The Editorial Training blog

Rebuild the English language from the bottom up?

2011-11-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

English is a poor choice for a lingua franca.

Despite its relatively simple grammar, it has so many quirks and special cases that it must be fiendishly hard to learn for non-native speakers. Those of us who have tried to explain some of the rules (or exceptions) must be used to the confused stares and protests of 'that desn't make sense'. Because very often it doesn't. There's no logical reason, for example, to prefer 'I don't drive' to 'I drive not'.

It's clear that it's history, not common sense, that's led to English being the common language for so much of the world's population. And while the very things that make English a great choice for literature – the vast vocabulary, the flexibility and the potential for ambiguity all make it a wonderful language for storytelling – those same characteristics make it a terrible choice for law, commerce and mutual understanding among non-native speakers.

And it made me wonder. Given that attempts to create a new, common world language generally seem doomed to failure (Esperanto, anyone?), might we be better off giving English a proper clear-out? Do away with some of the more bizarre quirks. Simplify the rules. And the spelling for that matter – the idea that English is sometimes spelt phonetically and sometimes not must be very confusing, especially for speakers of languages that are not written phonetically, such as Chinese.

There would be enormous obstacles to any such venture, of course. Who would be in charge of it, for one thing? And there are, I understand, already non-native English speakers, especially in the Far East, who do use a slightly modified, simpler and more logical version of English for business. So perhaps more radical, wholesale, change is just not needed.

More to the point, though, language tends to be pretty democratic, and attempts to dictate widespread rule-changes from on high are often doomed to failure. And perhaps that's the way it should be. English has been influenced by vast numbers of people and has borrowed words and expressions from all over the world. It is not logical, and it is not straightforward. But then neither are people...

The economics of regional book pricing

2011-09-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

It's been reported this week that Waterstones is considering different book prices for different regions. This is nothing new in this in retailing, and in bookselling it's not unlike the difference in price between hardbacks and paperbacks.

It is, of course, all about selling more books, but it's not just about that.

It's also about finding each individual's price point and eliminating what's known as the 'consumer surplus'.

Essentially, we all have an upper limit on the price we'd be willing to pay for everything we buy. Every time we buy something for less than that price, we effectively get something for nothing - a bit of a discount if you like. That's the consumer surplus.

Retailers would love to be able to charge us according to our individual price points. But it's not that easy. Most don't have the option of sizing us up and switching their price labels as we enter the store.

So they opt for the next best thing. It's possible to work out profiles for people living in different areas, which then allow you to make educated guesses: the individual price point for book X for people living in area Y is likely to be around £Z.

The trouble is that once someone knows they're being asked to pay a higher price just because someone's worked out that they'd be prepared to, the willingness to pay that higher price is in danger of evaporating.

Manufacturers can get over the problem by repackaging essentially the same product and giving it a different brand - two very similar cars, made by the same company, can attract very different price points thanks to the badge on the front.

But if the consumer knows that their local shop is charging more for exactly the same product than is being charged in another area, you have to wonder what this will do for customer loyalty.

So perhaps a different approach is required for the publishing world. Now that the ebook revolution is gathering momentum, there's already talk of doing something a little different with printed books - of making them more beautiful - more a luxury item. And the answer in terms of differential pricing may be to take the hardback/paperback distinction a little further and to push the more beautifully packaged books in some areas, while offering cheaper, more basic, products in others.

Why aren't politicians speaking our language?

2011-08-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

It's long been the case that politicians and those in the news media tend to speak a slightly different language from the rest of us. Ministers and journalists each have their own set of stock phrases, which they seem to adopt en masse, almost as if they'd all attended the same seminar... 'Let's be clear about this' seems to be the phrase du jour among the former.

But alongside these words and phrases there's also a way of speaking – one that seems to want to avoid strong language at any cost. You can understand this in the news media, especially those for whom impartiality is important. But aren't the politicians supposed to be speaking on our behalf?

Talk about the recent riots brought it home to me. I've heard rioters and looters being described, rather tamely, as 'youngsters', which somehow conjures up images of mischievous children stealing apples, rather than deranged morons burning down shops and homes. Rioters' behaviour is said to be 'unacceptable'. No – poor customer service may be 'unacceptable' – most of us would use stronger language (which needn't involve expletives) to describe what's been going on. It's almost as if the Westminster elite are shying away from expressing the anger that the rest of us feel.

There may be good reasons for this. The obvious one is that Ministers and MPs are being careful to avoid fanning the flames – a violent reaction to a violent situation is the last thing we need, and it could be that politicians are wary of making things worse with inflammatory language.

However, I think we're left with the impression that those who run the country don't really speak our language. Don't speak on our behalf. Don't understand what we feel. And I think that in itself is more likely to breed anger and frustration among the general population.

Google and the social media lottery

2011-06-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

... and what it means for search engines as publishers. Google's acquisition of PostRank (a social media monitoring service) has got SEO specialists speculating. Is search engine ranking for a given web page suddenly going to have a lot more to do with readers' engagement with online content?

At first sight, this all sounds very reasonable. You can understand why Google would want to increase the extent to which the actions and interest of independent third parties affect search engine ranking. These things are (usually) much harder to manipulate.

But if this is the way we're heading (I say 'we' - I'm nothing to do with Google and I've no idea what they're actually planning!), I'm slightly worried.

Because while Google et al don't do quite the same as traditional publishers when it comes to adding editorial value to written content, they do, through search engine ranking, apply the same kind of quality control as any traditional book or journal publisher. In other words, they effectively get to decide what we read.

And if (it's a big if, of course - as I said, I don't know what's being planned) what we read is going to be based on what gets commented on (celebrity scandal, anyone?) or discussed in social media, I don't necessarily think the cream will rise to the top. It would equate popularity with quality, and five minutes of reality TV should be enough to convince anyone that they don't always go hand in hand...

The 100 year old solution to all editing problems

2011-06-17T00:41:00.000-07:00

Editors and proofreaders can find themselves under a lot of pressure. After all, it's their job to do the impossible: to achieve 100% accuracy. We all know, of course, that no-one can possibly do this all the time. People are bound to make mistakes.

I recently came across a wonderful solution to the problem in a travel guide published in 1913. Towards the middle of the book, there's a small scrap of paper, bound in, which contains the following message:

TO READERS.

Every care has been taken to render this volume accurate and trustworthy. But changes take place, both in town and in country, with a rapidity which often thwarts the efforts of the most alert and painstaking writer. We should, therefore, esteem it a favour if readers discovering errors, either of omission or of commission, in these pages, would promptly inform us. Such communications will be duly acknowledged and the inaccuracies rectified at the earliest opportunity.

THE EDITOR.

