A couple of weeks ago someone on Twitter – doesn’t matter who, it’s not important – snarked that The Culture Vulture had become anodyne. Curious, I thought; since when were we ever not anodyne? Was that worth the effort of a tweet. Speaking purely for myself I never saw the merit in causing distress, mental or emotional, though I understand there is a prevalent ideology in the arts (the proper, important arts, you know, the stuff that attracts public funding) that says pain is a plus – if it doesn’t disturb it isn’t worth doing, has no value, is mere entertainment, the stuff that the masses willingly and repeatedly queue up for – or at least tune in to. I imagine that’s why most people avoid art. Again, fine by me. Happy to tootle along, all silly and superficial. Call me anodyne, killer of pain; I can’t think of anything that’s benefited humanity more than the holy trinity of alcohol, drugs and the heavenly cupcake! What would life be deprived of anodynes? It’s Friday tea time, how many people are looking forward to a weekend indulging in the anodyne of choice? I have just taken mine out of the fridge (not telling what it is, letting you ponder my morals and my means.). Anyway, there’s a word for people who go around intentionally hurting others . . . So, as high-handed dismissals go, I thought anodyne was a bit of a dud. In my darker moments I consider myself an aficionado of literary antipathy, a maestro of verbal malevolence, a veritable maven of lexical vituperation, and I like my insults to strike home with a satisfying thwack, like the arrows splitting the bulls-eye in that cider advert. Calling me anodyne was more like getting slugged round the back of the head with a sock full of mechanically recovered meat product; makes you feel a bit squidgey inside, but no lasting damage.
One positive from the episode, however, was that it got me thinking about The Culture Vulture. What’s it about and how can we do better? Oddly, I think the second question is easiest to answer – or at least a couple of random ideas occurred to me as I was munching my Shredded Wheat this morning. Fundamentally, The Culture Vulture is lots of people contributing posts about stuff that’s got them going; arguing, enthusing, complaining, joking, analysing, posing, pretending to be clever (well, I speak for myself there) reveling in the glint and sparkle of rapier-like dialectic (sometimes! Be nice!) . . . Yes, I know there are those irritating, distracting pictures (irritating and distracting just to me then?) but mainly it’s about the black and white blocks in between, the writing. And that’s something I know a thing or two about; something that we can improve with a few simple strictures. Emma has been talking about updating the style guide for a while now . . . style guide? Yes, we do have one, but I can’t remember the last time I referred to it let alone conformed to its recommendations (500 words? You’re kidding me!) They do have their uses though.The most widely used, iconic style guide ever published, Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style”, begins with this piece of advice; Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ’s . . . not exactly Earth shattering you might be thinking, and why would anyone bother, why does it matter? But just for a second, just to humour me, take a look at the home page . . . I wonder how many times we are told about “Leed’s biggest shop” or “Leeds’ best pub” or “Leeds’s favourite band.” One of these is definitely wrong (yes, “definitely” not “definately!” and if I catch anyone spelling that one wrong again I shall track them down and rain down merciless blows about their head with a hardback copy of the Concise OED – and there’s a pint for the first person who can spot the grammatical gaffe in that sentence.) One of the other phrases is right; I have my favourite. Do we need a style guide to legislate for that sort of thing, or should we have hands-off, free-for-all approach? The second of Strunk’s Rules of Usage concerns the serial comma. I happen to have very firm opinions regarding the serial comma. Not many people share my partiality for the peculiarities of punctuation. Or my animadversion against overuse of adverbs (JK Rowling positively spatters her pages with those weakling words, Kurt Vonnegut can go chapters without sullying himself – doesn’t that say everything about adverbs? Mind you, Vonnegut had some odd views about semicolons, didn’t he!) So my question is, what do we include in the style guide? What sort of information would people find useful? From a purely personal point of view I’d be happy if we could tighten the writing on the site and eliminate the more egregious crimes against the English language. That, for me, would be agreeably anodyne.
Of course, I’m half joking. I know that’s not what Emma means by style guide. It hasn’t got anything to do with verbal virtuousity at all – at least not directly. Style is more about attitude, values, stance . . . if we were a business I’d be busy drafting our mission statement and running a series of visioning workshops (oh crikey, I just let the word “visioning” slip . . . I feel my soul has been soiled. But then, if we were a business there would be material compensations . . . sometime the soul can just sod off!) It’s what we have been calling for a while, “critical friendship” though I’m still not exactly sure what we mean by that. For starters, and again speaking just for myself, it is about taking responsibility for your words; if you are writing about a person, a performance, an event or show, remember the people involved may be listening. Imagine them answering back . . . say nothing you wouldn’t be comfortable saying to their face. This isn’t a recommendation to flatter, pander, or equivocate (ooh look, a serial comma! Would anyone care to comment?) Honest expression of enjoyment is as difficult as honest criticism. Both are what The Culture Vultures is about – being adult is often being anodyne, it’s only playground bullies who want to go around spreading the hurt. And being adult means writing for and about fellow adults – I may have a mind like a malteser but I’d rather you weren’t all toffee-nosed about it . . . I may be tired, it’s Friday! look at that metaphor I just mangled . . .
