Sometimes I’m pretty lonely. I mean, being a writer is lonesome. It just is. It’s a lonely business.
One reason for this is obvious: I have to be alone when I write. Or silent, anyway. It’s an uncommunicative business, communicating via the page. I sit (or stand) alone for hours at a time, unspooling thought in paragraphs, and it’s ideal, really, to be absolutely on my own when I do so.
But there’s another reason, and it has to do with what writing makes one aware of. Writing makes me aware of writing. It makes me care about how things are written and said. And while this might seem fine at first glance, I can tell you now that you might not really think so. Given the chance to evaluate the things I care about– when it comes to writing, I mean– you might find me ridiculous.
You doubt? Here are a few examples.
The Newspaper
The caption under a photo in The New York Times on Saturday, February 9, 2013. The photo is a birds-eye view of two vehicles entirely surrounded by people. Shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, the people are pressed into and around these vehicles. The cars aren’t going anywhere.
I’m not really concerned with the drivers’ plight right now. Neither, sadly, am I terribly concerned with the concerns of these people over a month ago. What snags and holds me, what’s kept me saving this piece of newsprint since early February is the caption: “Protesters gathered outside the national library in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, try and block President Mikheil Saakashvili from giving an address to the nation.”
I probably should care more than I do about the plight of persons and government in Tibilisi. In fact, I know I should. But what I care about here is that little three-letter word between the two verbs in the predicate of this sentence.
I care about the and.
It shouldn’t be an and. It should be a “to.” See? “Protesters try to block President Mikheil Saakashvili. To. TO. TO.
The protesters aren’t doing two things here. They aren’t both “trying” and “blocking.” They are doing One Thing: they are “trying to block” (and, from the looks of things, succeeding in doing so).
What we are wanting here is the infinitive form of the verb “to block.” We are always wanting the infinitive form of the verb when we are trying to do anything. Try to reach. Try to sing. Try to sleep. Try to use the English language correctly. To try to do something is Entirely Different from actually doing it. It means effort. It implies desire. And it entirely suggests an unknown outcome. When one removes the “to” and inserts an “and,” the effort, desire, and unknown outcome are lost. And yet, this “and” instead of “to” is a mistake made All the Time.
But here is where my loneliness comes in. I know what’s true, which is this: Everyone knows what the caption under that photo means, even without the infinitive. Even without the infinitive, people have come to read the effort and desire and unknown outcome into the faulty construction of try and, such that the absence of to makes Absolutely No Difference.
Except to people like me. I might have been the only one sipping her Saturday morning coffee in that or any coffee shop who even noticed this grammatical error in an internationally known, widely distributed, and highly regarded news publication. Which makes me lonely.
The Radio
A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI rocked the world by resigning. This was a real shock– and with good reason: no pope has resigned his post in over half a millenium. Traditionally, a pope ends his term of service when he dies. This resignation was a Big Deal.
But Robert Siegel– of whom I am a fan– of NPR– of which I am a listener– said this:
After all, it’s been over 600 years since the last pope stepped down.
Do you hear that? Do you? Basically, what Mr. Siegel is saying is that there hasn’t been a pope in over 600 years, because the last pope stepped down over 600 years ago. First of all, I’m sure that isn’t true. There’s pretty much basically always been a pope since Peter. And second of all, I’m pretty sure that if there were no pope, Lots of People Would Notice, and Say Something.
But who cares, right? Everyone who heard that little verbal miscommunication heard what Mr. Siegel meant to say. I likely wasn’t in good company, chortling over it while packing lunches.
The Everyday
From time to time, I find myself missing definite articles. Surely you share in this longing, don’t you? No? Didn’t think so. Well, anyway, here’s how it goes:
Take, for instance, the outgoing message on my dear in-laws’ answering service. It says, in my mother-in-law’s voice, “You have reached Stevensons.”
And she’s right, of course. She is Absolutely Right. When you call that phone number, you reach them, and their last name is Stevenson.
But there’s always this little part of me that wonders, “Stevensons? Which ones?” Is it a collective? All of the Stevensons, or just some of them? And if it’s only some, then, again, which? A random collection, or a specific grouping?
It’s a “thing” up there in that part of the world where they live, leaving off that definite article “THE.” My dear Lynne leaves it off all the time. She’ll say, “We had Smiths over for dinner,” or something like that. Not the Smiths, I’ll think to myself. Just some Smiths, or maybe even all Smiths (sizeable crowd, that).
I find I want the the. I do.
Horrors. Bill– my own husband– points out that the absence of the “the” actually makes sense there. He points out that the “the” suggests a definitiveness that really doesn’t exist. My in-laws, he points out, aren’t the Stevensons. They are, in fact, (as are we), some Stevensons.
The definite article that I so long for in this construction, that is traditional, that would make me feel better, that is unlooked for and unnecessary to many– even most– is also, perhaps wrong.
Which makes me feel, yes, lonely.
My Work
Happily, I do have some control, if only in my small world. I can write things the way I like them, and make them say things the way I want them to be said.
I like this very much.
Example.
The other day I wrote a blog post about the Iditarod. I had to research in advance of this: I had a full page of notes. I wrote carefully, editing as I went. I read it over and over, sometimes erasing things, sometimes rearranging them. And when I was finished and satisfied with it, I posted it and felt Pleased.
It was hours later, sitting in our school’s gymnasium waiting for a play to start, that I realized the post had a crucial error. It was the last line of the penultimate paragraph, and I won’t tell you what it was exactly that made me suddenly blanch in my seat, but I will tell you that it was a cliche.
Cliches are awful. Always. You never want to write using a cliche (unless you are deliberately writing using a cliche, which is something for a different post). The cliche in that penultimate paragraph Absolutely Had to Go.
When I got home, I took care of this Almost Immediately. I cut it out. I rewrote. I ridded the post– and the world– of that hideous blight, and the post was Immensely Improved.
I know, I know. There were some who read it with the cliche and liked it anyway, and said so. They didn’t even see the cliche, maybe. And there were some who read it afterward, who never knew the change, and couldn’t care. And perhaps there is someone out there who read it with the cliche and then again without it and Never Even Noticed– and Never Would.
But I noticed. I saw it. The change, to me, is Such a Relief.
I am entirely alone in this, I realize. I simply have to be okay with that.
Happily, I am.
“This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.” –Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
