The comma as a sign of respect

Liz Wolgemuth, who covers careers and business etiquette and all that jazz for U.S. New & World Report, asked a question on her blog today that is near and dear to this English major's heart: Does Grammar Really Matter Anymore? It's so near to my heart, in fact, that just hours before Wolgemuth's article appeared in Google Reader, my husband and I had been bemoaning the state of communication today in the U.S. of A.

That should be enough to alert you to our grammatical crisis, because my husband is not exactly a stickler for grammar. He's been saying "have went" for all of our 26 years of marriage, despite my stellar grammatical modeling and my occasional, pointed, maybe-a-bit-too-loud "have gone" by way of correction. And yet, he gets irked by the instances of grammatical looseness he encounters every day.

Here's the thing: I became reconciled to the fluid nature of language some time ago. I realize that language is an ever-changing factor of human life that shifts according to a multitude of influences, not the least being the ever-changing nature of human nature. Language evolves naturally.

But linguistic and grammatical changes become problematic when people make them intentionally and carelessly, without regard for the rest of humanity. Or English-speaking humanity, in this case.

The point of language is communication, but our ability to communicate with each other is severely diminished when we make up our own rules for grammar, spelling, usage and word definitions. (I'm OK with some forms of shorthand, by the way, if you're texting someone who understands the shorthand. This is why I don't ever text or IM. And yes, I know I just used "text" as a verb. I hate myself for it, all right?)

But here's the bottom line for me, as both an editor and a writer: Following the rules for punctuation and spelling and all the rest is a sign of respect for the reader. I remember hearing such great things about Cold Mountain, but after a few pages I found it was just too annoying to try to read dialogue that had no quotation marks. Plus, I had a hard time suppressing the urge to mark up the book. By all accounts, it's a wonderful book. I'll never know. I felt as if the author had ignored convention for an artistic purpose with little regard for the reader.

That's really what it comes down to—respect and regard for the reader. As an editor, I'm required to follow the dictates of The Associated Press Stylebook when I'm editing news, The Chicago Manual of Style when I'm editing books, and the style guides my clients have developed to supplement those two books. Even so, there are cases in which the style guides just don't make sense, and that's when I break the rules in order to make a particular sentence more readable and understandable.

What do you think? I really don't believe I'm off-base in suggesting that we need to consider our readers, whether we're writing an email, a blog or a book. Or am I?

Remembering Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I've hoped for a week now that I would be able to come up with a brilliant, poignant tribute to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, an author whose impact on my life has been immeasurable. Others have done far better than I could in the week or so since he passed away. But I can't let his death go unmentioned, especially after reading a New York Times article about the absence of a national outpouring of grief in Russia, a country that owes him so very much.

I was in my 20s when the great writer was forced to leave his homeland. This is a portion of what I wrote about him in 2005 in God Between the Covers, an annotated bibliography of the books that had a significant impacted on my life:

Several years after his exile, he emigrated to the United States, where he proceeded to alternately enchant and offend the media and the masses. At first he was a media darling and a trophy émigré for the American government: “Look! A Russian who found faith in a prison camp and got out and chose to live where? In the U.S., of course!” But he fell out of favor when he began criticizing the West for its complacency, lack of moral courage, and legalistic attitudes.

I ignored the backlash and concentrated on what Solzhenitsyn had to say, mainly through One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and his monumental work, The Gulag Archipelago, a disturbing account of life in the Soviet labor camp system that was based on his observations as a prisoner as well as the experiences of other prisoners. The Soviets did not take kindly to this exposé, which is why he was finally booted out. The combination of the depth of his faith and the courage it took for him to stand up for his convictions stood in marked contrast to what I saw in the church at that time (and, well, what I saw in my own life). I thought we could use a few more troublemakers like him. I still do.

God, send us more troublemakers like Solzhenitsyn. He stands apart as one of the true heroes of the 20th century.

