How 'bout them Realtors?

Ted Vaden, the "Public Editor," or ombudsman, at the News & Observer, got snippy about the profession of real estate in answering a question about why the N&O capitalizes "Realtor." And one responder used AP style as a reason for not capitalizing it, incorrectly. Below is my comment in reply.

I agree that the tone of this item is unnecessarily snide.

But, Editor Beth, you know a different AP style than I learned. While I don't have a Stylebook (its proper title, so it's capitalized!) in my hand, this item from the Realty Times puts it the way I remember it, and if you are using lower-case "realtor," rather than "real estate agent," you are not using AP style.

According to the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, Addison Wesley, a trademark is "a brand, symbol, word, etc., used by a manufacturer or dealer and protected by law to prevent a competitor from using it." According to the guidelines, editors should "use a generic equivalent unless the trademark name is essential to the story." When a trademark is used, "capitalize it," says the news bible.

To criticize someone else's usage, get yours right

Today's really the day for the Durham newsroom of the News & Observer. A third blog item, from the education beat reporter, gets all snotty about the local school system using a tricky word wrong, arguably. However, the post, School policy uses poor grammar, is itself wrong out of the gate by using the word grammar to gripe about a usage error.

Here's my post in reply:
The error in the item you are so distressed about is not of grammar but of usage - and by calling it grammar you have committed an equal error of usage.

See Lingua ex Machina, from MIT Press:

grammar Not to be confused with socially correct usage. In order to handle novel sentences, we not only need to access the words stored in our brains but also the patterns of sentences possible in a particular language. These patterns describe not just patterns of words but also patterns of patterns. There are three aspects of grammar: morphology (word forms and endings), syntax (from the Greek "to arrange together" – the ordering of words into clauses and sentences), and phonology (speech sounds and their arrangements). A complete collection of rules is called the mental grammar of the language, or grammar for short.

The Maven's Word of the Day from Random House suggests doing what I do - avoiding the word altogether - at the same time it quotes no less literate an author than Saul Bellow as using it the "wrong" way that upsets you so badly.

"Put together the slaughterhouses, the steel mills, the freight yards...that comprised the city" (Saul Bellow).

The American Heritage Dictionary allows that:

Even though careful writers often maintain this distinction, comprise is increasingly used in place of compose, especially in the passive: The Union is comprised of 50 states. Our surveys show that opposition to this usage is abating. In the 1960s, 53 percent of the Usage Panel found this usage unacceptable; in 1996, only 35 percent objected.

So I would suggest you unknot your panties and pay attention to something really important.

Sophomoric hijinks at the News & Observer

The News & Observer's Bull City blog, covering Durham, appears to have been taken over by 8th-graders. One entry today made fun of firecracker-safety tips provided by the Durham Fire Department, and another consisted of an informal contest to write a caption for a photo of a man with his head under the tail of the city's large bronze Bull Durham statue.

I posted the following comments on the blog, and after the second item appeared, sent an email including both of the comments to Melanie Sill, the managing editor, and to Rob Waters, the Durham editor. I received two responses quickly: one from Ms. Sill, telling me that she couldn't reply without knowing who I am, and one from the author of the firecracker item, telling me to lighten up. Interestingly enough, he did that only in a direct email, and not as a comment on the blog.

Following is the email exchange with Ms. Sill:

June 25, 2007, 5:40 PM
TO: Melanie Sill
From: Bella Parola
Subject: Is anyone paying attention to the Bull's Eye blog?

This makes two incredibly juvenile posts on that blog today. Are there no adults paying attention?

RE: Firecrackers: The Silent Killer
Are there any adults paying attention to what you people do over there? The tone of this post is completely inappropriate and downright disrespectful for a newspaper that claims to be doing community service - this is not the Lampoon, nor Weekend Update, nor the Simpsons or whatever ridiculous prime-time cartoon that begat your character above. I think people who shoot off fireworks are idiots, but mass media that claim a public-service mission are beholden to at least try to take these kinds of messages seriously.

RE: Insert clever punchline here
How sophomoric and totally inappropriate for the News & Observer. This kind of photo is fine for internal newsroom yucks, but I don't think there is any reason to share it on the website in this fashion. Grow up.

From: Melanie Sill
Date: 2007/06/25 Mon PM 05:50:31 EDT
Subject: Re: Is anyone paying attention to the Bull's Eye blog?

