Literary Legs

Did espn.com Need to Publish the Dead Luger's Identity Before the Family Was Notified?

By now, most people are aware of the death of the 21 year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili at the Winter Olympics.  I first heard of the account on ESPN's website soon after the accident.  The early story on the site had this to say, from the AP wire:

The official told The Associated Press that the International Olympic Committee received confirmation of Nodar Kumaritashvili's death. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the 21-year-old luger's family hadn't been notified yet.

There was no immediate comment from Vancouver organizers, international luge officials or the International Olympic Committee. At the Whistler track, officials said the IOC and VANOC were preparing a joint statement to be released Friday afternoon.

(See screenshot of full article here)

What troubled me, in the immediate aftermath of the event, was the willingness of so many news outlets to reveal Kumaritashvili's identity before it had been officially released by the IOC, who was holding off until his family had been notified.  Many can be blamed here, starting with the "official" who released the luger's name to the media, upholding the long tradition of the IOC's moral integrity. 

But what about the AP?  They obviously knew Kumaritashvili's identity before the family had been told.  Did they need to put that information out?  "If we didn't, somebody else would have" is not good enough for me.  And what about ESPN?  Did they have to post the AP story verbatim?  Could they have posted the story without the luger's name? 

I have to wonder if both the AP and ESPN would have shown the same deference if an American luger had been killed.  Assuming ESPN is not as big in Georgia as it in the United States, maybe that made it easier. 

Along those lines, NBC was criticized for showing Kumaritashvili's final run several times on its evening newscast, along with the disclaimer that "what you are about to see is extremely graphic and disturbing"--words that, of course, only make more people salivate.  In the video clip, we see the luger fly off his sled and slam into a metal pole.  He is killed instantly. We see the impact from behind, so we never see Kumaritashvili's face.  Had the camera angle been a head-on shot--allowing us to see the luger's face at the moment of death--I don't think NBC would have shown it.  And again, I have to wonder: if this involved an American luger, would this moment of death been so prominently displayed? 

In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, Americans saw death and dying up close in an endless stream of photographs and videos, over every news outlet and every medium, in ways that we have never seen before.  I was surprised that NBC decided to show Kumaritashvili's death.  Has the Haitian tragedy shifted the bounds of what is acceptable to show on television? 

Kevin Pollak Tells Attorneys Why Adverbs Are Bad

I recently wrote about why the word clearly is such a worthless intensifier in any type of persuasive writing.  In legal writing especially, it adds nothing to one's ability to persuade.  No judge reads the phrase clearly mistaken, for example, and thinks, "Well, I didn't think that your opponent was mistaken, but since you told me that he was clearly mistaken, I have to agree with you."

Clearly is an adverb, and there are those who say that adverbs are ineffective intensifiers in general because they are so vague.  They can also be bad because they accompany wimpy verbs.  For example, instead of she ran quickly, why not just say she sped?  The latter example is also more concise.

Of course, I am just a lowly English PhD offering you my advice.  You're probably much more likely to listen to a celebrity spokesperson give you a tutorial on why adverbs are often ineffective.  Especially when that celebrity spokesperson is a Hollywood actor who happens to be an attorney.  Or at least plays one in the movies, as Kevin Pollak does in A Few Good Men  (click on the link for the video, which I am unableto embed).  He discusses how the phrase strenuously object has no more punch than plain ol' object.  Accoording to Pollak's character, the judge is not likely to say, "Wait, you are not just objecting, but strenuously objecting?  Well then, let me take a moment to reconsider."

Keeping Your New Year's Resolution to Exercise

What's wrong with this picture? 

This is a picture from Tuesday's Wall Street Journal accompanying the article "Quest for a Free Workout." Rising health club dues, according to the article, have made trails, paths, and...malls more crowded with exercisers.  This is a problem in January, when newbie exercisers not following proper etiquette tend to crowd trails, paths, and malls by not walking or running in single file, thus adding to congestion.

These are "veteran" mall walkers in a Sarasota, Florida mall who are power walking in January.  They are part of a group that meets regularly.  It's a distressing picture on two levels.  One, they are exercising in a mall, arguably the most depressing symbol of suburban American culture for, among many other reasons, its faux outdoorsy look.  Save for a prison yard--and hey, at least that's outside--I can't think of a more depressing place to exercise.

But it's more distressing because they are in a mall in Florida in January.  Don't people move to Florida in the first place precisely for the weather?  Because the winters are pleasant, because they can be outside in the winter in sunny 70 or 80 degree weather?  Don't get me wrong--if it's a choice between mall exercise and no exercise, hit the mall.  However, this is Florida, the Sunshine State.  I can understand exercising in the Mall of America in Minneapolis in January, but Florida?  Get those kids outside, ladies, where they belong! 

Starting an exercise program is one of the most popular New Year's resolutions.  It's also one of the first that people give up on. And this makes me wonder: do people give up on exercise routines--specifically running--because they begin them in the middle of the winter, when it's cold and dark and dreary? These conditions are tough on anyone, even veteran runners; it's a constant struggle for me to head out in the cold darkness at  6:30am.  Other people begin their exercise programs at the local gym.  But while indoor aerobic exercise can be more comfortable, it's also mind-numbingly boring.  The only thing I can do on a treadmill is a speed workout, since the thought of a steady 60 minute run horrifies me.

So, I wonder, then, how many people give up on exercise programs not because they hate the act of exercising, but because they hate the environment in which they are doing it?  Do fewer people give up on exercise routines in warm weather climates than in cold weather climates, since the warm weather people start their programs in the sunny, pleasant outdoors instead of being surrounded by sweaty, stinky people in the gym?

My solution: move the New Year to June in the Northern Hemisphere, so everyone can start their programs outside.  I guarantee more people would stick with it. 

Warm weather outdoor running certainly boosts my motivation.  I frequently travel for work, and I go to Southern California three times a year. I'll be there next week.  So Saturday I'll be running in sub freezing temps here in DC, and Sunday I'll be running along the water where the high will be in the upper 60s.  My legs will be fresher, my lungs magically larger. 

The lesson here? Exercise outdoors (more specifically, in nature, since it's better for your brain, and especially if you want to be a canonical poet).  The change of scenery—no two runs are identical, even if you cover the same route—will keep you fresh and energized far longer than a treadmill will.  Or a mall.   

Let's Hope They Don't Look Up "Scumbag"

The Menifee School District in California responded to a potentially graphic text, brought to their attention by one parent, by banning the book from all school shelves.  This book is the dictionary. (see here and here)

Yes, you read that correctly. 

The Merriam Webster 10th edition is now a banned book after one parent, shocked at seeing a child actually reading the dictionary for fun, became even more shocked when the child stumbled across the definition for "oral sex."  Outraged that the dictionary would contain definitions of things that actually happen, the parent asked that the book be removed and that children no longer be able to improve their vocabularies.  Somehow, the school district caved to the wishes of one person. 

No word on whether the dictionary contains an accompanying image.

I guess if you have to ban one book, it should be the dictionary.  After all, it does contain every word in the language.  You'll certainly cover all your bases by banning it.  This makes sense, since if children can't use a dictionary,  they'll probably stop being curious.  There is no way--no way--that they will Google the term "oral sex."

In my opinion, this parent did not go far enough. We should not stop with "oral sex." We should ban access to any source that describes less-than-ideal behavior: murder, stab, shoplift, cheat, steal, gay*, lesbian*, karaoke, Electric Slide, flashmob, etc. Just get rid of all the deadly sins as well.  Certainly we should ban plagiarize from every reference source. If kids don't know what it means, they won't do it.  

But we have much more to be worried about than oral sex.  I can only imagine the logical next step for kids: Dictionary.com will be the new source for porn, where kids can delight in the salacious definitions of such words as

• Brown nose: "from the image of an obsequious person whose nose becomes soiled in kissing the rump of someone from whom favor is sought" (American Heritage Dictionary)
• Scumbag: "a condom" (Random House Dictionary)
• Putz: "a penis" (American Heritage Dictionary)

*this is sarcasm

This is Clearly Overuse

One of the common traps into which attorneys fall when advocating is the use of the word clearly.  Eliminating this word is one of the easiest revisions to make, since it means nothing.  If you use clearly, take it out.  Even better, don't start using it in the first place.  Clearly is an ineffective intensifier.  No judge reads a brief--or for that matter, no one reads any piece of advocacy, legal or not--and says, "Well, your opponent says that the evidence 'proves his guilt,' but since you said that the evidence 'clearly proves his innocence,' you must be right."  In other words, clearly never pushes your readers one way or another.  They do not say, "You said that something was erroneous, but had you said it was 'clearly erroneous,' I would have supported you.  That's a whole different story!" 

But don't take my word for it.  Here's what Chief Justice John Roberts told the Northwestern University School of Law back in 2007:

"We get hundreds and hundreds of briefs, and they're all the same," Roberts told a crowd of eager law students and faculty members last week at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. "Somebody says, 'My client clearly deserves to win, the cases clearly do this, the language clearly reads this,' blah, blah blah. And you pick up the other side and, lo and behold, they think they clearly deserve to win."

