Rime of the ancient sub
THE crusty sub-editor is a feature of the newspaper world, an individual with a fetish for correct English and a disdain for the foibles of writers. In days of yore it would be a middle-aged fellow smoking a pipe. Today it might be a girl behind a computer. But the crustiness is a constant.
An item comes this way, a poem recited at the Observer Christmas party in London. It starts in the manner of Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
It was an ancient sub-editor and he stoppeth many libels,
Fowler's Modern English Usage and the ODWE* were his bibles.
We met in the Bodoni Arms, it was his favourite venue,
He sat alone, a pint in hand, and made corrections to the menu.
The ancient sub-editor is asked the secrets of his craft.
In the beginning was the word, but which word we'll never learn
Because a sub deleted it to avoid a widow turn.
And in the Gospel of St John, one chapter seems too terse,
Where the two-word sentence 'Jesus wept' appears as just one verse.
A sub-editor did that, my boy, and I shall tell you why:
He had to make a par somewhere 'cos the text was one line shy.
And so it goes, from age to age, in every realm and land,
You'll find the diligent sub-editor, a style book in his hand.
We guard our Mother English tongue, keep her pure and unalloyed,
Just see what dreadful things go wrong when our talents aren't employed.
We'd have asterisked out those filthy words Lady Chatterley learnt from Mellors
And if Dickens had but had a sub, his books would be novellas.
We know 'can' from 'may' and 'may' from 'might',
And never say 'less' when 'fewer' is right,
We punctuate punctiliously and are alert for innuendoes,
We can all spell 'desiccated' and don't rise to crescendos.
Of grammar and of syntax our knowledge is formidable,
Though frankly we don't give a toss about an unstressed syllable.
When it comes to writing headlines, polysyllables we eschew,
We have a taste for shorter words, like 'mull' and 'ire' and 'rue'.
Nothing is writ that can't be cut, that is the Subbing Law,
"Give me the Ten Commandments and I'll trim them back to four …
Lovely stuff. It so captures the craft of sub-editing.
*Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.
Glug glug glug
WHAT is a glug? The quesion arose the other evening in Adams bookstore at the launch of Plentiful: the big book of Buddha food, by Chrisi and Louis van Loon, PaulAtkinson and Angela Shaw (Jacana), a collection of recipes developed at the Buddhist Retreat Centre, near Ixopo.
There had been talk of a glug of olive oil here, a glug of this and that there.
Then at question time a lady asked: „What is a glug? When I pour a glug of wine, how long do I keep the bottle tilted?"
It seems there is no clear answer to this. It is one of the philosophical questions that have baffled the sages down the ages. You just pour a glug to your satisfaction. Glug-glug-glug ...
Tough guys
THE Twitterati are invited to enter the #SuperSageAppleChallenge, in which contestants try to squeeze or twist an apple into two parts by brute strength.
According to Huffington Post, the Challenge takes its name from Sage Northcutt, an Ultimate Fighting Championship combatant who specialises in doing just that to an apple.
Er, I think I'll pass. I don't feel like joining Twitter and I'm too busy tearing in half old telephone directories.
Tailpiece
A FELLOW is riding on a full bus when the gorgeous woman next to him starts to breast-feed her baby. The baby won't take it so she says: "Come on sweetie, eat it all up or I'll have to give it to this nice man next to us."
Five minutes later the baby is still not feeding, and she says: "Come on, honey. Take it or I'll give it to this nice man here."
A few minutes pass. Then he blurts: "Come on kid. Make up your mind! I was supposed to get off four stops ago!"
Last word
I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment