Decoding century labels shouldn't be this difficult

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It annoys the hell out of me that centuries are identified by one number greater than their actual number in the hundreds place. 

The 1800's are referred to as the nineteenth century. The 1900's are called the twentieth century.

I understand the accuracy of these labels. Yes, the sixteenth century is technically the seventeenth century, but it's confusing as hell.

Who among us hasn't read that the Black Death devastated Europe in the fourteenth century and thought it meant the 1400's?

Or that Buck Rogers in the 25th Century meant that Buck was living in the 2500's?

I grew up in the twentieth century, but for the longest time, I had no idea why? It made no sense.

"It's 1986, damn it! We still have 14 years to go until the year 2000! What is wrong with you people?"

I can't be the only person who reads that the vibrator was invented in the 19th century and requires a moment of numeric translation in order to determine that it was actually invented in the Victorian era and not in the century when I was born.

Right?

Details matter. They matter a hell of a lot.

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This was the fundraising letter sent to supporters upon Trump's announcement of the new travel ban, which was thankfully halted by a federal judge last night.  

The failure of communication from this administration is astounding. 

The first bullet, for example:

  • Temporarily Restricting immigration from six countries comprised by radical Islamic terrorism: Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yeman

The first two words of the sentence are capitalized, which also makes no sense. 

The first two words of the next bullet are also capitalized, but not the first two words of the third bullet. 

This is a mess. And the actual content isn't much better. 

Despite Trump's argument that this is not a Muslim ban, he indicates in this letter that these countries were chosen specifically because they are "comprised by" radical Islamic terrorism, which clearly implies (if you can get beyond the grammar) that one religion is being targeted over another (which is one of the very reasons the federal judge halted the ban), even though the majority of terrorist attacks in this country are committed by Americans.

In fact, no act of terrorism has been committed on American soil by anyone from these six nations since 9/11, and Saudi Arabia, where almost all of the 9/11 terrorists originated, is not on the list. 

And Iraq, the very center of ISIS activity in the world, has now been removed from the list. Logic would dictate that if your travel ban is essential for keeping terrorists out of America, the first country on the list should be Iraq. 

Of course this is a Muslim ban. Trump referred to it as a Muslim ban many, many times on the campaign trail and after the election. His own words have doomed these Executive Orders right from the start.

You may say I'm nitpicking here. Who cares about grammar and capitalization? But details matter. When a President who is attempting to change something as complex as the American healthcare system, details matter. They matter a lot. They are the difference between the elderly having access to affordable healthcare and the ultra-wealthy receiving massive tax breaks as part of the proposed plan.

For many Americans, the details in this healthcare plan will be the difference between whether they live or die.

Details matter. 

This administration doesn't seem to think so. 

Trump's Housing and Urban Development Cabinet chief, Ben Carson, recently referred to slaves as immigrants.

His chief White House counselor Kellyanne Conway introduced the world to the notion of an "alternative facts."

His national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was an agent for a foreign power who lied about communication with the Russians during the election - facts which Trump knew about for weeks before finally firing him. 

Trump accused a former President of wiretapping based solely on a right-wing report based upon the unsubstantiated claims of a right-wing talk show host. He claimed - once again - that his Electoral victory was the largest since Reagan, only to be corrected by a White House reporter again.

His response: "I was given that information. We had a very, very big margin."

"Given that information?" By who? The President's team can't conduct a simple Google search? Or more likely, Trump was either lying or spitballing because details don't matter to this administration.

His Electoral win, by the way, was not as large as George Bush, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama. In fact, it was one of the narrowest Electoral victories in American history. 

Details matter.

But when you have the resources of the Republican party and the United States government at your disposal and you can't produce a letter that is grammatically correct, you make it clear that details don't matter at all to you.

This might be the most frightening aspect of the Trump administration.

End the scourge of the additional anus

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I'd like to propose that we permanently retire the phrase "tore me a new one" and all its its variants as a means of describing a situation in which a person or persons have been savagely berated or abused by another person. 

The idea that someone would be berated or abused so badly that it would result in an additional anus is not only illogical, but it's fairly disgusting.

There are better ways to describe situations like this without adding to the digestive system in the process.  

Can we all agree that there is no place for this unfortunate phrase in our modern day lexicon? 