In short, clearly smacks of desperation.  I was reminded of this in a recent article by Alec MacGillis and Paul Farhi in the Washington Post entitled "In Obama's speeches, one favorite phrase: "Let me be clear.'" MacGillis and Fahri discuss Obama's overuse of this set-up in his speeches. They write that "in a presidency in which everything is murkier than Obama could have imagined, the 'let me be clear' preface has become a signal that what follows will be anything but."  Has Obama used the phrase so often that it is now cliche, a metaphorical device that once was to be taken literally but through overuse has lost all meaning?  

In the beginning, when he was still a presidential candidate, Obama used the device to say, "Listen to what I am about to tell you.  Sometimes what I say might be opaque, but I tell you this with no trace of ambiguity or shred of doubt."  MacGillis and Fahri say that once Obama became president, he used the phrase to defend against his detractors, to rebut them when things were really not that clear.  His opponents saw the phrase "as a sign of indecision to follow."

Of course, the other problem with overusing the phrase "let me be clear" is that it implies that there are times when he is not being clear, when he is not as assured or unambiguous or decisive. In his November speech announcing the troop increase in Afghanistan, Obama pronounced his clarity eleven times.  Not only does he risk tiring his audience with the phrase, but he also risks removing the power from the phrase when he really does mean to be clear. 

To sum: don't overuse any stylistic technique or rhetorical device.  When you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing. 

 

Men: You Can Stop Running Now

I am sure that many of my readers who run do so because it's a good way to look good and stay in shape.  Well, you can throw away those running shoes, my male friends, because all you need is The Men's Slimming Shaper:

The Slimming Shaper promises that you'll "get a more toned upper body – plus, you'll lose inches off your waist! In less than 5 seconds!"  Stomach bulges and love handles will vanish.

Now this may be true, but as someone pointed out to me, that fat must go somewhere. So while it may disappear from your waist or stomach or wherever, it's going to reappear somewhere else.  And in this guy's case, it'll all be up near his armpits.  Of course, what's funny about any advertisement for a product that enhances one's appearance is that the model never actually needs the product.  That looks to be true here.

A Lesson in Writing With Style: Using the Isocolon

The best tip for improving your writing: read everything you write out loud.  You'll catch weak areas--awkward sentences, unintended repetition, punctuation and grammar mistakes, poor sentence construction--that you would never catch reading silently. 

Good writing, as I've said before, is euphonic: it sounds good. One way you can achieve euphony is through isocolon, a method of parallelism in which the clauses in a sentence are of equal length.  Everyone likes harmony and parallelism, and balanced clauses are easy to read since they reinforce these two concepts.  Probably the most famous example is Caesar's veni, vidi, vici (which is also a tricolon, or the use of three parallel members).

So imagine my glee when I found this fantastic example of isocolon in Nick Paumgarten's essay in the January 4 issue of the New Yorker entitled "Food Fighter." It's a profile of John Mackey, the Whole Foods CEO.  Here's the sentence:

"Depending on where you are on the spectrum of epicurean cultural politics, you may consider Whole Foods to be a righteous grocer or a cynical con, a prod to self-improvement or a gateway to decadence, a neighborhood boon or a blight, a force for social good or a place to pick up chicks."

Let's break this down.  Each item in the four pairs below contains the identical number of syllables on either end of the coordinating junction or:

• a righteous grocer or a cynical con: 5 syllables
• a prod to self-improvement or a gateway to decadence: 7 syllables
• a neighborhood boon or a blight: 1 syllable (you have to use boon and blight here)
• a force for social good or a place to pick up chicks: 5 syllables

This, my friends, is what good writing looks like.  When we talk about good writing having style, this is what we mean, and it's tangible examples like this that teachers of writing--on any level--should be showing their students.  Your use of grammar and punctuation can be flawless, but you are nothing without style. 

Now That's What I Call a Stimulus Package!

It has been exceptionally cold here in the nation's capital, as it has been in much of the US.  I think it's been close to two weeks since I've run in temperatures above freezing (before anyone tells me that I am a wimp because they run in subfreezing temps all the time, when I lived in upstate New York from 2002-2006--the real upstate, near Syracuse, not the upstate above New York City--I regularly ran in subzero temps).

Running in the cold presents a problem because it's hard to dress for it.  My instinct is to dress for how I feel at the start of my run, not for when I am 30 minutes in and warmed up.  It's hard to strike that ideal balance, so I often end up overdressing since no matter how cold it is outside, I always end up sweating.

