Halley's comment

A writer likes nothing more than being read. And so do my chubby cheeks, like being red, that is, with the poignant flush of a bashful blush. Yes really, I'm still amazed, bemused, and captivated, still dazzled (I’ll spare you the rest of the alphabet) a whole week after being bowled over by a stampede of praise from a herd of business friends and relations, the recipients of last week’s NEEDSer Newsflash on the Bashful Blagger.

How nice to hear that so many of you read this blog and, dare I say it, actually like it. That made my day, so thank you foBBies (fans of Bashful Blagger), one and all!

My only regret is that all of you nice foBBies commented to me in private, by e-mail, which makes it hard for me to divulge, um, share what you said in public (well yes, there are limits). So do me a big favour. Please. Next time you feel the urge to interact, go to COMMENTS (click the link under any post). Who knows? If we all shared our views openly, we might get some open discussions going on here and wouldn’t that be fun! Don’t worry, you don’t have to post under your real ID, you can always put down A Non, or from Ur FoBBy, or use your own nick, Mick, whatever. Now that would be fun!

Since we’re still on the fun subject of crowdsourcing (um, are we? More like sourcing the crowd, if you ask me) (so who asked me?) you should know that SENSE is not the only place I go fishing for compliments, ahem, answers from my peers and superiors, as in "bolder and wiser" language professionals. On LinkedIn, I’ve got a public discussion opening up nicely on "realistic editing rates". I’ve asked: how many words can you edit in one hour? So far, for light proofreading, the going rate seems to hover around 8-10 pages (standard 250 words on a page).

For those of us lucky enough not to be dyslexic (lexic?) yet cannot count (like me) or, to put it more glamorously, have a light dose of dyscalculia (me two) (too!), this works out to 2000+ words an hour for some light proofreading. Funnily enough, this and other rates mentioned on LinkedIn for more complicated editing are similar to the results I got when I asked SENSE members the same question.

On LinkedIn, Susannah Driver-Barstow, a freelance editor at Prose Partner (greater New York area) put me on to the valuable editorial rate chart published by the Editorial Freelancers Association. Later on Susannah commented, “I do find EFA to be useful especially re the business side of freelance editing.” I followed the link and learnt that this “professional resource for editorial specialists and those who hire them” is packed with plenty of goodies open to the public. Check it out!

Talking of checking out, it’s nearly time for me to wend my way but before I go, did this week’s headline get you wondering, by any piffling perchance? We’ve all heard of Halley’s comet (due to swing past Earth again 52 years from now) but what was Halley’s comment and who did he say it to? Let me tell you: Edmund Halley (1656-1742) was an associate of Isaac Newton (1643-1727). One day (or night) Halley must have commented to Newton, “Come along old chap, publish or perish, pip-pip!” (or words to that effect) because without Halley’s encouragement and financial support Newton’s definitive work on gravity and other grave matters would never have seen daylight (or should that be starlight?).

So there you have it, Halley’s comment. Um, better not quote me on that. Let me leave you with a final note from Bill Hayley & the Comets, and dazzling footwork by Lisa Gaye & Johnny Johnston. Bill named his band after the royal astronomer, but obviously didn’t know that Halley pronounced his name not to rhyme with valley, or Bill’s name, but more like good lordy Ms Hawley. Hm… Hawley’s comet, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Or does it? Are comments welcome? What do you think?

Deep gobbledy joy!

Not so long ago one of my colleagues e-mailed the SENSE forum with a query about a copywriting term. “I need to crowdsource for this one,” she wrote. “What's the name for the key bit of text, often a direct quote, that you extract from an article and feature in a box?” As it turns out the answer is “pull quote” which sounds intriguing but isn’t what I want to talk about now. What really got my language cortex going was “crowdsource”, new to me but a term I supposed had been around for years. Google proved me right. There it was, defined by Grant Barrett in a New York Times column on the buzzwords of 2007: “Crowdsource ‒ to use the skills or tools of a wide variety of freelancers, professional or amateur, paid or unpaid, to work on a single problem.”