Trumpian typos abound - and frighten me to death

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ALL OF THIS JUST ON SUNDAY:

The US Department of Education published a tweet that spelled W.E.B. Du Bois's name incorrectly. That error stood for four hours before it was finally corrected. The Department of Education then apologized, with another typo:

“Our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo..."

Great start for Betsy DeVos. Or DuVos. Or DeVes.  

A couple hours later, the Republican Party published a tweet that quoted Abraham Lincoln on his birthday, except that it wasn't something Abraham Lincoln ever said. 

In fact, the quote probably originates from the 1940s. As the website Quote Investigator notes, a version of the quote was probably first uttered by a medical doctor named Edward J. Stieglitz, quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 1947.

To top it all off, the official inaugural photo of Donald Trump, on sale now at the Library of Congress, also has a typo in its one and only sentence:

Earlier in the week, The Trump Administration gave the press a typo-riddled lists of terrorist attacks that they claimed were not covered enough by the press.

Kellyanne Conaway's Bowling Green Massacre (a story that she has repeated multiple times until she was caught) was not on this list, but it received ample coverage nonetheless. Rightfully so. 

I know. I know. I'm an elitist for thinking that our government might have some spell checking apparatus in place and we might expect a modicum of professionalism from our leaders, but it doesn't look good and makes me worry about other items requiring precision. 

Say... the value of the dollar. The rate of inflation. Interest rates. The location to drop a bomb on a terrorist. The nuclear codes. 

A short-sighted and fairly presumptuous name

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I've recently learned that Occidental College received it's name from the fact that it was the western-most institution of higher learning in the United States at the time of its establishment in 1887. 

Occidental (from the root occident) means "the countries or lands of the West" (in contrast to "Oriental," which implies countries or lands of the East).

This strikes me as a short-sighted and fairly presumptuous name, particularly since it is no longer the western-most institution of higher learning. 

Unless you are absolutely sure that no college will ever be established west of your position, naming your college based upon it's far western position is destined to look silly when someone builds something a block father west than you. 

My favorite sentence of the year

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Earlier in the month, a friend of mine took some advice about living life well, and as expected, it worked out perfectly.

In telling me how well things turned out, she wrote this sentence:

"It's annoying how right you always are."

I don't usually identify my favorite sentence from a given year, but if I were to, this might be it.

It's got everything I love:

  • Acknowledgement of my genius.
  • Evidence of my ability to annoy even as I am proven correct.
  • The delightful inverse of "I told you so" - "You told me so," which is almost as satisfying.

Makes you want to solicit my advice on a daily basis. Doesn't it?

Great first sentences (and an analysis of the first sentences of my own novels)

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I have no definitive favorite first line of a novel, though I am partial to the first line of Slaughterhouse Five:

"All this happened, more or less."

Also, Fahrenheit 451: 

"It was a pleasure to burn."

Of all my books, I like the first sentence of Chicken Shack, my unpublished novel that will hopefully see the light of day someday, the best: 

"They tried not to receive corpses on the same day as chicken, but since it was impossible to predict when a logger might fall from his bucket truck and break his neck, the two deliveries occasionally coincided."

I like to think that it works well because it’s unexpected and a little mysterious but contains enough specificity to make the initial image real for the reader. Why chicken and corpses would arrive anyplace on the same day is strange, but the specific image of the logger’s fall is enough to also establish the reader within the story. 

At least I hope. 

I also like the first sentence of Unexpectedly, Milo:

"The moment that Milo Slade had attempted to avoid for nearly his entire life finally arrived under the sodium glow of a parking lot florescent at a Burger King just south of Washington, DC along interstate 95."

Again, the sentence contains that combination of mystery and specificity that I like. The moment that Milo has been trying to avoid for his entire life is left undefined, but the setting is clearly established. In doing these two things simultaneously, I like to think that I both intrigue and ground the reader in the story at the same time. 

However, this sentence was not originally the first sentence of the book. Prior to the addition of the prologue, this sentence appeared closer to the end of the book than the beginning. The original first sentence was:

"When he spotted the video camera the first time, sitting on the end of the park bench beneath the dying elm, Milo didn’t take it."

While I like the new first sentence better, this isn’t bad. The use of the phrase "the first time" lends an air of mystery, yet I again attempted to make the specifics of the scene (park bench beneath the dying elm) clear to the reader. 