If you'd care to identify yourself, I might be able to reply to this note.

June 25, 2007, 6:04 PM
TO: Melanie Sill
From: Bella Parola

As I have said before, I fail to see what difference that makes. You were able to reply, by using that handy feature on your email program, and I have received your reply - which indicates only that you choose not to address any issue unless it's presented by someone you can identify. I am not interested in providing comments or correspondence for attribution in the paper (or elsewhere) and so cannot understand why you insist on knowing who I am.

I have no connection to the News & Observer, or to any other media organization, but I do care about the news and about how it is presented. If you care more about identities than the quality of your product, that is not my problem.

From: Melanie Sill
Date: 2007/06/25 Mon PM 06:09:54 EDT

Basically, I think people who send anonymous email are somewhat cowardly, especially when they are criticizing others. I generally don¹t reply.

Date: 2007/06/25 Mon PM 06:23:18 EDT
To: Melanie Sill

You are welcome to that opinion.

I think people who ignore reasonable criticism based on an inapplicable journalistic standard are ivory-tower snobs.

What difference would it make if my actual legal name were Bella Parola or Jane Doe? You don't know me, and you are not being asked to verify that I am a credible source of information in a published news item. I alerted you to inappropriate material on your website, which requires you only to click on the link and see it for yourself, not to validate my credentials.

Obviously we are on opposing sides of this issue, and I will not bother you again.

Jousting a little with a much brighter light

G.D. Gearino, the late lamented columnist at the News & Observer, on his website Words Assembled Well, makes a couple of interesting points today about the Nifong spectacle and about journalists and political contributions. He is a heavyweight in the world of verbal sparring, but I don't mind a quick turn in the ring with him. Fortunately, I don't particularly disagree so it's not a real fight, more like trying to keep up the rhythm he started at the speed bag. (That was a long and interesting boxing metaphor, especially when you consider I detest boxing.)

Here's my reply to his post:

Thank you for making clear a mostly unmentioned meaning of the Nifong spectacle. I'm still too mad, and mulling over what how many others have to say about the lacrosse/Gell (as a glaring example, of course not the only instance) conundrum, to have written about it myself. Clearly, the impact of the prosecutorial misconduct is more severe in capital cases - but I believe that ardent supporters of the lacrosse players labor under the worldview wherein people of their class suffer equally, when they are inconvenienced or discomforted temporarily, as do lesser mortals when they are executed or incarcerated wrongfully for the bulk of their adulthood. There is a real belief that people of their station in life are of inherently higher value, and infinitely higher sensitivity. The same dichotomy is also visible to a more ridiculous extent in the discussions of the "persecution" of Paris Hilton.

I would quibble mildly with your assessment of the media political contributions. Don't most media employers prohibit any political activity, certainly including participating in a campaign in any way, on the part of the journalists (if not all employees) in their employ? I find it conceivable that people with strong political views hindered from expressing them in that most visceral of ways, by giving their own money to a candidate who they believe will pursue their views, may be more likely to sublimate those views in their work - not necessarily intentionally, but perhaps with the same result.

While most journalists adhere to the credo of objectivity, and many try hard to remain apolitical, things do change from the beginning of a career through the later years of it. Living and observing and caring all lead to the formation of beliefs more basic to one's being than mere opinion about current events - and while you have said you are a conservative and I definitely am not, I think we both, along with many others who use words to make a living, have no choice but to reflect our beliefs.

That said, I do tend to disagree that there is a liberal media bias - the values of the journalists being nicely balanced, and perhaps overbalanced, by the views of their corporate employers. And I don't think an analysis of media member's political contributions can prove it either way, because of the ban on contributions I mention above.

Tougher penalties for killing police animals approved

Sometimes legislative remedies are overreactions, but sometimes they're not. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this one, but I think my desire to protect the dogs outweighs any thought that this might be overkill. Anyone who intentionally kills a police dog, first of all, is probably a pretty bad character to begin with and second, is just about as likely to kill a police officer as well.

The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. - Someone who willfully kills a K-9, seeing-eye dog or other law enforcement or assistance animal would be guilty of a felony and could serve prison time under a bill given final legislative approval Monday night. .... The bill was filed by Sen. A.B. Swindell, D-Nash, after last year's death of Danny, a K-9 police dog in Rocky Mount. The dog was shot and killed while chasing a suspect wanted on gun and cocaine possession charges.