Absolutely marvellous. Maybe this is - or was - standard practice, but I've never seen it before, and I love it.

From internee to internist

2011-05-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

Nothing ages you like receiving an email and realising that there was a time, well into your adult life, when half the words in it would have made no sense whatsoever. I recently received an email about iPad apps and usability (old word but new, specialised, meaning) that mentioned such things as 'swipe ambiguity' and 'navigation overload'.

This golden age of communications technology has spawned a plethora of new words and phrases – some, such as 'app' are relatively new, even to the technologically savvy, even if 'application' has been around for years. Others are better established – just out of curiosity, I checked my old and trusted, but now woefully out of date, Concise Oxford Dictionary to see what was there and what was missing. Interestingly, 'virus', in the computing sense, was there, as was 'email'. But 'internet'? No sign – straight from 'internee' to 'internist'.

Of course, language, especially the English language, is constantly growing and adapting. But I think there's something more at work than the gradual shifts to which we've become accustomed.

Because the very communications revolution that's led to all these new words and phrases means that those words can become embedded in our everyday lives with incredible speed. And developments that might once have taken years need now take only months.

A new word for this extended bank holiday break..?

2011-04-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Because, apparently, they have one in Italy. There, to take a few days off work between public holidays is to do 'il ponte' (the bridge).

It seems this doesn't happen quite often enough in the UK for us to have a word for it. Perhaps we should, though? What would it be? We could adopt the Italian. It sounds rather nice. Or use the translated Italian (which somehow sounds rather less attractive). Or come up with something completely different.

Any ideas..?

Evolving English - well worth a visit

2011-03-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

If you have any interest in the English language and you haven't been to the Evolving English Exhibition at the British Library, then (if you’re in easy reach of London) go! There is still just over a week before it closes (it runs until 3 April) and some of the exhibits are just breathtaking. In fact, it’s worth going just to take a look at some of the manuscripts and printed documents on display (11th century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for example). But there’s also plenty to learn from some of the video and audio clips, and plenty of common myths about English are exploded. You can even listen to regional accents by hitting buttons on a map of the UK. What’s more, it’s free to attend. I went with the SYP last week and was so glad I did. See http://www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/index.html.

Server-side ebooks - does publishing need to catch up?

2011-02-15T04:19:00.000-08:00

Sony has recently announced the launch of a music streaming service, Music Unlimited, and I can’t help thinking that a similar model would offer far more to publishers of ebooks than the downloads we’re currently getting used to (along with all the associated readers and file formats).

For one thing, this kind of service is device independent. You can switch phone, iPad, reader or PC without worrying about how to access your files, since they’re all held on a central server. Of course, you do need to be able to access that server, but it’s getting cheaper and easier to get online wherever we may be. And the client-side data storage options offered by HTML5 should mean that temporarily losing an internet connection need not be a big deal.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of server-side ebooks, though, is in updates. This may save editors and proofreaders a few sleepless nights. If there’s a serious typo or if the wrong draft has been used, just the update the file – no need for every customer to download a replacement. It would even be possibly to notify only those customers who had read as far as the page containing the error – the others need never know.

An unexpected educational divide

2011-01-19T06:48:00.000-08:00

Science seems to be getting really popular these days. And the weirder the better. Numerous books and TV programmes feed our fascination for the many bizarre and counter-intuitive theories concerning the laws that govern the universe, from multiple realities to particles that can be in two places at once.

Just a couple of days ago, I saw a truly breathtaking Horizon programme on the nature of reality, which ended on something called the holographic principle. And this is when it struck me that humans really don’t seem to be well equipped to deal with these questions. It appears that the closer we come to a genuine description of the way the universe really works, the further we find ourselves from something we can actually understand.

That’s not altogether surprising. There’s no evolutionary advantage in gaining such an understanding, and it’s perhaps more surprising that evolution has taken us to the point at which we can even scratch the surface of what makes the world tick. Most life on earth gets by perfectly well without that level of insight.

What may be distressing for some people – especially lay people – when it comes to these questions is that what appear to be the ‘best’ scientific theories simply can’t be expressed in natural language. The ideas are just beyond our comprehension – beyond our everyday experience and therefore impossible to describe in those terms.

Of course, the scientists themselves do – apparently – manage to get a glimpse of the ‘true’ nature of reality through mathematics. What cannot be expressed in normal language can be written down and in some way understood in the form of equations. And this makes me wonder whether this actually takes those scientists a step closer to a genuine concept of the ideas they’re describing.

If so, it risks leaving the rest of us out on a limb. In mathematics, there appears to be a language that describes the way the universe works. But most of us don’t understand that language in anything like enough depth. And that includes people who would traditionally regard themselves as well educated.

I can’t help wondering whether the new elite – those with the necessary mathematical skills – are set to take on a role that will appear almost religious to the rest of us.

Books that offer insights into the true nature of the universe, but written in a language that only a select few can truly understand… Where have I heard that before?

Time to accept the comma splice?

2010-12-15T01:13:00.000-08:00

It's one of those things that drive some people mad in a 'Why can't people write in proper sentences?' sort of way.

I have to admit that seeing two sentences lazily strung together with nothing more than a comma has a similar effect on me.

Never heard of the comma splice?

Here's an example:

'We will endeavour to ship your order within three days, however it may take longer.'

There are actually two sentences here. One is:

'We will endeavour to ship your order within three days.'

The other is:

'However, it may take longer.'

English has a number of ways to join two sentences together. The trouble is that sticking a comma between them isn't one of them.

What you can do is use a conjunction, such as 'and' or 'but' (often preceded by a comma):

'We will endeavour to ship your order within three days, but it may take longer.'

Alternatively, why not just use a full stop?

'We will endeavour to ship your order within three days. However, it may take longer.'

... or a semi-colon?

'We will endeavour to ship your order within three days; however, it may take longer.'

However, could it be time to ditch the rule?

Sometimes, very well-written literature is littered with comma splices. It can have a real affect on the pace of the text.

For example, 'Say what you want, I don't care' suggests hurried speech, with little or no pause between 'want' and 'I'. 'Say what you want; I don't care' just doesn't have the same effect.

And if the usage has become so widespread, how do we distinguish between a 'good' comma splice and a 'bad' one?

If the rule has become that the comma splice is wrong unless it looks OK or it's a good piece of writing, then that's no rule at all.

And perhaps it would spare editors and proofreaders much agonising if we just did away with it!

When common sense collides with logic

2010-11-26T07:28:00.000-08:00

I wrote a post some time ago about the ambiguity inherent in English (http://edittrain.blogspot.com/2010/06/trading-clarity-for-creativity.html), and this reminded me of a case I read while studying for my law degree. This was a very long time ago, and I may have got some of the details wrong (so please don’t rely on this as any guide to the law!), but I think it went something like this…

A van full of stolen goods was intercepted by the police, who, disguised as the thieves, went on to rendezvous with the people who had arranged to buy the items.