So, this is already more than twice the length of a post as recommended by the current Culture Vultures style guide and I think I’d better shut up and go cook dinner (well, open a bottle of wine and think about what to soak the alcohol up with . . . or should that be, with what to soak up the alcohol?) But I’ll end on a serious question; I’m keen to get more people writing, and get them writing well – what would help? What kind of style guide would make writing for Culture vultures more pleasurable, more satisfying, more worthwhile for you? Answers on a placard – I’m terribly longsighted – to @philkirby . . .
Any style guide would suggest that one half of a blog post is not in bold…
Serial commas are evil (they change the meaning of a sentence): I spend much of my day removing them, inserting subjunctives and tearing my hair out that most people don’t understand the difference between less and fewer. Of a selection of style guides stacked here on the desk before me, though, my favourite piece of advice is this:
“Weapons: Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear are non-conventional weapons. Unconventional weapons would be poison-tipped umbrellas and exploding chickens.”
I love The Culture Vulture. It has led me to interesting events and enjoyable places to visit in Leeds, not to mention introducing me to other, equally useful websites. Yes, there are spelling mistakes in the mix, but I enjoy the fact that blogs are written by ordinary folk rather than pretentious reviewers. Keep up the good work, I say, and don’t change too much.
Oh, and of the three options, it should be Leeds’. Mine’s a Pimms. Wait… Pimm’s. Dammit.
Hmm, the serial comma is much misused, but there is a place for it surely?
And what about the supermarket sign, “ten items or less?” . . . do you mentally correct that? Personally, I think it’s a matter of euphony. Sometimes the rule does not apply when the result would be ugly – or outright barbarous as Orwell once remarked.
I’m not sure the majority would agree on your choice of the possessive. It would be mine, but Strunk would differ. Leeds’s?
When are you writing your first post for us by the way? Something nice about Beeston, perhaps?
It should of course be track him or her down Mr Kirby. Not ‘them’ down. Unless error was perpetrated by more than one person.
I owe you a pint! . . . There was another, more subtle error in there too.
I use Leeds’ but prefer Leeds’s as it avoids a confusion that struck me a while ago which, being a bit blonde (and hairist), I’ve forgotten. I use Leeds’ because I don’t really care and it avoids a debate.
Writing sometimes flows and when it does it’s best to go with it and not get hung up on punctuation or even spelling as you can lose the links and ideas – look no commas. I’m not into God but it’s like someone’s (that apost always gets flagged by comp as wrong but I think it’s right) pouring info through your brain and you have to catch what you can before it gets soaked up by the carpet. Problem with this is that you scan back through it quickly, to keep the flow, and mistakes become normalised in your brain. I thus regularly forget to change passed to past, for exmaple.
Wrting can be an expression of something deep inside you much more important than commas and spelling and I’m not great at the conventions but were this to stop me writing I’d shrivel up.
Glad I’m not the only one to get tripped up by passed and past . . . I actually made that mistake in an email I sent yesterday – for a job . . . bugger!
And, of course, I was talking about publishing, not about writing. I do think we owe it to our readers to apply a bit of spit and polish to whatever first spurts out of our head and onto the screen (now there’s an unfortunate metaphor, and an object lesson in the benefits of editing.)
You know what I mean?
Oh aye, a bit’a proofing/editing never went amiss.
One of Dickens’ better known books went to something like 13 editions before they finally stopped proofing it. The guy who proofed my last thing is a member of the Royal Guild of Proofreaders or some such organisation and said their newsletter is an absolute mess, strewn with errors. At first he thought they were being cleverly humourous but realised it just needed a damn good proofing.
Used to have ‘discussions’ with my first over the length of my sentences. He’d cut them up and I’d squeal, ‘But it changes the meaning….leave them alone.’ After one such discussion I said, ‘Look at Alan Bennett, his sentences go on for half a page.’
He responded with the dead-eyed delivery of, ‘Yeh but he can write.’
Dickens’? . . . Not Dickens’s? . . .
That did make me chuckle though. Royal Guild of Proofreaders . . . surely he’s seen too much Monty Python?
Should it be, “One of them is definitely wrong..?”
Hi Patty! I just emailed you an invite, you should be able to create an account now