The first sentence of Something Missing reads:

"Martin opened the refrigerator and saw precisely what he had expected."

I don’t like this one nearly as much, but it accomplished the goal at the time. Compared with the other two books, I put in significantly less thought into the first sentence of Something Missing, but my intention was to begin with action, knowing how much of the story would take place within Martin’s head. I also revised the sentence much later to include the words precisely and expected, knowing how appropriate they are to Martin’s character. 

The first sentence of The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs is a good one, too:

"Caroline Jacobs rose, pointed her finger at the woman seated at the center of the table reserved for the PTO president and her officers, and said it."

Truthfully, though, it's really the first paragraph as a whole that works well. The first sentence contains that same blend of mystery and specificity, but it works even better in concert with the four other sentences that make up the first paragraph.  

The same holds true for Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. The first sentence is:

This is what I know:
My name is Budo.

This is the beginning of a list of nine things that comprise the opening page, and these items work well together. In fact, the last item is the sentence that hooked by editor when she was considering the book. 

Sometimes a first paragraph is more relevant than a first sentence.

One of my favorite first lines of a book (and many people's first line) comes from Charlotte's Web:

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

It’s probably my favorite because author EB White appears to have the same goal in mind as I do when writing a first sentence. "Where’s Papa going with that ax?” is certainly intriguing, but White also firmly establishes character and setting in the second half of the sentence.

My wife’s favorite line is the classic line from Pride and Prejudice:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

I recently attempted to challenge the merit this line, claiming that it may have a foundation in sexism, patriarchy, and materialism, but my wife threatened to go out to the shed and get Papa’s ax if I said another word.

But still, doesn’t it?

An alternative to this line can be found in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the retelling of the Jane Austin classic with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem!” Expectedly, the famous first line of Austin novel was re-written for this retelling:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.

No question of sexism there.

Do you have a favorite first line to share?  If so, please do.

"Yeah, but..."

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I despise these two words. 

It's not that I don't say them, but when I hear myself saying them, I despise myself. I remind myself of how stupid I sound. I'll even apologize for them if the moment is right. 

"Yeah, but.." is never good. It's a disingenuous agreement. An artificial attempt to move on. It's the language of those who cry over spilled milk. People who perseverate over past injustice. Individuals who are incapable of putting the unchangeable and implacable behind them and moving on.

It's also the language of the unaccountable. The complainers. The blamers. The finger pointers. Those who cannot give credit where credit is due. Those unable to acknowledge the wisdom or success of others. It's the blunted, ineffectual weapon of the jealous. The envious. The small minded.  

"Yeah, but..." is also often a leap into an illogical argument. An unreasoned appeal. An emotion-riddled mess of verbal detritus. 

No one likes a "yeah, but..." person. These people are the whiners of the world. They are the people who make bring moments of genuine productivity to a grinding halt.

Seek out the "yeah, buts..." in your own conversations and remove them whenever possible. Despise them as much as I do.

Make the world a better place. 

Get off my lawn!

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A local lawn company sent a solicitor to my door last week. He and I had the following exchange:

TruGreen man: Hello, I was treating your neighbors lawn today and was wondering if you might be interested in our lawn care service.

Me: No, thank you. We’re all set.

TruGreen man: Are you sure?

Me: Yes.

TruGreen man: Can I ask what you’re currently doing for the lawn to keep it healthy?

Me: Not using TruGreen. Aggressively. 

To the man's credit, he laughed.   

It should also be noted that TruGreen ChemLawn dropped the second half of its name about ten years ago, becoming simply TruGreen. According the company, the name was changed happened because:

“…one word is all you need for a great lawn. We have shortened our name to make it easier for you to remember that we are the experts of lawn care.”

Thank goodness for this blessed bit of corporate wisdom. Their exceedingly lengthy, two-word name was so tricky to remember. This new, one word name, albeit a compound word, is so much better. 

I’m sure that it had nothing to do with the implication and constant reminder (through the use of the word Chemlawn) that this company is routinely bathing our lawns and shrubs in chemicals so potentially harmful that they necessitate the planting of little yellow warning flags after each treatment warning us to keep our pets and children off the grass.