The police promptly arrested those people for attempting to handle stolen goods.

To secure a conviction, it had to be proved that the defendants intended to handle stolen goods.

This was the tricky part. As soon as the police had taken custody of the goods, they ceased to be ‘stolen’.

Even then, though, common sense seems to suggest that, since the would-be buyers believed the items to be stolen, they had every intention of handling stolen goods.

The trouble is that what common sense suggests doesn’t always go hand in hand with what logic dictates.

Consider the following questions and answers:

Did the buyers intend to handle the goods in the van?

Yes.

Were the goods in the van stolen?

No.

Did the buyers intend to handle stolen goods?

On this basis the only logical answer to the question is ‘no’.

I have a feeling that the conviction was secured in the end, but this does go to show how easy it is to tie yourself up in knots, and how poorly suited our language is to representing logical ideas.

E-ink + mobile phone = death of the e-reader?

2010-11-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

Because the paper-mimicking qualities (and long battery life) of e-ink displays are just about the only thing that make dedicated e-readers worth having. Now that e-ink is being incorporated into mobile phone displays, I can't help thinking that this is the beginning of the end for e-book-specific devices. Samsung's Alias 2 and the new Samsung Zeal (http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/36688/samsung-zeal-e-ink-phone), for example, are starting to use e-ink powered keypads. And with a new colour e-ink e-reader just launched (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20022237-93.html), how long before we see this technology in mobile phones? And who will want to cart around an e-reader when a mobile phone will be capable of doing everything the e-reader does and more?

Of course, we're not quite there yet, and, as the capabilities of different devices converge, I wonder whether we'll see a series of hybrids, with consumers opting for whichever reflects their primary use. Do you want a mobile phone for e-books or an e-reader on which you can make phone calls?

The liar paradox

2010-10-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

This is something I came across just recently. Someone says something along the lines of: ‘I am lying’ or ‘this statement is false.’ Our task is to decide whether what they’re saying is true or false. If it’s true, then … it can’t be true, so it must be false. But if it’s false … then it’s true!

See http://www.iep.utm.edu/par-liar/ for some really interesting discussion on this.

For me, the answer is ‘neither’. These just aren’t statements that can be categorised as true or false, and perhaps the difficulty we have with such conundrums merely reflects the fact that our language has not evolved to flag up any such problems; a sentence can be illogical or nonsensical and still make sense semantically.

This put me in mind of the way in which interviewers on the TV or radio will sometimes try to trap their subjects (especially politicians!), using a similar well-known ‘paradox’.

Like most people, I get annoyed when politicians refuse to give a straight answer to a straight question.

But I sometimes find myself siding with the interviewee when they’re asked something like: ‘Are you continuing to take bribes from this company? Yes or no.’

If the interviewee wants to deny having taken any bribes, the answer to the question is neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’.

Apostrophes changed for ever by a word-processing quirk?

2010-10-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

Not that I'm normally quite this picky, but ...

If you've ever tried typing something like:

Let ‘em go!

... in your average word-processing program, you probably won’t end up with an apostrophe in front of em.

Why? Because most keyboards don’t distinguish between an apostrophe, or closing quotation mark, (’) and an opening quotation mark (‘). As a result, your word-processor has to decide what it is you wanted to type.

You don’t normally find an apostrophe in front of em, so it reasonably assumes that you were after an opening quotation mark.

You weren’t, though. You were looking for an apostrophe. The trouble is that so many people have got so used to accepting their word-processor’s decision as final, that they seem to have forgotten (or come no longer to care) what an apostrophe is.

The word-processor induced usage seems to have become so widespread as to be generally accepted. Normally, I don’t mind. Really I don’t. But it hit home to me when it appeared on some TV ad or other recently, which had something like:

The class of ‘96

I still wouldn’t really mind, but even my (now pretty ancient) word-processing program can work that one out and automatically makes it:

The class of ’96

Two really annoying things about historical fiction

2010-09-23T03:19:00.000-07:00

I have a short attention span. I am easily bored. And if a book is set in the present day, something really has to happen very quickly or I will lose interest.

Turn back the clock 500, 1,000 or 2,000 years, though, and it's different. Well researched insights into how people probably lived, thought and acted in the distant past are, I think, fascinating.

There are just two things that you often find in historical fiction that I find really frustrating.

The first is the use of archaic language in completely the wrong time period. Say, 18th or 19th century slang applied to 11th century 'cockneys', who wouldn't even have been speaking anything like the English we recognise today.

I do see why authors do it; I understand that it's a device designed to take you into the past. And I can see that the alternative – to use entirely contemporary language – has its own problems (it's not historical fiction but, leaving aside the fantasy setting, the Lord of the Rings reads to me as though it's set in the 1930s or 1940s).

What I think is much worse, though, is for an author suddenly to switch a character's dialogue to the language they would have been speaking, only to have that character translate the expression into English.

For example: 'Veni, vidi, vici,' said Caesar, 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'

But Caesar – you're speaking Latin anyway. What language are you supposed to be translating into? And for whose benefit?

To me it's the literary equivalent of Lurcio's asides to the camera in Up Pompeii (keeping the Roman theme!). It just seems wrong in a serious novel. Again, I can see why it happens, especially when it comes to famous expressions, as in the example above.

But there's no need to put it in the dialogue, surely? Put the translation in the narrative and we'll all still get it. I promise!

Il fait beau, innit?

2010-09-07T02:52:00.000-07:00

There's a great programme on Radio 4 at the moment, hosted by Stephen Fry, called Fry's English Delight. Last week it was all about contradictions, and there was lots of really interesting stuff about the logic of double negatives, and so on.

But the bit that stuck in my mind was a piece by (the brilliant) David Crystal towards the end. He pointed out something which should be obvious, but which never occurred to me before. And that was that the much derided 'word', 'innit', derived from 'isn't it', has come to be used in just the same way as 'n'est-ce pas' in French (which also means 'isn't it').

I'm not sure this holds true in every case – I hear people say things like, 'He told me to get lost, innit', and I'm not sure you could use 'n'est-ce pas' in quite that way (I may, of course, be wrong – my French is rusty!).

Nevertheless, love it or hate it, 'innit' has genuinely added something to the language. What brought this home to me was the fact that when I first started learning French at school, I seem to remember that the teacher had some difficulty explaining the meaning of 'n'est-ce pas'. It was one of those things that didn't quite have an English equivalent. Now it does. So do teachers now say, 'It means 'innit''?

Does the world need semi-colons?