Wow, I thought. Crowdsource. What a good description of how the SENSE forum works. It’s so good I can almost forgive the word its gobbledygooky flavour. But what I can’t and won’t ever forgive is gobbledygook, for being what it is.

The G-word was coined in 1944 by one Maury Maverick in a memo banning "gobbledygook language" at the Smaller War Plants Corporation. Mr. Maverick made it up in imitation of a turkey's gobble in reaction to his frustration with the convoluted language of bureaucrats. So it's an American word but it has its equals in other languages including French (charabia), German (Kauderwelsch), Dutch (koeterwaals) and Italian (gergo incomprensibile). It's the converse of clear and concise, so confusing that no one can be expected to understand it.

Though I hate to admit it, it can be fun to play with, like on this Gobbledygook Generator presented by the Plain English Campaign, a UK organisation who have been fighting the good fight against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information since 1979 and who have some really good (free) guides to writing in plain English and handy (free) software like "Drivel Defence" to help you check for plain English in your texts (both docs and web texts).

Several other tools are available to evaluate readability, including the wonderfully named SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook), a formula that estimates the years of education needed to fully understand a piece of writing. It’s important to understand the issue of readability as it can have serious consequences. As Amy S. Hedman points out in Using the SMOG formula to revise a health-related document (American Journal of Health Education), “nearly 50% of American adults are functionally or marginally illiterate and lack skills to read and understand recommendations for preventive health, self-care and screenings, and treatment, thereby leading to poorer health outcomes. One solution to health illiteracy is for health professionals to … develop skills, strategies, and tools to ensure their messages are understood by the intended audience.”

Another solution, for all writers (not just health professionals) wanting to reach an audience, is to subject your writing (docs, web texts) to the pernickety pen of a professional pedant, a language editor who cares about the importance of clear communication and can help you to achieve it. Not that I’m plugging my own language editing service, of course, not (ahem). It’s just that I’d thought you’d like to know that on ReadAble, the readability test tool, NEEDSer scores an easy 8.7 on the SMOG scale, which means it should be easily understood by 12th-graders, that is, 17-18 year olds, my youngest clients. Needless to say (ahem), that goes to show I practise wot I preach.

Let me leave you now with a master practitioner. Rejoico! Stanley Unwin apparates in advertibold for Amstrad Wordyprocessor from approximilotions 1987. Featrisodes manily fantalistic wordings from the worldidode's grotelidiest linguabold. Deep joy!

Tarot, Dare or Promise?

One of my best friends is under the mad delusion that as a freelancer I won’t be touched by the economic crisis. Yes, just yesterday Roz (the Follower skulking behind the Fanny Ardant avatar) said to me on the phone, “What crisis? You’ve got nothing to worry about.” She added a mellow, dramatic laugh that sounded like she’d be twirling her moustache if she had one (well, she does have a teensy smidgeon of one)(oops, sorry Roz) and went on to claim, “NEEDSer must be making you a fortune.”

Reader, my dear, my ears flipped and flopped in horror (see last week’s episode) as I rounded on Roz to retort: “How can you be so unrealistic? NEEDSer is doing fine, thank you very much for asking, but making me a fortune? B*ll*cks!”

I’ll spare you the details of the rude tiff that followed and pass on to the cause of Roz’s conviction that my English editing business (freelance, so by definition uncertain) is indeed booming and will continue to boom well into the future. Evidently Roz had faith in my talent and confidence in my acumen! It was rather flattering, but she flattened my fragile ego in her usual snarky fashion. “It’s nothing to do with you. The Tarot says so."

So. It seems my gullible galpal is an astrojunkie who gets "insightful guidance" in the form of Tarot readings e-mailed by Astrocenter dot com. Roz is so taken by the good value of the (free) readings popping daily into her inbox that she created a (free) astroprofile for me, supposedly as a present for my birthday, coming up soon (April 10, if you must know). But she couldn’t wait, and sent me my first reading yesterday after putting down the phone:

“The World and the Moon are in charge of your life today! Your work will be your fortune. You're not short of ideas (the Moon) and your actions open up new horizons (the World). Your plans are destined to succeed in a way that will cover you with glory.”