The most astounding editor's note I have ever seen

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In what I can only describe as the most astounding editor's note I have ever seen, the editor of a piece in the Huffington Post entitled "Donald Trump Suggests Colin Kaepernick ‘Find A New Country’ After National Anthem Protest" included this at the bottom of the piece:

“Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.”

It's not that any of these statements are false. I just can't believe that an editor felt the need to include this as a part of the piece and was allowed to get away with it. 

In fact, I'm so worried that some chief editor at the Huffington Post will see the note and take it down that I took a screen shot just in case.

Am I wrong to be as astounded about this note as I am?

At least 3 reasons why you should never say "Wish me luck!"

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Three reasons to avoid saying the phrase "Wish me luck!" as part of your goodbye dialogue: 

It's aggressive, presumptuous, and authoritarian. 

Right? 

You're not even asking someone to wish you luck. You're telling them to offer you the wish. You're practically ordering them to do it. It's at least a little audacious, if not downright pushy. 

Isn't it?

Is there any other instance in which one person tells another person exactly what to say as they part? Can you even imagine it?

"Tell me not to worry!"
"Say something positive about my future!"
"Tell me that you love me a lot!"
"Tell me that you hope my plane doesn't crash, but say it in a funny way."
"When you say goodbye, add something about how you're hoping I win the PowerBall tonight!"
"As I turn my back and walk away, wait two seconds and then tell me I have a nice ass!"

It doesn't happen. "Wish me luck" is the only time when we demand that another person say a particular set of words as part of their farewell.

It also creates this odd stage play of sorts, because there is only one response to "Wish me luck!" 

It's "Good luck."

By asking someone to wish you luck, you can be 99.9% sure of their response, thereby creating this predetermined bit of two-line dialogue. It's like a guarantee of the future. You can be certain that there will be no surprises for at least the next two or three seconds.   

Person 1: Wish me luck!
Person 2: Good luck.

Is there another instance when dialogue is so predetermined? Even when you tell someone that you love them, the responses can vary slightly.

Person 1: I love you.

Possible responses:

I love you, too.
Me, too.
Love you, too.
Super love you!
Ditto.
Don't forget to pick up milk on the way home. 

"Wish me luck" is weird. I know that most of us don't think very much about it when we say it. It's simply a phrase that we use in place of the standard "Good bye" or "See you later." Most of the time, we're probably not trying to solicit wishes of good fortune from another person. We're simply trying to make an exit. 

Still, it's weird, even if you're using it innocuously. It's aggressive and presumptuous and authoritarian. It forces you and your companion into a brief and boring stage play. It's meaningless chatter laced with undertones of bellicosity.

I won't be annoyed if you ask me to wish you luck, but I may say something other than "Good luck," and perhaps something equally aggressive, presumptuous, and authoritarian.

Just for kicks.  

The life changing difference between "do" and "don't"

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Attempting to improve on my ability to craft dialogue, I find myself listening to people more and more, eavesdropping on conversations and taking careful note of a person’s choice of words.

Last week I was in Carvel, waiting to order, when the woman in front of me was handed her root beer float. She looked at it, paused a moment and then asked, “Don’t you mix these up?”

Obviously, the woman was a lunatic to assume that a root beer float should be mixed like a shake. The word float implies that the ice cream should be floating in the root beer, and not spun in like some mutated form of a Dairy Queen Blizzard.

But what I noticed even more was her use of the word don’t instead of the word do. 

Note the difference in tone between the two questions:

Don’t you mix these up?

Do you mix these up?

The use of the word don’t implies accusation. It makes the speaker sound rude, condescending, and annoyed. It’s not a nice way to solicit the desired bit of information from the counterperson.

The use of the word do essentially turns the same question into an honest search for information, with no tone of accusation or annoyance whatsoever.

One simple word change could have made this woman’s ridiculous question at least sound sincere and polite, but instead, she came across as a complete jerk.  

Which undoubtedly she is. 

It's a good thing to keep in mind when writing dialogue. And when speaking to other human beings who don't deserve to be treated poorly.

Small word choices can make a world of difference.   

I was tempted to instruct this woman on her poor word choice but chose instead to remain silent. 

Though I don’t do it often, I am capable of restraint from time to time.

Writing advice from a toddler that authors should heed carefully

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When my daughter was three years old, still unable to read, she taught me three invaluable lessons about the craft of writing. Specifically, she offered three specific pieces of criticism made an impression on me as an author and remain with me today.

