Blog On Hiatus

Edit This Blog is taking a siesta. I had my second child in early April, and as anybody with a baby knows, free time and sanity are at a premium. When I'm not taking care of the baby or my older daughter or just keeping up with life's logistics, I'm attempting to curb the neverending sleep deprivation. So I'm off for a while. See you later!

What Does "Feminist" Actually Mean?

One of my Facebook friends' posts got me thinking this morning.

What does the term feminist actually mean?

Let's start with our initial gut reactions to the term. Chances are you have already felt something just by reading the word feminist in print. Maybe it's positive, maybe it's negative. Independent of its dictionary definition, the word feminist has become provocative in recent years. We'll get back to that in a minute.

Here's the dictionary definition:

fem·i·nism

noun \ˈfe-mə-ˌni-zəm\

Definition of FEMINISM

1: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2: organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

— fem·i·nist noun or adjective

My Facebook friend posted because she gets incensed when she reads articles by people who take a pro-women's-health stance in the recent political debates on birth control, etc. -- yet these authors feel the need to state that they feel this way despite the fact that they are NOT feminists.

Somehow feminist became such a dirty word that people who arguably are feminists (at least, according to definition #1 above) feel the need to disown it.

And this is where Merriam-Webster's role ends and language becomes interesting. Dictionaries can't really capture the social, political, and historical events that give a word a particular connotation (at least, not until years later when that connotation has been well and truly set in stone, rather than being something that's still evolving).

Still, let's look at that definition for a minute. For most people, it's hard to take a stand against definition #1: "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes." (Notice that religious equality and biological equality are not mentioned; I find that interesting.) If you come out and say that you think women should be subordinate to men, or not vote, or not own property, you sound like an anachronism from at least a century ago. Very few people nowadays would argue that basic women's rights should be taken away.

Definition #2 has a bit more going on. "Organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests." Personally, I am a feminist according to definition #1. But according to definition #2, I am not a feminist. I have never taken part in organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests (unless you count signing the occasional petition on behalf of Planned Parenthood). Taking that into consideration, someone like me might want to disown the term feminist because it is inaccurate.

But people don't get irate because of a simple inaccuracy. People get irate because of the unwritten definition of "feminist" held by certain right-wing conservatives. It might read something like, at its kindest, "Women we hate because they are trying to upset the status quo, and we like the status quo." Or, less kindly, "Man-hating, ball-busting, despicable women who need to be vilified and not taken seriously."

My friend argued on Facebook that we shouldn't allow the right wing to cast a spin on the term feminist. But I find myself coming at this from a more pragmatic perspective. The negative spin exists -- period. It's out there. It's not going anywhere. Fighting its negative spin is fighting a losing battle. I'd rather invent a completely new term -- social equalist, for instance -- and leave the past behind.

What do you think?

That Poor Reporter

I feel so bad for reporters who have to write articles like this one:























Yes, "Beezow Doo-Doo Zoppitybop-bop-bop" is this dude's actual legal name. Read the full story here.

So, you're a writer just out of college. You land a gig with Reuters. Your heart and mind are brimming with thoughts of the world-changing, paradigm-shifting, brilliant investigative journalism you will produce.

And then your editor assigns you that story. And you find yourself squinting at phrases like "doo-doo" and "bop-bop" to make sure you can accurately separate the guy's middle name from his last name.

I imagine you'd either have to laugh, or cry. I hope you laughed, Brendan O'Brien. I hope you laughed.

Now that I look at him again, that crazy dude looks like one of my ex-boyfriends. Ha ha... I knew he'd go to pot without me.

Comma, Comma, Comma, Chameleon

Your vs. You're, Brought to You by the Third Musketeer

What he said.

Trash Fiction

"He had more connections to drug trafficking than whores did to herpes."

Aaaaaaand... that's how you know you're reading trash fiction, friends.

I'm reading this book by Sandra Brown. I know nothing about Ms. Brown except that she may have either (1) worked for the police, or (2) written scripts for CSI, because this particular book reads like a bad TV cop show. The plot is utterly predictable, the characters are shallow, and yet somehow you're completely sucked in.

It reminds me of when I used to watch that show "America's Next Top Model" (now in its 18th season, God help us all). There is nothing redeeming about that show. Nothing. Sure, occasionally they'd have a really creative idea for a photo shoot, like the seven deadly sins, or the twelve signs of the zodiac. And then the models would ruin it all with their stiff poses, wooden facial expressions, overacting, drama, bitchiness, immaturity, snobbery, teen angst, closed-mindedness, or being just plain dumb. And yet, I had to keep watching it to see what Tyra would wear, and who she would privately take under her wing or chew out in front of everybody, and what goofy crap Janice Dickinson would do, and the silly things the models would say, and of course who would win.