2010-08-26T02:55:00.000-07:00

Perhaps not the most pressing issue facing the planet. But I heard an interview recently in which a writer suggested that this particular punctuation mark was redundant, encouraged bad writing and should be done away with.

And you can kind of see the point. Except when it's used to separate items in lists, a semi-colon can always be replaced by a full stop. Shorter sentences tend to be more readable than long ones, so why make your sentences unnecessarily long by using semi-colons?

Certainly, a piece of writing that's littered with semi-colons will look untidy and will be hard to follow. But, personally, I think it would be a shame to do away with anything in the writer's armoury that allows for a little extra nuance of meaning.

The semi-colon allows you to create a closer association between two independent clauses than is possible with a full stop. If you want one thought to flow naturally on from another, then the semi-colon's what you need. It allows you to keep up the pace of a passage of writing, without the pauses created by full stops. So let's hang on to anything that has the potential to make writing just that little bit richer or more diverse.

Have we evolved to be bad proofreaders?

2010-08-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

I came across this fascinating article. It suggests a reason why we tend to see patterns that aren't really there: for example, faces in rock formations, etc. Essentially, it seems to be that seeing something that isn't there tends to have less serious consequences than not seeing something that is there. So running up the nearest tree when you see a log that looks like a crocodile confers an evolutionary advantage because, very occasionally, the log will turn out to be a crocodile...

What's that got to do with proofreading? Well, it made me wonder if the same mechanism is at play when we misread words. Could this be why we can stlil raed wrods eevn wehn teh lettres are in the worng order? (See also one of the entries to our recent writing competition, which was based on this idea: http://www.edittrain.co.uk/perfect_start_kersti_h.php).

If so, this tendency to make patterns out of apparently random features means that proofreaders are really fighting against the tide.

But it also made me wonder: if proofreaders do have to suppress this instinct, are they also less likely to fall for other optical illusions? For example, are proofreaders less likely to see faces in the shadows of Martian landscapes?

When is a three-letter word a four-letter word?

2010-07-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

Public health minister Anne Milton has caused a stir by suggesting that health professionals use the term 'fat' instead of 'obese'. Many people will have some sympathy for the view. Isn't it just a case of calling a spade a spade? Of reversing the tide of insane political correctness?

Well, possibly. But it made me wonder why people find the word 'fat' so insulting in the first place.

It's clearly not just because it's an everyday word and not a medical term. It's all too easy to say the word in a way that sounds insulting. And that's partly down to its origins. 'Fat' has Old English and Germanic roots, something it has in common with some of the more extreme swear words in the English language. The fact that it is a one-syllable word, ending in the hard 't' (known in linguistic circles as a stop consonant), gives it a short, sharp quality. It's just not possible to spit out 'obese' (a Latin-based word) in the same way.

So 'fat' is not just a word. Depending on the context, it's come to be an insult. And even if health professionals don't mean it to insult people by using it, it will be interpreted in that way.

Are we plunging into a new dark age without realising it?

2010-07-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

And can the publishing world help to drag us out of the mire if so?

Apologies for the mixed metaphors, but they both seemed to fit somehow.

Exhibit A: Paul the Octopus. Of course, it's not Paul's fault (and in fact, for all I know, the creature may be a genuine miracle of nature – it's not my place to say otherwise!), but he's the latest in a constant stream of stories that put me in mind of medieval levels of superstition.

To me, they're the modern equivalents of 'two-headed cow in next village predicts doomsday'.

And we seem to love it. My guess is that we've always loved it. And we always will.

It almost seems now as if the 20th century was a brief renaissance – a flirtation with enlightenment, where intellect and learning were respected, but that now we've reverted to type. Give us psychic octopuses (not octopi, by the way!), miraculous images on bits of toast, faces on Mars...

It's not that we didn't have all this a few years ago. Of course we did. But two things have happened to give this kind of thing more prominence and more credibility.

One is, obviously, the internet. You can now publish all kinds of pseudo-science and conspiracy theories online without having to go through any kind of review or approval process. A lot of the nonsense falls by the wayside, destined to be ignored.

But some of it gets noticed.

And some of it does more than get noticed – some of it wins the 'social media lottery'. People set up Facebook groups, start blogs. Before long, the tabloids get wind of the story, then the broadcast media...

And so many of us seem to be taken in. I think it's partly because 'giant spiders could be living on Mars' is just more exciting than 'geological features on Mars slightly resemble spiders' (I did just make this up, by the way).

But I think there's more at play. It's the same phenomenon that means you're guaranteed a great job if you can confidently come up with a lot of meaningless business-speak in the face of a rude and/or aggressive interviewer. Forget whether you can do the job. Just do the interview. If you can talk in a certain way, it almost doesn't matter what you say.

I don't know whether to love or hate the film, but we seem to be hurtling towards Idiocracy with alarming speed.

What's all this got to do with publishing?

Well, I think we really, really need publishers now more than ever.

We need trade publishers to look after our language, to nurture genuinely good writers, to thrive and to produce work that will not be lost in the sea of online material that hasn't been through the rigorous editorial processes that you will find in a publishing house.

And we need academic publishers to be just as vocal in debunking some of the crazier unverified pseudo-science as some bloggers are in proposing it.

This comes down partly to understanding the value of information. The trouble with the internet is that it has led us to believe that information costs nothing. That good writing is free. Journalism is facing the same problem. People don't want to pay for news, and as the traditional business models become unworkable, good quality journalism is in danger of being replaced by pure rumour. Because we've come to see rumour as just as valuable as real news.

To be fair, I think much of the book publishing world is doing itself a lot of good. Publishers are using social media and other technologies to show off the value of what they do. And there seems to have been some movement towards publishers strengthening their own brands, now that it's no longer enough to rely on authors as brands. The message has to be: you can trust this to be a good read – or to be accurate – because we published it.

Getting the most out of training

2010-07-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

How much do you learn subconsciously? Or rather, once you think you've learnt something, how long before you 'know' it?

I'm a bit of a serial learner – always taking some course or other. And last year was no exception. I was busily engaged in a programming course. Or at least, I should have been. Multiple house moves meant that the course took a bit of a back seat. And when the time for the final exam came around, I was far from ready.

So I did what students everywhere do – I crammed like mad for two weeks. And it worked. Well, it sort of worked. I ended up with a very respectable mark – not quite what I'd hoped for, but not bad at all. One question had stumped me, though. So much so that I was convinced there was some mistake in the paper. In the end, I gave up on it and tried a different one instead, wasting valuable time. I thought it through a couple of times after the exam, still convinced that there was something wrong with it. Then I forgot about it.

Nervous about the results, I couldn't bring myself to look at any of the course materials for at least a couple of months. When I finally got my mark, though, I decided to have one last look at that problem question.