This story certainly tips me in the direction of book-throwing - for a K9 officer to kill his own dog because he didn't perform up to par in a competition is on the same level as killing a child.

Miami-Dade police sergeant charged in death of K-9

Congratulations .... you have printed spam in the newspaper

This is an email exchange with the News & Observer.

May 18, 2007, at 8:29 AM
Congratulations ... you have printed spam in the newspaper.

See text, same as earlier post

2007/05/21 Mon PM 05:41:58
Thanks for your reaction to the item in the News & Observer. By printing it, we meant to neither endorse the idea nor imply that it would be effective. Pesonally, I share the skepticism of anyone who doubts that loosely organized consumer boycotts will drive oil companies to their knees, but these kinds of boycotts are being talked about by a lot of people these days -- and that's the only reason for printing it. In a different format, of course (e.g., a news story), we would have discussed the potential effectiveness of the strategy.

May 21, 2007, at 7:29 PM
Thanks for your reply. I didn't infer endorsement, and I still object to your having printed it at all - the fact that it was not the individual's own original thought should have knocked it out of contention.

It's the same as printing a letter to the editor that arrives as a bad photocopy with "Dear N&O" scribbled at the top and the "sender's" signature at the bottom. As I attempted to point out, that particular message has been around since 2001 or so, and to print it as anything other than an example of the stupidest kind of spam is simply bad judgment of the worst sort.

Who Sets the Gas Prices?

News & Observer's Editors Blog
Sue's story was good, as her reporting usually is. So how does the N&O follow up the education it provided in that story? By printing spam in the newspaper today.

All week I have been yelling at people for passing along yet another stupid spam campaign about sticking it to the oil companies. Now the N&O in a total lapse of good judgment has decided to validate it by printing it, as below, in a "Love it/Hate it" feature. I am just flabbergasted.

Before passing along this kind of nonsense, whether from your own email to annoy your own friends or in the News & Observer's pages, I suggest you check out the validity at a site like Snopes. Here's their response to the SEVEN-YEAR-OLD bright new idea you have just shared.

Hate it
We are going to hit close to $4 a gallon by summer, and it might go higher! ... With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! ... For the rest of this year, don't purchase any gasoline from Exxon and Mobil. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices.

-- ARTHUR SHUMATE (PASSING ALONG IDEA FROM FRIEND), CARY

Which part of speech is that?

N&O Grammar Errors Forum
RE: Father finally reunites with children

" For years, Denis Mukoka has sweat over a mop and corralled shopping carts ..."

Has SWEAT? Most of us have sweat, but I think in this instance he may have sweatED.

Today it's more style than grammar

N&O Grammar Errors Forum
RE: Teen dies in Wake Forest accident

This story refers to a 17-year-old several times as a woman. Has the style changed recently? Or do you not use AP at the N&O? The cutoff between girl and boy or woman and man has always been 18, I thought. Perhaps you're working on the current NC legal conversion from juvenile to adult at 16, but this story just jangled my nerves.

Today's most annoying

N&O Grammar Errors Forum
Under the Dome:

" McKissick said he has owned homes in each of Durham's Senate districts since 1993."

Is that two districts, nine districts, or 22 districts? Seems germane to me, considering the expense of owning homes and the rarity of owning even two homes in the same city/county, much less more. I assume that there are two districts and he owns two homes. If the writer and editor wish to convey that succinctly, then the word is both, not each.

"Could GOP bring Dole down?

A top political observer said this week that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole could falter in her bid for re-election in 2008, but that North Carolina Democrats still have a tough road ahead of them."

I'm pretty sure GOP still means Republicans, and there isn't the slightest hint in this item that they intend to commit fratricide upon the good Senator. I nearly spit out my tea, wondering how that could be a subordinate item in the column, then read and realized it was just a stupid error.

Remembering Halberstam

News & Observer Editors Blog

To clarify the statistic about black baseball players mentioned above: the report from the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport says that 8.4% of major league baseball players are AMERICAN, non-Hispanic blacks.

American black athletes, it seems, have moved from baseball to other sports because of the programs available to them in their youth, or perhaps because of community preferences for football and basketball or the increasing number of Michael Jordan and Warren Moon and Donovan McNabb role models.