WHY?? My friends, sometimes there is no why. Sometimes there is just yummy junk food for the brain.

I do have plenty of love for highbrow stuff. But not tonight. If you'll excuse me, I need to pop off to bed with my novel to see what happens next with defense-attorney-and-secret-drug-kingpin Pinkie Duvall, his big-chested, malcontent trophy wife, Remy, and the cop who hates them both.

Why You Need to Edit Yourself

Or, full title, "Why You Need to Edit Yourself -- Even When Writing Your Facebook Statuses."

Today I finished reading the very funny and terrifically honest autobiography of one of my favorite actresses, Jane Lynch. The book was so good that I felt the need to pimp it out on Facebook.

But guess how I (mis)spelled her name. Let's just start by noting how close together the U key and the Y key are on a keyboard. Particularly a phone keyboard. On which I may or may not have been typing on the train while wearing thick winter gloves.

That's right: Jane Lunch. Love you, Jane! Have your people call my people and we'll do lynch!

Commonly Mispronounced Words

For your amusement (and, possibly, education):

10 Words You Mispronounce That Make People Think You're an Idiot

I totally agree with all of those, especially "expresso." I will never forget training, when I was 19, for my summer job at the cafe inside a Barnes & Noble. My co-worker who was training me began by explaining how to tamp down the "expresso" so that each shot would pour correctly. "And then we discard the used expresso here," she would say. I kept flinching throughout the training; she probably thought I had a neurological disorder.

They Say I'm Crazy... I Really Don't Care...

Correction... I agree with all of the mispronounced words in that article except "prerogative." I have never, literally never, heard anybody pronounce this word any way except "purr – ogg – uh – tiv". If anybody actually pronounced the first syllable "pre," I think they'd sound pretentious. (I also think "can – da – dett" sounds tons more pretentious than "can – uh – dett", but that may be due to my growing up in the midwest where nobody pronounces the first d in candidate.)

I remember asking my mom how to spell "prerogative" when I was a kid. My seventh grade pom-pom squad was doing a dance number to Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" and I needed something to write on the label for the dubbed tape that I was going to practice to at home (and yes, I did just admit all that in public... I say OWN IT, BETCHES!).

Anyway, Mom didn't know how to spell it. So we looked it up in the dictionary, but to our surprise, we couldn't find it. We looked it up under P-E-R, then P-U-R, then P-I-R. Then, in disbelief that we hadn't already found it under one of those spellings, we looked under P-A-R and P-O-R. Nada. It was ages before we figured out that it begins with P-R-E. Because NOBODY actually pronounces it like that.

If I'm wrong, do set me straight. But it seems impossible that I could have traveled the world and reached the ripe old age of 35 without hearing "pre – rogg – uh – tiv" if it is indeed as correct as Mr. Justin Brown (author of the above article, and "writer and artist living in Virginia") seems to think it is.

Poem: English Pronunciation

This poem makes me feel so incredibly sorry for the poor schmucks who have to learn English as a second language.

English Pronunciation
by G. Nolst Trenité
(as seen here)

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Accuracy vs. Speed in Online News

For shame, Associated Press. For shame.

Those who got their early on were able to retrieve their frightened children, but some who arrived later found the street outside the school lined with squad cars and blocked off. (From a news story published today)

Naturally this is not the only error ever made in an online news story. Not even from reputable news outlets like the AP.

And it's not surprising. The 24/7 demand for news leaves little, if any, time for proofreading. I'd wager that every single news story published on the web right this minute contains at least one error somewhere.

We value speed more than accuracy in the world of online news. I'm guilty of it too. I find myself getting annoyed if my L train is delayed and I can't immediately go online and find out why. Never mind that if someone actually did report it that fast, it would most likely be an inaccurate report, since only Superman could possibly have had enough time to gather all the facts.

We are the McDonalds generation, after all. We've proven many times that we'll take fast and cheap over high-quality. But junk news is like junk food. You are what you consume. Take in too much of it and it throws your whole system out of whack. Then if you're smart, you'll back off the crap and take in only the good stuff for a while. And if you're not smart, then you'll have the mental equivalent of indigestion. I'm not sure what that would look like, but I know I don't want it.

How Writers Sabotage Themselves

This is great advice, and a fun read.

25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing

It caused me to laugh out loud on the train this morning, making all the other passengers stare at me. Everybody, that is, except the dude who was blasting Michael Jackson's "Bad" through his earbuds so loudly that it became the soundtrack for everyone's commute. I surrender, buddy, you are just too BAD for me.

In other news, I believe I'm getting old. My first thought when I read the article's headline and first few paragraphs was "Really? Must we have all the F-bombs?" Goodness knows I've dropped my share of F-bombs in my life, so I don't know whether it's old age or parenthood that's making me allergic to them now.