It was easy. I could have done it in a matter of minutes. This was after not even thinking about the subject matter for weeks.

I think there are two lessons in this. For me, the most important one was not to leave it to the last minute! Cramming over a couple of weeks is no substitute for learning steadily. The second was more interesting, though. Maybe this works only for me (so don't rely on this!), but even though I had all the information in time for the exam, it really took more time for it to sink in. During that time, I didn't think about it (at least, not consciously), which made me wonder: how much does your subconscious work away at assimilating information once you've acquired it?

Englaland, England, Ingerland?

2010-06-29T03:59:00.000-07:00

An end to cries of 'Ingerland' will, for many, be one of the silver linings on the cloud that was England's world cup exit. If you're supporting your country, you should at least be able to get the name right, surely?

And yet, of course, it didn't start off as 'England'. When the name first came into use, more than a thousand years ago, it was 'Englaland' – land of the Angles. That's also what it continued to be for hundreds of years thereafter. So, while it's not quite the same, you could say that football fans are, by adding the extra syllable, just returning the nation's name to a closer approximation of the original.

Is there anything wrong with that? And does it matter why it's happening?

Presumably, the reason is to do with the many chants and songs. The additional syllable just seems to make the word fit a little more easily. In this respect, it's not unlike the extra syllable often added to the ends of French words in songs (think of 'Frère Jacques', for example).

As to the rights and wrongs of it, irritating as it is to many, it's difficult to see why it should be seen as any more reprehensible than the mutation of 'Englaland' into 'England'.

So, come on Englaland!

Just not this year, obviously...

Some great stories in our writing competition

2010-06-22T03:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who entered. We thought that there would probably be some good writers working in publishing, and we weren't disappointed.

The theme was A perfect start to a publishing career, and some entries were upbeat, some dark, some funny, and some just really fascinating.

We've published a selection, including the winner, at www.edittrain.co.uk/competition.

Can your native tongue affect your nation's success?

2010-06-15T04:06:00.000-07:00

I'd love to know if any research has been done on this. It does seem to have been established that being bilingual, or being brought up in a bilingual environment, at the very least boosts your mental agility (see http://www.livescience.com/culture/090413-bilingual-smart.html, for example).

And this made me wonder whether the intellectual demands of a particular language can actually affect a country's performance on the world stage, in terms of economic output, the propensity to come up with new inventions, or the tendency to nurture or discourage entrepreneurship.

For example, might the stereotypical German efficiency be due in part to the relative complexity of German grammar? Does fluency in Chinese, with its extra layer of difficulty (at least for English-speakers!), based on a falling or rising intonation, help you to think in different ways? Does speaking Japanese, which seems, to me at least, to be a highly logical and efficient language, make you better at thinking logically and efficiently?

And what of English? Grammatically, it has become relatively simple, and yet it is still difficult to master, largely because of its idiosyncrasies. It is certainly not the most logical language, although it is arguably one of the most flexible and expressive. Quite what that might mean for native English speakers is difficult to imagine!

Of course, the effect, if there is one, will also be working in the other direction, and it's natural to suppose that culture affects the development of language just as much as, if not more than, language affects culture.

And even if language does affect whole nations in this way, it is just one of many factors, so testing the idea would be far from easy. Still, I wonder if anyone has tried...?

Avoiding false economies

2010-06-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

There's a national debate right now about the when and to what extent government should cut spending. Huge cuts now could prove economically damaging, but there are those who argue that we simply can't afford to wait.

A similar problem affects many businesses, including publishers. Everyone is looking for cost savings these days. And full-time staff are often the biggest and most tempting target on the balance sheet. Training also tends to suffer in a recession.

But we should beware false economies. It's often the better paid, better qualified full-time staff who are first to go. That will certainly make a bigger dent in expenditure in the short term. However, inexperienced, junior staff may be left to pick up the pieces. They may lack the necessary training and, if the training budget has been cut, may not get that training any time soon.

This leads to mistakes. And mistakes cost money. There may be obvious direct costs, such as the need to reprint a book (or even a brochure) because of an error that was not picked up in proofing. Or there may be slightly more subtle damaging effects. For example, if the quality of editing in an academic journal suddenly starts to fall, its reputation will suffer, and academics will start to look elsewhere.

So, if it's necessary to cut back, let's hope that those holding the purse strings are able to make whatever savings are necessary without damaging their business. That's not to say that the onus should be entirely on them. Those that provide services (including training) to the industry should also be looking for ways to do so more efficiently.

Trading clarity for creativity

2010-06-01T04:32:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing that makes life especially difficult for the proofreader or editor, it's that the English language is in a constant state of change. Unlike the French, we have nothing like the Académie française to give definitive rulings on grammar, etc.

Would we be better off if we did?

Well, life might certainly be a lot simpler. There might also be a benefit in diplomatic and legal circles. French is widely regarded as the international language of diplomacy, partly because of the precision of the language, in contrast to the ambiguity often found in English. This must be due in part to the fact that it's possible to identify a single 'correct' version of French at any one time. In theory, it advances much as a computing language does, in carefully defined steps, as opposed to the gradual changes that take place in English. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that, and 'unauthorised' new words do effectively enter the French language, but the existence of the Académie at least means that it's possible to get a definitive answer when one is required.

The difficulty in English is magnified because a lot depends on the context. What might be acceptable in a novel written for teenagers may not be acceptable in an academic textbook. Knowing where to draw the line takes more than a knowledge of language and grammar; it also requires an understanding of the cultural setting in which a particular piece of writing will be read.

But it's possible that this great weakness in the English language is also its greatest strength. Ambiguity allows for creativity. The ease with which new words enter the language (and with which grammatical rules can become eroded) allows for new forms of expression.

Great writing needs great editing

2010-05-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Wolf Hall (winner of last year's Man Booker prize) and couldn't help wondering about the (relatively) unsung heroes involved in putting it together. It is a beautifully written book, and it must have presented a unique challenge to the editors and proofreaders who worked on it.

I have no insight into precisely how they worked, but, to my mind, they must deserve credit for striking that difficult balance between making sure the text is correct and not interfering with the author's style. There are one or two instances, for example, in which an over-zealous proofreader might have replaced the odd semi-colon with a comma.

Now, this particular book might have required lots of editing or none at all, for all I know, but it did make me wonder. How many great works of literature have seen the light of day thanks to a light editorial touch? And have any ever been stifled by an excessivley heavy hand?

Why make new media look like old media?

2010-05-05T04:02:00.000-07:00

I was trying to read some party manifestos online at the weekend and was really struck by what seemed to me to be an over-reliance on PDFs and document readers.

Yes, a flashy document reader can make it look as though you're flicking through the pages of a book.

But, once the novelty has worn off, what on earth is the point?