The news is not that black people are being pushed out of baseball, as the striking decline might appear to indicate, but that people from other cultures now make up more of the player pool. There are also significantly fewer WHITE Americans playing major league baseball now, with 29.4% of players considered Hispanic, which could be black or white, American or not. However, the bulk of them are from Latin American countries, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and many of them would be considered black by any standard.

Really, it's not lobbying

N&O Triangle Grammar Guide blog

Thanks for the comments and for understanding about my slow response. I appreciate your three valid points.
The usage on "lobby" does seem to have loosened quite a bit.
687 lips!? That's a very good catch. We definitely should have fixed that.

I agree that lobby has loosened. But it remains an extremely disrespectful way to refer to courtroom proceedings - disrespectful mainly to our judicial system itself, but at the same time denigrating the issue and its advocate.

Lobby, as a verb, is not a synonym for request or even for advocate - the reason we have so many words in the English language is so we can clearly express true meaning, and this usage flat fails that test. At best, it is incorrect, and at worst it editorializes.

Lobbying is not a legal term

N&O Triangle Grammar Guide blog

In his challenge of the state's biggest economic incentives deal, Robert Orr was thwarted before he got started. On Wednesday, he lobbied for a second chance to begin.

While the lumpen rhymishness of thwarted and started might bear discussion, the real problem is with the use of "lobbied." The word has a pretty specific meaning, and it pretty specifically excludes a lawyer making legal arguments in a court of law.

I don't care for the good justice nor particularly support his effort here, but nothing justifies flippantly disparaging him and his effort by equating it to the pimping of special interests by frequenting the lobbies or corridors of legislative chambers.

Where'd that lip go?

N&O Triangle Grammar Guide blog
"Dedicated earlier this month, the simple stone sanctuary honors 687 eloquent lips silenced"
How did that one guy lose his lip, to make it an odd number? Or should it say "pairs of lips," perhaps?
At first, when I read it as the blurb on the main news page, I though it was totally ridiculous but then realized the source was the Paul Green quote with the story. So only the counting of lips is ridiculous.

Shot where?

N&O Triangle Grammar Guide blog
Here's a humdinger, from today's NY Times, no less!
"In 1980, Michael Halberstam was shot in his home and killed by an intruder."
I bet it hurts to get shot there. And I wonder how that intruder happened to be there to kill him right after he was shot?

Under the Dome makes the leap

News & Observer Editors Blog
04/22/07 at 09:54
I have already weighed in on the topic of anonymity and posting. However, speaking of faults, I am posting this here because among other things wrong with it, the comment function on the new Dome blog doesn't work.

Your web folks appear to have unveiled that blog a little prematurely. Or do you truly think the names listed in the Profiles section are appropriate? Or worse yet, does someone think they are amusing?

I suspect the following politicians highlighted there might disagree with all three of the above concepts. (It's not ready, it's not correct and it's certainly not funny.)

Speaker John Hackney
U.S. Representative George Butterfield
U.S. Representative John Coble
Candidate Johnny Edwards
U.S. Representative Robert Hayes
"H. Majority Leader" Lindsey Holliman
U.S. Representative Douglas McIntyre
U.S. Representative Ralph Miller
U.S. Representative Joseph Shuler

I suppose you might argue that it's correct to list them by their given names, and I am assuming that that's what they all are, without researching every single one. But you don't follow that practice in the newspaper and no one else does either - and there is also disparity in the titles, with Jim Black listed as "Former Speaker" but Mr. Edwards disparaged with only "Candidate" - since when is that appropriate standing alone, without including either "presidential" or "former senator?" I also don't believe using "H. Majority Leader" or "S. minority leader," or for that matter, "Former speaker" is appropriate either. There's lots of room in that box, and you need to include the body in which each profiled individual serves - assuming, that is, that it is for the use of the general public on the web and not an internal document for those who already know who these people are.

This looks to me like the unsupervised and unreviewed work of an intern – or should I say, that would be the only possible explanation, while still not excusing its appearing in a product trumpeted on the top of the home page of your website. Most of the profiles indicate that they were last modified days ago, and still no one appears to have noticed a little problem. This does not bode well for the future of that web section.

05/07/07 at 14:43
I don't know whether any of you get email alerts about posts to this blog, so I may be speaking into the abyss here. Even so, I figure here is the place to note that a) the problems with the Dome website noted above have been fixed (mostly - apparently the unsuitable abbreviations don't bother you as much as they do me) and b) as of today, it appears the problem that was engineered into the "Printer Friendly" function some months ago has been fixed. I've only tried four or five articles, but they all resulted in an actual usable, printer-friendly page.