Well, glory be! It’s written in the cards, so it must be true. But only for yesterday. This morning I opened the second dose of astroguidance that landed in my inbox:

“In your professional life, the presence of Death and the Lovers indicates difficulties. A project might suddenly be cancelled, or fall through. Try to see it in context. Concentrate on those projects that are going ahead, rather than crying over spilt milk.”

Harrumph, I said, and got on with my work. Funnily enough, not long after a student e-mailed in response to the budget price I’d quoted for editing his 80-page dissertation. His reply began well, it looked like he’d accepted my price until I saw he had (wilfully?) confused the full price with the bit that goes to the taxman (19% value-added tax). The student ended by asking why-o-why could I not start working for him this weekend.

Alas, pressure of work compelled me to lose this considerate job offer. I smiled (winsomely) and went on editing the 106,799-word book that is keeping me busy for the foreseeable future. Hang on, I thought, half a sentence later. Dare I say this is the spilt milk the Tarot promised me for today? I rattled off an e-mail to tell Roz what had happened. I should have known better. The response I received from my clever friend was truthful and to the point:
“I taro-ld you so.”

Roz won’t mind if I leave you now with the truly unbelievable Fanny Ardent, doyenne des filles libérées, doing what comes naturally in 8 Femmes, our favourite François Ozon film.
A la prochaine!

Renvois de la Roz
Thanks to Astrocenter.com, Inc. where I found the Tarot card illustrations. Now Roz tells me I’ll find financial enlightenment if I turn to their GOLD Tarot reading (only $6.95 USD). Truth to tell, I don’t dare. Why don't you go first, but promise not to blame the Blagger if your pot of gold turns out to be made of brass?

Very Bunny

As Easter draws near it is time for my annual confession. Yes, dear Reader, I’m not Ragini Werner, your freelance editor and author’s friend who’s been faffing about online blowing NEEDSer’s horn to all and sundry (more sundry than all at this early stage). No indeed. I am in fact the Easter Bunny. You’d never have guessed it, but I do declare it’s true. I am the Bunny. Not just any Bunny, the Dutch Easter Bunny or Hare to be precise: Paashaas.
Perhaps I should explain, for those of us not bilingual. For starters, paashaas may look like one word but it’s actually two (the Dutch do this joining up thing a lot) (like the Germans do) (well, stands to reason, Dutch is a Germanic language). To un-Dutch eyes it may look like it but you don’t say paashaas like ‘pash-ass’ (as in: kiss my donkey with fervour). It sounds just like the open vowel of the plural of Dad (repeat after me: Papas) and the open (etc.) plural of laughs (say again: ha-ha’s). Now, join up the dads with the laughs and hey presto, you got it! Paashaas.

Moving on quickly now, paas also rhymes with the plural of Mum (see below) and even the planet Mars, but in that case only without you saying the ‘r’. Did you know Dutch spelling is very WYSIWY Hear and that’s really handy but o yea verily, don’t get me started on spelling, that’s a whole other kettle of vis. To return to our lesson: when you add ‘r’ to paas you get paars which sounds like ‘parse’ (I know it’s hard, but do try to keep up) and paars means ‘purple’ and as an adjective it gets inflected when placed before a noun (unless the noun is neuter). In short, I am the Paarse Paashaas, otherwise known as the Purple Easter Bunny. And that's definitive!

What’s that harrumph? Don’t tell me you’re not convinced. But Reader, my dear, it’s elementary (or alimentary considering how many chocky bunnies head down that canal come Easter time). I am positively, existentially purple. Long ago I settled into my purple haze. I love purple. Take a look at how I use it in this blog, better yet click over to the NEEDSer business site and check out the purple there. Any e-mail reader of mine can attest to my propensity for typing in purple (fittingly so, I always feel, considering my proclivity for purple prose). I could go on (and on) but let me rest my case: Purpurata, ergo sum. ‘Clad in purple, therefore I am.’