It makes perfect sense if you're looking at a scan of a 1,000-year-old manuscript, in which the look of the document in its original form is of central importance. But when it comes to manifestos – or catalogues or brochures for that matter – what you need is the content delivered in an accessible and easy to navigate format.

And when that content is delivered online via a web browser, the best way to achieve this is, for me, to use HTML web pages. We all know how they work. We all know what hyperlinks and navigation menus look like, and what they do.

Instead, I was faced with a document reader in which, when it first loaded, the text was too small. I discovered that clicking on it would enlarge it, but now it wouldn't fit on the screen. What's more, I found that clicking on items on the contents page would just enlarge the contents page, rather than take me to the relevant page via a hyperlink.

After a little while I got used to it, but I gained nothing from viewing the content in this way. You would never design a website like this.

Maybe the less computer-literate are reassured by seeing something that reminds them of a printed document.

But, personally, I don't think that making new media look like old media is a great leap forward.

London Book Fair not defeated by travel restrictions

2010-04-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

In some ways, the restrictions on air travel gave this year's London Book Fair a distinctly subdued feel. A number of overseas publishers had stands full of books and display materials, but no people. There were plenty of large empty spaces and lots of bored rights executives, although deals were, apparently, still being done (http://www.thebookseller.com/news/117130-falling-ash-fails-to-stop-hot-deals-at-lbf.html).

There was other activity too. The Society of Young Publishers (SYP), for example, ran a couple of very well attended events on getting into and getting ahead in publishing, and the Diversity in Publishing Network (DipNet) held a reception focused on the UK Publishing Equalities Charter, the consultation period for which has now been extended to 14 June.

As always, what went on during the day was only half the story, and various parties and events in the evening gave friends and colleagues the chance to catch up in a more relaxed atmosphere.

'Blond' or 'blonde'

2010-04-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

This is (or so I've always understood) one of those rare English adjectives that have a masculine and a feminine form ('blond' being the masculine and 'blonde' being the feminine).

And that is indeed what it says in almost all of the dictionaries I've checked (old and new).

There is, however, one that seems to buck the trend. It lists 'blond' as the US spelling and 'blonde' as the British spelling. Well, perhaps 'blond' is used universally in the US without regard to gender, but would anyone really refer to a man as 'blonde' in British English? That can't be right, surely?

Perhaps not – at least not right now. But we look to dictionaries to tell us what's correct and what's not.

Even if this is a mistake or a misunderstanding, plenty of words have changed in spelling or even in meaning on the strength of nothing more.

Do publishers make good writers?

2010-04-09T05:14:00.000-07:00

We're betting that they do. A publishing house is a natural habitat for an aspiring writer, and plenty of successful authors have started their careers as editors.

We're also interested in learning about publishers' experiences when just starting out in their careers.

The result: a writing competition for publishers. If you've worked in publishing (full-time, part-time, freelance or as an intern), and you think you could write a short piece about your experiences when just starting out, we would love to hear from you. First prize is £500, and you can find full details at www.edittrain.co.uk/competition.

New literary award to promote positive understanding and awareness of disabilities

2010-03-19T03:36:00.000-07:00

The Enrico Charles Literary Award is being launched by Charlotte Wingfield. Its aim is to promote positive understanding and awareness of all physical disabilities. The Award is in memory of Charlotte's son, Enrico Charles.

Writers can submit works of either fact or fiction, describing how physical disability can be overcome and how it need not be a bar to a successful life.

Entries should help improve the knowledge of those who are unaware of issues faced by people with a disability as well as offer information and support to anyone affected by a disability, their families and healthcare practitioners.

Shelina Permalloo of the Diversity in Publishing Network commented: "DIPNET welcomes any initiative that helps to promote positive messages about disability. This Award is an excellent opportunity to raise the profile of diversity in publishing as well as supporting talented and creative individuals into the industry."

There are two categories: one for published works and the other for unpublished writing. First prize for the unpublished piece will be £400. There are also two runner-up prizes of £150 in this category. First prize for the published work will be a bronze and marble statue of a sleeping child.

The deadline for entries is 4 June 2010.

www.enricocharlesliteraryaward.com.

Draft UK Publishing Equalities Charter

2010-03-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

The Diversity in Publishing Network (DipNet) has, in collaboration with a number of other publishing industry associations, produced a draft UK Publishing Equalities Charter. The document aims to provide a framework that will help publishers promote equality in the industry.

A copy of the draft can be found at http://www.dipnet.org.uk/downloads/Draft_Equalities_Charter.pdf.

When the ebook hype is justified

2010-02-24T06:59:00.000-08:00

There is a lot to say for the argument that ebooks are getting a disproportionate amount of media attention given the fact that they have yet to make anything more than small inroads into sales of paper books.

And, despite recent growth, I think ebooks will continue to have limited commercial appeal until their full potential is realised. While the standard format for ebooks (epub) allows such things as hyperlinking and the embedding of Flash files (assuming your chosen e-reader can deal with them), its set of features is still rather limited, and most ebooks are in any case no more than electronic copies of their paper cousins.

It's as if we haven't quite yet begun to appreciate what more might be possible or, perhaps more accurately, what more might be marketable. Because no matter how many features you load on to your ebook, it won’t sell unless they are features people want. There's no point in developing new products and formats just because we can.

Nevertheless, we have a unique opportunity to redefine exactly what a 'book' is. Which is why it's exciting to see companies such as Macmillan taking a lead, as reported on the Bookseller website. This new range of customisable textbooks looks like a well thought out and well researched response to a clear set of problems and needs.

Subtitles that discriminate against certain English speakers?

2009-12-10T07:07:00.000-08:00

One guest on a recent radio programme seemed to think that's what's happening. I recently rediscovered the excellent Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtnz – definitely worth a listen for anyone interested in language).

This particular item was looking at whether the use of subtitles on TV programmes effectively discriminated against people with accents that originated outside the UK, the implication being that having your words subtitled was a kind of put-down. The guest who raised the issue suggested that, by contrast, people with certain UK accents (which could be just as difficult for the majority of the audience to understand) rarely had their dialogue subtitled. He even went as far as to say that, on one programme, of two people with similar accents, the one who had negative views about the UK had his words subtitled, while the one whose views were more positive did not.

Could this really be happening? The suggestion seemed to be that this was some form of unconscious discrimination rather than outright racism. Either way, though, it's surely something that should be investigated properly and proved one way or the other (and, to be fair to the guest in question, he did say that more research was needed).

Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone would deliberately use subtitles in this way and certainly I've often seen subtitles for people with Glasgow and Newcastle accents in the past.

