McCloskey on Writing

I was never much in to composition theory. Sure, I enjoy teaching, talking about teaching, and learning how to become a better teacher, but early on I wasn’t too interested in the academics of it all. Over the last couple of years I’ve changed, though, and now I admit to being geeked out by the whole thing.

In particular I get geeked out by scholars in fields other than composition that talk about writing. To me it’s interesting to see what they hone in on, what kind of advice they give, and whether or not I agree with what they have to say. Needless to say these are pretty rare, but I’ve come across a few folks in the sciences who put a lot of emphasis on writing. (Though, I’ve also come across some who admit to writing dissertations for their graduate students, but that’s a whole different story).

What I’d like to highlight today is a little book call The Writing of Economics by Donald N. McCloskey. Humanities types who study political economy will know McCloskey (now Deidre) from her outstanding work TheRhetoric of Economics, which is theory-heavy and at times really tough to understand, but worth reading nonetheless.

The Writing of Economics is different. It’s short (54 pages), accessible, and immediately useful. It’s got a Strunk and White feel to it, but with more context (but less complete coverage), and provides the perspective of writing from an Economist.

McCloskey’s observations and instructions are valuable in themselves, and also useful for the writing teacher, because it provides some context on how to teach students outside the humanities. I can’t recommend this book enough, and I think I’m going to make an effort to excerpt it in some future works.

The Flip Side

It occurs to me that the casual reader of The Laundromat Blog would think me Negative Nancy and a nauseating grammar cop. That’s not really the case, though I do (as seen in my previous post) insist that people who study language professionally take the time to double-check their uses. In public writing, however, I really do feel that language is dynamic. This is not to suggest that flagrant misuses of language should be roundly tolerated, but a little evolution here and there never hurt anyone.

One of my favorite internet peeps, Karen from TrainWrite (who is herself an exceptionally elegant wordsmith), forwarded me this article from The Huffington Post wherein the author explains how and why people misuse the phrase “begs the question.”

Her analysis was interesting to me. Though I knew the term itself was a logical fallacy, I’d never heard the misuse described so well. (as an aside, maybe one day I’ll post on logical fallacies. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, anyone?). At the same time, though I found the article entertaining, I have to admit I didn’t really care. Though I’m not as impassioned on this topic as others (one way or the other), I think I tend to come down on the side of Stephen Fry, who wrote a couple of years ago:

“There is no right language or wrong language any more than are right or wrong clothes.”

 [[Note: This essay can be found online in several places, but the most interesting form is a dynamic typography piece put together by Matt Rogers: ]]

Again, I don’t go quite as far as Fry does, but his essay is worth checking out in its entirety nonetheless. What he claims does make sense to a certain extent. Much like President Obama is considered a great speaker because his language isn’t overly ornate, dressing it up to the point of arrogant misuse (as Triska talks about in her Huff Post article) isn’t necessary. But Fry also advocates language play, because English is such a rich language. Why not experiment? Such experimentation requires the speaker to be flexible, which means that rules can’t be overly rigid.

But there is, I admit, something inside me that wonders: can we chastise the people who write emails in mid-2000s text-speak?

R u @ wrk yet? Is it K if we meet 4 brkfst? Thx!

No thanks. But breakfast sounds great!

Inaccurate Language in Scholarly Work

A Recently Published Scholarly Article:
 

If Romeo and Juliet Had Mobile Phones

Barry Wellman (University of Toronto) and Lee Rainie (Pew Internet and American Life Project)

For Mobile Media & Communication, June 7, 2012

http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/RomeoJuliet/Mobile2a1-final.pdf

 If only Romeo and Juliet had mobile phones, they’d be with us now. Remember Juliet’s cry, “Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” (II, 2, 33). Nowadays, she’d ask “where are you?” which is what we often do when we send or receive a call on our mobiles. It’s not like the old days when you called someone on their wired-in (“landline”) phone at home or work—you knew exactly where they were and had a pretty good idea of the social and physical context in which they were operating.