The Photoshopping of America

I realize this is nothing new, and I'm pretty late to the game in writing about it. But I had a conversation the other day with a guy who uses an online dating service, and we got to talking about women (and men, I'm sure) who are less than honest when they give out information about themselves on Internet sites. Like many men, my friend has wasted time online with women who turned out not to be who or what they said they were.

Just as bad is all the altered photos. I personally know a woman who Photoshopped herself right into disfigurement, and she just can't see it. Even to the untrained eye, her online photo makes her face look distorted. To the trained eye, it's downright laughable; one of her eyes in no way matches the other, and one cheekbone looks as if it's swollen—but in a really odd way, not the way it might naturally swell up if she was injured.

This woman has fallen prey to one of the greatest deceptions to befall women in recent decades with regard to their appearance: that it's OK to deceive men by altering their photos, because once those same men are introduced to the woman's stellar personality, it won't matter that she's 10 years older or 20 pounds heavier. But it will. Because deception is crummy foundation for a relationship, which is presumably what some of those men, at least, are looking for through an online dating service.

I don't get it. Sure, my photo over there on the side of this post may not make me look so hot, but that's me. Not so hot, but honest. (Oh, and happily married...not on the dating market.)

Words and More Words

As you all must know by now, I love language. I have this ongoing love affair with words, and I'm so enchanted by them that I don't even care what language they're expressed in. So here's my current slew of words and word-related interests:

1. Out-woman. Isn't that delicious? It means exactly what it says. It dates to the 16th century, I believe. Can't you just see two brazen hussies going at it outside some remote rural pub in the Cotswolds, one of them shouting to the other, "I can out-woman you any day!"

2. New words. Merriam-Webster is finally adding "edamame" to the dictionary; edamame are immature green soybeans, and many of us have been eating them for years. Also to come in the next edition: "soju," a Korean vodka distilled from rice, and "prosecco," a dry Italian sparkling wine.

3. The Adventure of English. History International is currently airing this 2002 series, and I've TiVoed every episode. I especially enjoyed the one in which the host credited America with standardizing the language, much to the admiration of the Brits. Who knew? I figured they always thought we were the ones who botched it up.

I keep a running list of my favorite words, and it's getting ridiculously long. Do you? If so, what are your favorite words?

The International Christian Retail Show

I'm a bit late with this, but I don't much care. It took me three full days to recover from a recent 10-day trip to Florida, mostly to visit my daughters and the friends I left behind when I moved to Colorado last year, but also to attend the annual event known as ICRS, or the International Christian Retail Show. I'm only now sufficiently awake to post this.

I began attending the show in the 1990s when I was editor of Christian Retailing magazine. In those days, I had appointments on the trade-show floor every half hour or so during the day, early morning breakfast meetings, luncheons, dinners, and late-night events or appointments. I averaged four hours of sleep each night.

After I left the magazine, I attended as a representative of a freelancing client like Publishers Weekly or FaithfulReader.com, or as an author with one of the publishing companies. Over the years, my participation waned—as did my interest. This year, I attended three dinners that I wouldn't have missed for the world (thank you, Christy Awards, Baker and Tyndale), a seminar my literary agency held (thank you, Alive Communications), a women-in-publishing event (thank you, Guideposts, Sara A. Fortenberry Literary Agency, FaithfulReader.com, Nunn Communications, and the B&B Media Group), meals with industry friends, and a booksigning for my very own We the Purple: Faith, Politics and the Independent Voter.

That was it. I never "walked the floor"—which at an event like this means spending untold hours going from one vendor's booth to another, checking out excellent, mediocre and truly horrible books, the plethora of what we call "Jesus Junk" (cheap products, often ridiculous, with something religious gratuitously slapped on them) and the myriad services offered to booksellers.

Apparently, I wasn't alone in my lack of interest in the show. Attendance dropped to just under 7,500—the lowest number in decades. As recently as 1999, some 14,000-plus people attended.

So is it the economy, increasing travel hassles (which nearly did me in, I admit), the consolidation of mom-and-pop stores into large chains, meaning fewer representatives, or simply a lack of interest? For me, it's that last factor. With each passing year, I feel less of an affinity with the Christian marketplace and more with the general market.