Thank goodness we’ve settled the purply bit. Yet how does that parse with the bunny bit? See here, snapped for your eyes only, your not so bashful Blagger caught snoozing on the job. Either that, or it’s my holier than a rabbit warren look. If this shock-doc depiction of me having a bad hare day doesn’t convince you, then I really don’t know what could.

And what’s all this got to do with anything important? Well, my babbling on about Dutch is not mere digression. It’s my mad March hare-y way of pointing you to the best guide for sorting out the quirks and oddities of ‘Dunglish’. Living in the Netherlands, as I do, I do lots of work for people who write English with a Dutch accent = Dunglish. My job is to edit out the Dunglish and to do that well I often dip into one of my favourite stylebooks: Righting English That’s Gone Dutch by Joy Burrough-Boenisch, linguist, editor/translator and fellow member of the Dutch-based professional association SENSE, the Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors. Burrough-Boenisch may be writing on a serious subject, but she has a lovely light touch. Her puns still get me laughing, no matter how often I read them. Clear writing and clever wordplay, what more could a word-lover want?

I leave you now with Mama Cass Elliot, who (I am told) once told a reporter that prior to its release this hit song was nearly called Getting Bunny, Every Day. A case, perhaps of hare today, gone tomorrow? See you next week!

Call My Blag

So sue me, I’m a blagger. What’s a blagger? I hear you ask. Well, it's easy to define. One dictionary of British slang (see below) says:
blag: (verb) wheedle; bluff; wangle: I managed to blag a ride to work. Or: I had no idea what I was talking about but I think I managed to blag it. Likely derived from the French “blague,” meaning a tall story. Americans use “mooch” and “moocher” in the same context.Wiktionary adds this helpful little note: (Internet slang) To brag on one’s blog.

So, there you have it, I’m a bragger ...um... blagger but, believe it or not, I’m also a bit of a bashful one, with an annoying thing for over-alliteration that’s going to drive you barmy if you keep up with this blog. But I digress. I mean, it’s one thing writing a blog to market my business. I don’t have any qualms about that, what-so-ever. I can blather on about NEEDSer till the cows come home and have gone to bed after being milked to udder satisfaction but as I said, that ain’t the problem.

After all, I stand behind NEEDSer one hundred percent, believe unstintingly in the quality and value my native-English editing service provides to clients. And if I ever do suffer a dose of self-doubt which, ahem, does happen, for an instant boost to my confidence I only need turn to the Warmly Recommended pages on NEEDSer to see what satisfied clients have said about my work (yes really! No one was bribed or otherwise hurt in the making of this business commercial ...um... blog).
No, NEEDSer is not what the bashful part of the blagger is all about. It’s me. Little me. Like Sally Field accepting an omigod-an-Oscar-for-me type of Little Insecure Me (or LIM, as in “going out on a LIM”). Will you feel it? Will you like... erm... this blog since it's going to be all or nothingly devoted to All About Me and my life in the fast lane of freelancing. Working from my office at home. In my pyjamas. Nyah-nyah-nyah.

Guess there’s no answer to that. Not yet anyway. Just have to wait and see and judge by your actions and comments if you rate NEEDSer ~ The Bashful Blagger as worth following. Please don't be bashful. Do feel free to comment and let me know what you think of this one and all subsequent posts (added weekly). Believe you me, at least one of us will be watching this space.

[UPDATE] The Bashful Blagger has pulled up sticks on Blogger and moved over to Facebook. Join us there for more fun, frivolity and wordplay with NEEDSer. See you there!

NEEDSer is Online

Native-English Editing Service--NEEDSer for short-is--up and running on its own website.

NEEDSer specializes in editing the language of texts written in English or translated into English by Dutch speakers. No matter the level of English required--from easy to esoteric--NEEDSer serves your needs as author or translator and the needs of your readers all over the world.

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