1. Don’t overwrite. More importantly, don’t refuse editing. 

After watching some of its more famous musical numbers on YouTube, Clara and my wife sat down to watch Mary Poppins in its entirety for the first time.

Three years later, she still has yet to see the complete film.

While her interest admittedly waned throughout the film, her most telling comment came just over thirty minutes into the movie when she stood up from the couch and said, “Too long!”

She’s right. At 139 minutes, the film is far too long for most three-year old children, and it might be too long in general. As much as I loved Mary Poppins as a child, a two hour and nineteen minute children’s musical probably could have stood a little more time in the editing room.

Authors often have a great deal to say. We try to restrain ourselves as much as possible, but it often requires the expertise of an agent and an editor to bring our stories down to a length that will maintain a reader’s interest. It’s not an easy process. My agent has chopped whole chapters out of my book. My editors has murdered my characters. Hours and hours of work and strings of carefully honed, treasured sentences lost forever.

But better to lose an entire chapter than to have a reader toss down the book and shout, “Too long!”

2. Conflict is king. Backstory and resolution are secondary.  

With almost any television show that Clara watches, she exhibits the same pattern of interest:

As the conflict in the story rises, she remains riveted to the program. But as soon as the resolution is evident, even if it has not yet happened, her interest immediately wanes. She will walk right out of the room before the resolution even takes place if she can see it coming. 

It’s a good lesson for authors to remember. It is conflict that engages the reader. Backstory and resolution are necessary, but these elements should occur within the context of the conflict as often as possible and should probably occupy the fewest number of pages as possible. Keep the tension high throughout the story and keep the conflict ever-present in the readers’ minds and you will hold their interest throughout.

3. Keep your promises to the reader.

Clara does not appreciate when a television show goes off-book or changes genres midstream. Her favorite show for a long time was The Wonder Pets. It’s a program about three preschool class pets who moonlight as superheroes, saving baby animals around the world who are in trouble.

But occasionally the writers of The Wonder Pets decide to step outside this proven formula. In one episode, The Wonder Pets save an alien who is trying to return to his planet. In another, two of The Wonder Pets must save the third from peril. One episode is essentially a clip show in which the baby animals that they have already saved return to thank The Wonder Pets for their help. 

Clara hated these episodes. The alien episode scared the hell out of her. She fled the room saying, “Not this one! Not this one!” The other more experimental episodes never manage to keep her interest.

Clara is invested in The Wonder Pets because of the promise of baby animals being saved and returned to their parents by the three characters who she adores. 

It’s a good lesson for authors who sometimes offer the reader one thing but then give them another. This can happen when authors fail to remain faithful to the genre in which they are writing, infusing their fantasy novel with a sudden splash of science fiction or bringing serious social commentary into what was supposed to be an escapist detective or romance story.

Authors make promises to readers and then must deliver on them because readers are not simply empty vessels awaiting for the author to impart whatever wisdom he or she deems worthy.  Readers are discerning customers who need to be able to trust an author before investing time and money into a book. There are many reasons that readers purchase books, but it is rarely because they think the author is a wonderful person and whatever he or she has to say will be worthy. Most often, they buy books because of a promise made by the author. A promise of genre or character or plot or quality of the writing.

Authors must be sure to keep these promises or risk having their readers shout, “Not this one! Not this one!"

The Ground Round still exists. Apparently for the hipster cocktail crowd.

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I had no idea that the Ground Round still existed. 

It does. 30 locations in 13 sates, including Saco, Maine, where I found this one attached to a movie theater. 

I knew very little about this terribly named restaurant, but based upon what I read, I don't have much hope for its survival. 

“Ground Round was well known in the 1970s and 1980s for its children’s parties, showing old time silent movies and cartoons on a big screen, a mascot named Bingo the Clown, and for passing out whole peanuts where diners were not discouraged from throwing the shells on the floor, which became one of The Ground Round’s more endearing qualities that attracted families with small children; they also often gave diners popcorn with their dinner, rather than bread. The newest incarnation of Ground Round doesn’t support such behavior and markets to the adult dining and cocktails crowd, ”

"Adult dining and the cocktails crowd" at the Ground Round?

Perhaps they should consider a name change if they hope to attract anyone who cares about words.