Thanks for paying attention, sort of, sometimes!

What's going on at The N&O?

Independent Weekly
Thanks for the expanded info. I had gathered most of it from the various bits dribbled out by the N&O, but appreciate the exposure of how badly the whole episode was handled – rather than an episode, they stretched it, for no apparent reason, into an arc.

You may choose not to include this lengthy missive in your forum – I understand that it belongs to you, which many of those outraged by the N&O's deletion of its forums don't. I am not particularly on their side on that issue – but I am as one with them on the way the N&O handles input and its users' concerns.

My perception is that the N&O is one of those smarter-than-thou, phony-solicitous operations. You know, the ones that collect big bags of input from their viewers/readers/users/visitors – and then shred them unopened, because after all, they are the pros and know what's best.

I am one of the readers Ted Vaden mentioned in his column, who contacted him about what this article refers to as "nitpicks." He quoted me in the column – but made it sound as though slightly nitpicky information I included as background to my complaint, that I detest all jumps in online news items – was my complaint. It was not, as can be seen in the email below. It was to complain about the technical execution of their decision to add the detested jump pages, which was as poorly done as I've seen on any newspaper website, even the tiniest backwater burg's.

I didn't just lay the complaint on the table, I fully explained it and gave examples of how and where it is done better, in several different ways. But in the column, I came off as a whiner, provided with the patronizing explanation that jumps allow the paper/website to sell more advertising. I would argue with that point, but even if it's true, my complaint was more with the way their jumps are presented and the absence of navigational assistance to use them.

My message to him, and to Orage Quarles, the publisher, was the second one I sent. The first, to the management and technical staff of the online N&O, was ignored.


Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 2:55 PM
To: oquarles@newsobserver.com; tvaden@newsobserver.com
Cc: gsmith@newsobserver.com; dfeld@newsobserver.com; ericf@nando.com; cmachali@newsobserver.com; dsipe@newsobserver.com
Subject: [Fwd: Next page > NONSENSE]

I find it stunning that not a single one of the addressees below could be bothered to acknowledge this message, let alone respond to it or better yet, reverse the exceptionally bad decision to add the Next page > jumps to the online version of the News & Observer. My opinion of them remains the same and I am equally stunned that it's not being done better by now.

Date: 2007/01/28 Sun AM 10:53:00 EST >
To: , , , , >
Subject: Next page > NONSENSE

What in the world is this new jump-page nonsense, and why are you doing it both differently and in a less user-friendly fashion than any other online newspaper?

I absolutely detest jump pages in online news. There is just absolutely no reason to jump anything short enough to have run in a newspaper. I read about 2 dozen papers online regularly, and your new format is the first I have seen that ONLY says "Next page >" and/ or "Previous page >" in the same size font as the body text, and on my browser a pale blue, with no indication of how many pages there are and where in those pages I currently am.

The Los Angeles Times, which runs far more very long-form articles than the N&O, has always had a page-count/position indicator/page selector at the bottom of every page of an article. In the past year or so, they apparently realized that their most desirable – that is, brighter and better-educated – readers were not amused by clicking through 12-page articles ad nauseam. They have added an icon next to the numbered navigator to allow the reader to select "Single page" instead. The New York Times also offers the single-page option now, and the Washington Post has a red “Continued” indicator and a clear, numbered navigator.

The International Herald Tribune, which used to offer only a very different 3-column format and barely perceptible navigation at the bottom, now offers a choice of one or three columns. Both offer visible and useful position indicators at the bottom of the page, especially the latter version, where they are now significantly larger than the body copy.

The only escape from multipage presentations - unless a single-page option like the LAT's and NYT’s is provided - is to use the printable version instead. But months ago you made your printable view useless when you chose to include the giant box full of garbage on the right in that view as well.

I am one of those select few who was a member of NandO.net as soon as it was born and have been a loyal reader over the many years intervening, and a print subscriber when I have lived in the actual circulation area. It is true that in the early days, the NandO folks broke ground in online news and its presentation, but that is far from true now. You have demonstrated that with this silliness, which reeks of a desperate attempt to do it differently than the current leaders in the industry while failing to understand that different is definitely not the same as better.

You all should be absolutely ashamed of these ill-advised attempts at progress, which instead push your product farther down the slope to irrelevancy.