A Definition:

where·fore/ˈ(h)we(ə)rˌfôr/

Adverb:

For what reason: "she took an ill turn, but wherefore I cannot say". As a result of which: "truly he cared for me, wherefore I title him with all respect".

It’s all semantics, I agree. In a previous entry I poked some fun at Rick Perry and his claim that Iran will “literally” move at the speed of light to wreak havoc on the middle east once the US vacates the region. I’m bringing the topic up again, because it’s that important.

In academics we practice neologism quite a bit. That is, coining new terms. This is how we get books like Gyn-ecology, or articles with ( ) marks all over the place. But there is a difference between making up a new word to describe some snazzy idea you’ve coined and just plain being lazy about language.

Sure language evolves over time, and maybe words change meaning as a result. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if in 100 years “literally” meant exactly the opposite of its current meaning because the bone heads win out over the English majors (which, by the way, Forbes really seems to be in favor of: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/05/29/to-boost-post-college-prospects-cut-humanities-departments/).

If there’s one thing we can do as humanities folks, it’s not misuse words. I’m not saying we all need to be hoity toity in our writing and speaking. In fact, I’d welcome a bit more use of words like “dude” and “hella” in academic work. But when you’re going to use a word, use it the right way.

On Rhetoric and the ‘So what?’ Question

 The only conference table in the English Department sat in a cramped space that some administrator once went to great pains to make look professional. This effort, while valiant, was ultimately hopeless. One of the handful of “statesman” scholars in the field of rhetoric sat at the head of the table; a classical rhetoric and composition heavy who was also my committee chair. Flanking him were two hard-hitting up-and-comers, one an applied linguist and the other a visual rhetorician. Lots of brain power in the room, and varying (if I were braver, I’d even say conflicting) opinions were flying.

One might say I planned it perfectly. Since all involved loved talking rhetoric, but none could agree on what should make up the field, my committee debated throughout my MA defense. It wasn’t until the last ten or so minutes that any really tough questions were heaved in my direction. Instead, it was a conversation, as these things are meant to be, but the zeal and superior knowledge of my mentors made me the quietest participant.

The classicist was also a political economic. He saw language as playing a major role in (you guessed it) hegemony. The only problem (said the applied linguist) is that such a vast base must be built to understand the issues at hand, that really what he studies is a kind of cultural studies or political science. Indeed, it almost seems as if the study of language is secondary when you have to understand the economic.

There’s a webtext that does a great job of explaining Victor Villanueva’s views on political economy and rhetoric (http://www.meatjournal.com/2_2/villa1.html). He states in this piece that:

“The role of rhetoric, according to Burke, is the demystification of the ideological. The role of political economy is the demystification of relations tied to the economic. If we’re to understand where we are and what is happening to us—and maybe even to affect it—we need the tools provided by both. But we think of “economics” as a numbers game. And we humanities types tend to fear numbers.”

The idea that he posits above would seem to support what I see as a problem with political economy as a field of study for rhetoricians. How, after all, can we be language experts if we have to become economics experts? Why not just study politics and economy? Villanueva clearly saw me coming, as he posits that “we might fear a little less if we come to regard economics as yet another instance of the rhetorical.” Diedre McClosky, who Villanueva goes on to quote, tends to agree, and so do I.

Think about our context as Americans. Privilege normalized. Whiteness normalized. From our framework, it’s common to be lacking in the language skills required to accurately have a conversation about the third world. The fact that we even have a term like “Third World” is telling. There’s a big difference between the culture and experience of a woman in Jamaica, and a man from rural China, and an infant in Tanzania.

Sure there’s knowledge beyond language craft. And a lot of it, at that. But if we’re going to study language, we’d better do it right. So on rhetoric and the ‘so what?’ question: read about politics and economy, but don’t forget to loop back to language. As rhetoricians, if we think this is the root of understanding social issues, we can’t forget to devote necessary space to it.

What do you think?