A couple of days ago I was running downtown in front of the White House and noticed a bunch of fire trucks.  Apparently at least one person has the same problem with getting too hot, though he took it to an extreme: he shed all of his clothes and started jogging down E Street.  No yelling or shouting, just jogging. Of course, the Secret Service stopped him.  From the Washington Post:

A man created a scene -- and a Secret Service scare -- near the White House during rush hour Wednesday evening when he stripped to the buff and took off running, leaving his bag of clothes unattended on the Ellipse.

The man shed his clothes near 15th and E streets, at the northwest corner of the Ellipse, about 5 p.m. Wednesday, then began running up and down E Street, apparently not dissuaded by the 25-degree wind chill factor as the sun set, Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley said.

"He wasn't yelling or protesting. Just going for a jog," Wiley said.

Full article here, including the apparently serious commenter who asked other readers for a description of the man because this reader often sees someone in that vicinity yelling out to no one in particular (yeah, like no one downtown does THAT).  Another commenter claims to know the runner and says that he did it to prove to people that cold weather should not impede them from achieving their fitness goals. And if that's why he did it, then I support the man!

Exercise=Good. Exercise Hard=Better.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal contained two articles on the benefits of exercise, just in time for the legions of people whose New Year's resolutions include beginning an exercise routine. One article, "The Hidden Benefits of Exercise" by Laura Landro, mentions how exercise plays a role in fighting off a variety of ailments, from the common cold to cancer to depression to Alzheimer's.  This is nothing new to anyone who exercises. "No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near-daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take," says one researcher in the article.

The Department of Health and Human Services recommends that adults get at least two hours and thirty minutes weekly of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, or one hour and fifteen minutes a week of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise, or an equivalent combination of both (see here for the government's guidelines).  According to Landro, you can meet the moderate-intensity guidelines by merely walking briskly for 30-45 minutes five times a week.

Dr. Paul Williams has a problem with this, according to the other article "And Why More May Even Be Better" by Kevin Helliker.  Williams studied 100,000 runners over 20 years and found that increasing your exercise intensity leads to even greater health benefits.  "Exceeding the federally recommended guidelines can reduce the risk of stroke, heart attack, glaucoma, diabetes, and other diseases by as much as 70% above the benefits of merely exceeding the guidelines," Helliker writes. The problem is that many of Williams's colleagues don't want to hear this.  They exclude Williams from guideline-formulating committees and reject many of his grant proposals because they don't want to hear the idea that more is better.

The DC Police Chief and Valspeak

An off-duty DC plainclothes detective received some unwanted attention this weekend when he pulled his gun (read and watch here) on a bunch of snowball-throwers who, after pelting his Hummer when it got stuck in the snow, decided to help him by pelting him with snowballs after he got out. 

In response, DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier put out an official statement, where she put on her best Valley Girl impersonation:

"Let me be very clear in stating that I believe the actions of the officer were totally inappropriate!"

An attorney at our firm once asked me if I could go over the rules regarding the use of exclamation points. I jokingly told him no. Since he should never be using exclamation points in legal writing in the first place, I told him, he does not need to know the rules. And Lanier's sentence illustrates my point.  They have no place in formal writing, whether it's legal writing, business writing, technical writing, press releases, you name it. 

Furthermore, the word totally adds nothing.  Is totally inappropriate any more severe than just plain ol' inappropriate?  It's a useless, meaningless intensifier.  Part of the problem, I think, is that inappropriate has become a cliche and itself almost means nothing due to its overuse in describing any type of behavior that we think is wrong: sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace, for example, or inappropriate behavior in the classroom.  Still, for those of us who grew up in the 80s, totally reminds many of us of Valspeak.

Lastly, this statement is loaded with the kind of metadiscourse (let me be clear, in stating, I believe) that weakens what is supposed to be a forceful position.  Metadiscourse is a discussion about a discussion, or a reference to our own thinking.  It is usually a waste of time and just gets in the way of the writer's message.  Sometimes we can use it to soften a message, and to be fair to Lanier, if she had written

The officer's actions were inappropriate

She may have been viewed as throwing a fellow officer under the bus.  So I think maybe one of the metadiscourse examples could have stayed:

Let me be clear that the officer's actions were inappropriate OR

I believe that the officer's actions were inappropriate

But all three?  No way.  If you teach a writing course, take a look at Lanier's whole statement. Use it with your students for a great exercise in revision.