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate Christian retailers, who work harder in a day than some people work in a week, or Christian publishers, who have been incredibly good to me. I just think that maybe this show has run its course. Back in the day, we faced an uphill battle getting our books into general market stores, and we needed our own show to give our books and other products exposure to retailers.

But no more. Religious sections in general market stores have expanded, and while they'll never compete with Christian stores in knowledge or depth or breadth of titles, they do offer exposure to Christian authors and let readers know there's more to Christian books than they may have realized.

Will I attend next year? Sure. It's going to be in Denver, a mere hour or so from my home. And the following year? Probably. It's in St. Louis, a much more manageable city to tolerate. Other venues in recent years, and to which they may return, have included Dallas (nope), Atlanta (no way), and of course Orlando (well, my daughters are a factor there). If they ever add Portland or Seattle, I'm in.

But no matter where it's held, it's unlikely that you'll see me walking the floor looking for the latest and greatest product. I'll leave that to the other 6,000 or 4,000 people there, or whatever attendance drops to in future years.

In Memoriam: Linda Pryor

"I'm Done" (Linda's caption, after summitting her final Fourteener a while back)

Early Saturday morning, the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the seemingly impossible happened: Linda Pryor, an experienced climber who had summited all of Colorado's 54 14,000-foot-plus mountains, died while climbing Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristo mountains in southern Colorado.

I am still in disbelief.

While Linda was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya last fall, I began attending the same small church she did --- and expected to feel intimidated by this nearly legendary mountain climber when she returned. But no. Instead of meeting a tough, aggressive, muscular show-off, I met a gentle spirit who lived to love, to serve and to climb. Her smile, her sense of humor, her faith, and her wisdom were all infectious.

Unlike Thoreau's men of quiet desperation, Linda lived a life of quiet inspiration. To me, she defined serenity.

Linda was careful, conscientious, and safety-conscious. She was a meticulous climber who planned and thought through every step of her climb before she ever left the house. On Saturday, she and her climbing companions had with them all the safety equipment they needed. Her fall was simply a freak occurrence. The photo below was taken the morning she died.

I would have trusted her with my life. Her climbing companions did just that.

I can't help but feel cheated; I knew her for such a short time. Tonight at her memorial service, though, I found not just comfort but also cause for celebration in this verse from Isaiah, which Linda and her fellow climbers shared in their tent Friday night:

For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

That's an image I can live with now, the image of Linda's beloved mountains bursting into song and the trees clapping their hands as she made her final ascent, straight into the arms of God.

Linda died doing what she loved, but just as important, she lived doing what she loved. We should all be so fortunate.

The Caged Virgin and Willful Blindness

How's that for a matchup? Actually, those are the titles of two books on my must-read list. Both examine Islamic beliefs and practices but from distinctly different perspectives.

I've read enough excerpts of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's The Caged Virgin to know that I want to read the entire book. Her more recent release, Infidel, provided a fascinating look at her life as an Islamic woman and traced her journey from Somalia to the Dutch Parliament. In The Caged Virgin, Ali offers a rebuke of Islam's treatment of women as well as a critical analysis of fundamentalist Islam and how it is perceived in the West. Her perspective is that of an insider who escaped being forced to marry her cousin and who lost her sister to the emotional aftereffects of genital mutilation. Hers is a compelling story, and that is an understatement.

My knowledge of Willful Blindness stems entirely from an interview by Hugh Hewitt on BookTV with author Andrew McCarthy, the federal prosecutor who brought the "Blind Sheikh," Omar Abdel Rahman, to trial for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. What struck me most about the interview was McCarthy's vulnerability about the mistakes he made and his shallow understanding of Islam. And then there were the many revelations about the lack of communication among government agencies and other lapses in national security measures that allowed the Blind Sheikh to carry out the attack — and that paved the way for the 9/11 attacks. An equally compelling read in a different way, I suspect.