But it did get me thinking. If there is some kind of subconscious discrimination going on, based not just on the accent's origin, but also on the substance of what's being said, could it just be down to the way we process information? If someone says something we're not expecting to hear, or that we disagree with, do we literally find it harder to understand? Certainly (as any proofreader knows!), this seems to apply to the written word – all too often we read what we expect to be there rather than what's actually there...

Is it possible to write a book in 24 hours?

2009-10-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, according to Spread the Word, which has commissioned the Society of Young Publishers (see www.thesyp.org.uk/newsfull.php?id=372), Completely Novel and if:book to do just that.

The project starts on Saturday 3 October and the book will be edited, proofread and prepared for publication on Sunday, ready to go on sale on Monday 5 October.

How diverse is the English language?

2009-09-22T03:30:00.000-07:00

I've always taken it for granted that English is one of the world's most diverse and expressive languages. But I've recently discovered that proving it is virtually impossible. This is not just because of the scale of the research that would be required, but also because, while counting the number of words is one thing, calculating their ability to express different ideas and concepts is quite another.

So it's apparently just possible that English is overrated in this respect. But I still love the way in which historical quirks of spelling, writing and usage have resulted in a richer language.

Take, for example, the way that many words beginning with gu, borrowed from French, came to be written with a 'w' in English. So, we have the word 'warranty'. And yet, we've retained 'guarantee' and even, in legal circles, 'guaranty'. One word, spelt in three different ways, has become three words, with three ever so slightly different meanings. Similarly, we have words from different sources, which have essentially the same meaning, running in parallel, before the meanings start to diverge ever so slightly (e.g. 'get' and 'obtain'). And it's that nuance of meaning – the abundance of not-quite-synonyms that really makes the language come alive. It also helps speakers of that language to understand different ideas (a concept is much easier to understand if you have a word for it in your own language!).

Now that English has effectively become an international language, it looks as though this process will continue for many years to come. I hope so.

Did everyone in my generation miss out on grammar teaching at school?

2009-07-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

I learnt what verbs, adjectives and nouns were, and that was about it. I even remember one teacher being suitably outraged when he discovered the level of ignorance in the class ... but not quite outraged enough to do anything about it. And I know I’m not alone. Many of my contemporaries seem to have had the same (lack of) experience.

For me (and, it turns out, for quite a few of the people I’ve talked to about this), the saving grace was learning foreign languages. When I realised that my knowledge of French, Spanish and Latin grammar dwarfed my knowledge of English, I realised something was very wrong and decided to do something about it.

Should I have bothered, though? Does it really matter? So what if we can’t all conjugate our verbs correctly? If someone says ‘He done well’ instead of ‘He did well’, I still understand what that person means.

Well, from a purely mercenary point of view, it matters to the people who do get it badly wrong, because it will cost them. You may have been able to get good academic grades with poor English, but you’re unlikely to get very far in a job application.

But I think there’s something more fundamental at stake. The English-speaking world is huge. Imagine what would happen if we abandoned all attempts to control the language through education.

Some might argue that it would free the language to evolve in its own way, unfettered, and not held back by the fossilising effect of the classroom. But I believe we would soon be in a world where we would be unable to agree on a common meaning for even the commonest forms of words.

Education in general would become more difficult and law – which relies on unambiguous and clear language – would become almost impossible. Ultimately, the language would dissolve into a myriad of dialects, making it impossible to communicate with even our closest neighbours, or with different generations. Books would become unreadable within a few years of being written. For society to function at all, we would be forced to develop a common language – one with a clear set of rules and a well understood vocabulary. So maybe it’s not quite time to abandon the one we already have.

The real tragedy for those of us in the ‘missing link’ generation, though, is that things seem to be so much better in schools nowadays. Children are once again learning the basics of English grammar. Those of us who missed out had better make sure our own skills are up to scratch before we are upstaged by the next well-educated generation...

New book competition

2009-07-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

I came across something called the People's Book Prize (www.peoplesbookprize.com) recently – a new literary competition that lets readers vote for their favourite titles. There are three categories (fiction, non-fiction and children's) and the winners are to be announced in July 2010.

Of course, in one sense, sales figures already tell us which books are most popular with readers.

But this competition does do something different in that it offers a slightly more level playing field. Plenty of independent publishers have registered their books, and publishers with huge marketing budgets will have no greater visibility than those with no budget at all.

Perhaps this will give the chance for talented, but perhaps less well-known, authors to shine through?

What will we leave behind?

2009-06-26T03:07:00.000-07:00

Will we ever get to the stage where a truly great literary work is published only in electronic format?

If so, will it still be around in 200, 500 or 1,000 years?

I can’t help wondering if the rapid pace of technological change that defines our era also makes us incredibly short-sighted. I remember being taught how to use a word-processing program at school. I was told that it was very important to master it, that it was a crucial business skill, that it was the next big thing – everyone would be using it.

By the time I entered the job market, I’d forgotten everything I’d learnt about it.

But that was OK – it was obsolete anyway by then.

Of course, things will be a little different with published e-books, and I’m sure efforts will be made to transfer existing works to new formats as those new formats are developed. There is also work under way to ensure that work stored in obsolete formats will be accessible by current users (this looks like an interesting and worthy project: Keeping emulation environments portable or KEEP).

But this only goes so far. Because I think our high standard of living and sense of technological achievement belie the ephemeral nature of that achievement. There is no guarantee (especially with the environmental troubles facing future generations) that our civilisation will continue in the same form for the next 100 or 200 years, let alone the next 1,000.

So there may come a time when all that is left of this great technological age is what can be discerned from the archaeological record. And there is a chance that that won’t amount to very much. Even if hard drives, CD-ROMs and magnetic tape survive for generations, will future civilisations know what to do with them?

And if not, should we be keeping printed, written records of everything that is published electronically? Should we also be trying to ensure that those printed records are durable (something that, perhaps, goes against the grain at a time when we are supposed to be making everything biodegradable)? Of course, the trouble with that is that there is probably not enough paper in the world to do it. Someone could browse the web for a lifetime without coming close to reading all the content on it.

So it is inevitable that a huge part of the world’s repository of knowledge and literature is, by its very nature, transient.

This places a huge burden of responsibility upon publishers. They are the ones faced with the enormous task of sorting the wheat from the chaff (and you don’t have to browse the web for very long before realising that there is an awful lot of chaff out there!). And although their primary motivation is obviously to make money, we can also hope that they also have an eye on their place in history.

After all, it is possible that the work of the greatest writer who ever lived is languishing, undiscovered, on a web server somewhere, waiting to be given the permanent form of a printed book before it is lost forever…

The SYP's 60th anniversary celebrations

2009-06-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

The Society of Young Publishers is getting very good indeed at running some spectacular events. The 60th anniversary party that took place last Thursday at Shakespeare's Globe was quite something. (And this is not self-congratulation – although I work on the SYP's website, I can take no credit for the organisation of this event, which is down to some fellow hard-working committee members.)

