The Lexicographer's Rules

Oh, yeah, one more thing: today Double-Tongued Word Wrester Dictionary celebrated its two-year anniversary.

And another: last night I got my first copy of my new book, The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English. It looks great! Much better than the last one.

It looks like my book has finally been released. Amazon has it for sale, anyway, and promises delivery in 24 hours rather than in two or three weeks (which is what it says when a book is pending but not yet released).

One of the many tasks required to put a book together is designing the cover. This is usually a task in which the author has little or no role. I was fortunate that the editors at McGraw-Hill did give me a bit of input.

However, for the past couple of weeks, due to foul-ups beyond my control, the wrong cover has been on display at Amazon. The correct cover looks like this:

It’s not bad, as such things go. Al pointed out to me that it would be better if the fellow’s arm was raised and he’s right. It would be like he was serenading the dictionary. I wasn’t able to make that change but I did have them change one thing. Here’s a detail from the first version of the current cover.

Rockstar has a microphone in his pocket.

I’m pretty happy with the cover as it is. However, the wrong cover that was up on Amazon looks like this:

It’s hideously ugly and clichéd. Using the headwords as design elements is a lazy artist’s trick. I can show you 15 books with covers like that and they all suck, but they keep appearing because they take ten minutes to design.

And that starburst! For fuck’s sake, there are Quark extensions that will do beautiful starbursts instead of that wretched mess that looks like the toupee Calvin will wear when he and Hobbes get old.

Also, the subhead is weird. It seems like that verb just shouldn’t be conjugated that way, like it should be “the slang, jargon, and lingo that is….” Yet, there are three mass nouns there, all using the verb “to be” together, so it also seems like it should be “are.” But “the lingo that are” sounds wrong. It’s clearly one of those “rewrite it until the issue disappears” situations, which is what they did for the new cover (although one version had the word “hecka” as an adjective when it is by far and away more common as an adverb).

I read a lot of books way beyond my age level when I was a kid. One side effect, besides learning words I couldn’t pronounce (a quirk shared by many people; I’m not the the only one who thought hors d’oeuvres was pronounced “horz dee-vores."), was that I often missed details or let my own brain take over to color the picture as I wanted rather than submitting to the tyranny of the author.

Particularly problematic were the descriptions of people. I either glossed over them or they didn’t stick; that is, I may have read them, but without very plain use of adjectives I didn’t get it. Writers trying to avoid “His hair was light brown” by writing “His somber mop recalled the drought-stricken African savannahs” meant I might not be able to make a coherent mental image. A ten-year-old brain is not a finished machine, you know?

Which is why, I’m abashed to admit, that I thought Huck Finn was a Black American and Adam Dalgliesh was from South Asia, most likely Indian. The latter image of the character persisted well past my teens until I read some later P.D. James novels and had his true ethnicity straightened out for me.

My mistreatment of poetry was more intentional. I hated the sing-songy voice that classmates would use when reading rhyming poetry aloud in class. It seemed too pat, too perfect, too predictable. The rhyming seemed to inhibit comprehension. So when it was my turn to read poetry aloud, I’d read it like prose. Completely ignored the line breaks. I made the most of the internal rhymes thus created and I’d give full vocal sway to punctuation and capitalization. I’d read it with a touch of drama, sometimes, or with a tone appropriate to the subject matter. Poe would be creaky and hesitant when I was reading about the raven—because what kind of ignoramus would reel off that beauty like a trite rope-skipping song? Dunderheads.

My readings would irritate a certain type of prissy hand-waving classmate and draw “you must be stupid” stares from unimaginative teachers but this is a habit I still have, and which I have no intention of changing. Tyranny of imposed form is to be resisted.

As much as I hate that sing-songy style of reading poetry, I am equally as irritated by the style and tone used in poetry readings. You know, that poetry slam style. I. cannot. stand. it. MAKES ME want to blow out my brains. The false, dragged out, trying to sound cool, think I can bring the beatniks back to life—YEAH—random words strung hung plung bung…hole rhymed mimed slimed crimed. Together. Jill Scott is an example. Ooof. When the Jill Scott music comes on, it’s time to leave.

Now this is the kind of fact-checking I like to see. Patrick Nielsen Hayden exposes liars lying about book sales.

One of the main themes Patrick and his wife Teresa always seem to be exploring on their blog could be called the broken window theory of politics: where there’s a small lie, there’s almost always a big one. Catch the small lie, catch the big one.

Let’s also add: any author would be happy with 4402 book sales since March.

(Source Link)

“I won’t let my children watch,” Stepanov said, pointing to her toddler son, facing the opposite way in the back seat of her car. ‘‘It is horrible. It’s like Hitler.” (via Maud Newton.) (Source Link)