already know as well.

And to Mark over at http://www.magi-creations.com/, I again thank you for the notice on your site. Perhaps you and I will have better luck at finding good work for good people.

Because I love rejection so much...

My ex-husband kindly wrote me to say he was sorry that I was not accepted to grad school. "It's okay," I wrote back, "because writers are used to rejection." Oh, the rejection letters we receive and then let pile up in a drawer of our desk.

This week, I started returning to my original roots as a writer--submitting creative work to journals. I sent out two pieces so far. One was an experimental prose-like wandering about love. And I sent it to a source that will likely reject me outright.  I once worked as an intern for the very nice editor who, as I discovered painfully later, found my personality to conflict with the office M.O. (And I cannot apologize enough for that, but I was not entirely myself that year. Lesson learned. Can we move on now?)

The second piece was a nearly 9000 word novelette, as some term it. I have had this one for at least 7 years and I still find the story to be very strong. I picked it up again, reworked some aspects of it, and after years of looking for the right home for it, submitted it to a journal that specializes in the "long short story." The chances of that rejection are strong as the journal has a 2 percent acceptance rate.

So why try at all? Eventually, somebody somewhere will find something I write acceptable, and my greater failure would be to quit writing. I am tired, however, of hearing people quote Thomas Edison who said about his own efforts to create the lightbulb that he had just found 2000 ways to not make one. Such a nice thing for Edison to have said, but I am sure he would sit over a beer once in a while and moan over his not-yet-lighting bulb project.

The potential of rejection always will  loom. One day, though, I might be able to say to my children, "Honey, I've been there. I know it's hard, but you have to keep trying. Your efforts will pay off." In the meantime, I'll keep writing, and I have decided to push the freelance biz harder than I have. It's time to embrace a little more self-confidence, own my talent, and define my own worth.