People with decades of experience in publishing rubbed shoulders with those who are just starting out (along with some of us who are somewhere in between), united by a passion for the industry. It was precisely what it should have been.

And this by no means the end of what the organisation has planned this year – whoever organises the 70th anniversary celebrations will have a lot to live up to!

The future of e-readers

2009-06-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

E-readers – electronic devices that can store hundreds of books at a time – are beginning to make some inroads into the market for traditional paper books. And there is much to be said for something that gives you hundreds of books at your fingertips while weighing no more than an average paperback.

The trouble is, though, that most e-readers can't do much more. There is no colour and limited multimedia functionality.

And with publishers now starting to make content available via mobile phone, is this the future of the e-book? After all, why pay £200 or more for an e-reader, when you can get the same functionality on your phone … which you can also use to make calls, access the internet, send emails, etc, etc.

One answer is that e-readers typically have much more readable interfaces. A lot of time and money has been invested in creating screens that mimic ordinary paper as much as possible. The absence of screen flicker and projected light should make e-readers much easier on the eye than mobile phones or pocket PCs. There is also less screen glare, which make them usable outside even when it is sunny (and this is a frustrating thing about some modern mobile phones – I can't use mine at all in strong sunlight, in contrast to the first one I ever bought, more than ten years ago).

To me, e-readers as they are seem like an intermediate technology with a limited shelf-life. The interface is at the moment the only real advantage they have over other technologies and how long will it take mobile phone manufacturers to devise screens that will be equally easy to read?

Unless, that is, makers of e-readers can raise their game too. More multi-media features, full internet browsing capabilities, colour, perhaps – all without losing that easy-to-read screen? And what about flexible electronic paper – something that's been on the horizon for some time and is now becoming viable? People like the feel of real, paper books. An e-reader that seems more like a 'real' book will surely enjoy more success. And to really compete effectively [a split infinitive – I am obviously learning to be flexible!], e-readers are also bound to need the robustness of a paper book. Something that you can drop in the bath without it being a complete disaster. Or take with you to a sandy beach. Or drop on a concrete floor.

Even then, though, books are not just for reading. They can be conversation pieces and even status symbols. A full book shelf says a lot about its owner. What's more, I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks it's easier to scan a bookshelf for a title than it is to look through a list of titles on an electronic device. Perhaps, then, one day we’ll see virtual 'bookshelves' – wall mounted displays showing off your books in all their glory – touch a title and it loads up in your e-reader…

Maybe. But it seems to me that we're just getting to grips with lots of converging technologies – e-readers, mobile phones, pocket PCs, etc. When the dust settles, whatever we end up with will probably seem perfectly natural and obvious when it arrives. But books in their current form have been around for hundreds of years and it's going to take a few collective leaps of imagination to catch up with the possibilities that current technology offers.

Should anyone care about split infinitives?

2009-05-20T02:54:00.000-07:00

Because I can't help it. Ever since I found out it was something 'you're not supposed to do', seeing or even hearing one has made me cringe and want to change it.

If you're reading this, you probably know what a split infinitive is, but just in case you don't, it's what happens when you break up the infinitive form (e.g. 'to stop') of a verb by inserting one or more words (usually an adverb) directly after the word 'to' (e.g. 'to finally stop').

The grammatical justification for a prohibition on split infinitives has been widely debated and is tenuous at best. Similarly, their use has become more widespread in modern writing. In some cases, though, they really can make a sentence hard to understand. For example, few people would defend the following sentence: 'He was determined to, with every fibre of his being and every ounce of strength he had left, stop this from happening.' In other cases, they do nothing to hinder understanding. For example: 'He was unable to properly construct a sentence.'

Yet, for many people, they still sound so wrong; they grate like an out-of-tune violin because for years it was drilled into children at school that split infinitives are bad English.

And surely that is the point. Language (especially the English language) is a democratic institution. Surely, 'correct' English is the form of the language used by the millions of native speakers and writers all over the world? This is how the language develops and how formerly rigid rules at first become relaxed, then obsolete. It's why we don't use constructions such as 'thou art' any more.

But, by the same token, who's to say that new, more rigid, rules can't develop in the same way?

A rule against split infinitives doesn't need some kind of ancient grammatical pedigree for it to be valid. It just needs most people to agree with it and, just possibly, for it to make some kind of sense.

And there is a kind of logic behind it if you consider how hard it is to devise an abstract rule that would draw the line between split infinitives that make sentences harder to understand and those that don't. Perhaps that's what's caused educators over a couple of generations to impose a blanket ban.

But now, of course it's far from clear that most people do agree with the 'rule' (if there ever really was one). It is almost certainly on its way out: a grammatical oddity that survived for a century or so, but destined to be forgotten...

So I'll try to control my instinctive reaction to split infinitives in future, and be a little more understanding. Maybe I'll even include them in my own writing – but only if I think the reader won't mind...

Surviving freelancing

2009-05-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

If you decide to take the plunge and work from home, it could be the most amazing, liberating thing you ever do.

After all, you get to choose your own hours and you don't have to worry about office politics or packed commuter trains.

And, having tried it, I can confirm that freelancing has a lot going for it. But you have to make sure you're the right kind of person. Or, if you're not, you need to develop a whole new set of skills.

The first thing is discipline. It's so tempting to let things slip, but if you're used to full-time work, it can take time to realise that you have a totally new level of responsibility when it comes to your income.

So count the hours you spend working productively. Don't count time spent on trips to the kitchen to make tea, or on reading the BBC news website. The fact that you don't have anyone watching over you makes it all too easy to take liberties that you just can't afford.

When you are your own boss, you really have to be exactly that. You need to monitor and manage yourself effectively, or else you will find that too much work time is taken up by housework, emailing friends or looking people up on Facebook.

I find it quite useful to make sure I'm at my desk at least by 8.30 or 9.00 and then work at least a full working day (counting the hours - if I take 1.5 hours for lunch, I add another 1/2 hour at the end). As it happens, I tend to work much better in the evening, but this way I get to make sure that I put in at least a good day's work, plus another 3 or 4 hours later that night.

The only trouble with this is that you can end up going to far... Do take some time off! Even if you're extremely busy, make sure you have at least one day a week that's work-free. You'll find that you work much better if you're properly rested.

Oh, yes ... and do leave the house from time to time! The hours (and days) can fly by, but you need the exercise and fresh air that you would have got from commuting, going out at lunch, etc.

If you can master time management, I think you're halfway there. Of course, there are a hundred other things to consider - from taxes to sick pay ... not to mention the small matter of actually finding work.

But I think I'll leave those for future posts....