CJR - Books - The Gray Lady and the "P" Word, by Rebecca Sinkler

March/April 1995 | Contents

About Books

Rebecca Sinkler, who recently resigned after five years as editor of The New York Times Book Review to devote full time to writing, was a speaker, along with her Times colleague William Safire, at a panel discussion last fall on the topic, "Where is the English Language Going?" This article is adapted from her remarks.

Let me tell you about something that happened to me when I was preliterate, really. I was in the bathtub, and my mother was giving me a bath. Something happened that annoyed me and I let out an expletive. The word was damn. It'll be hard for anyone under the age of fifty to believe that my mother scolded me for such a mild expression, but she did. "Why can't I say damn?" I asked. "Franklin does." I was referring to my big brother. It's all right for boys to curse, said my mother, but not for girls. It was the first time I remember being told that boys could do things that girls couldn't. So after a period of compliance with my mother's language rules, I burst into a fiery adolescence with one of the foulest mouths you would wish to hear on anyone of any sex.

Everyone I knew was talking dirty. It was one of the grosser aspects of 1950s-style feminism. But I guess it did help change the rules for language. At any rate they were changing, and women were being allowed to say and be much more than they had been. So I was getting kind of mellow and proper.

And then, of course, because fate always is there ready to slip you a banana peel, I ended up at The New York Times. And things that I was allowed to say as a reporter and things that were allowed to be said as an editor at other papers were verboten in New York. We couldn't say Ms. when I arrived at The New York Times and we couldn't say gay; we couldn't say damn either without going to a higher editor for permission. I remember a disastrous stomach-turning moment when we had to pull an essay at the last minute because Abe Rosenthal, the executive editor of The New York Times, would not allow Thomas Pynchon to use the term "bad ass." And Thomas Pynchon would not allow Abe Rosenthal to "censor" him.

We were not allowed at that time either to use the "p" word, which brings me to another anecdote. One that involves my estimable colleague, Bill Satire. The "p" word in this case was actually "pee." In September of 1986 I received from John Irving the review of a book we had assigned to him, a novel set in the wild west. And the denouement of the book involved a contest. Two cowboys settle a feud by doing something that even in our enlightened times girls cannot do. When Mr. Irving described the event he had the sense and sensitivity to tone down his language for the Times and he used the words "peeing contest." But it wasn't genteel enough for the Times.

Arthur Gelb, then deputy editor of The New York Times, said, "No peeing in this paper, God damn it." So I argued and I fought and I squealed and I complained and I no doubt said damn and a lot worse. But I wasn't willing to sacrifice my job, so I went back to Irving and he was pissed, and rightly. But he proved less tough than Pynchon and the review ran with a modification, of which more later.

I had been turned into a language cop and was plenty angry myself, but nothing compared to when I picked up the paper a couple of months later and saw what John Irving had cooked up with Bill Satire. Irving had ratted to Safire about what had happened. And Safire had written about the whole crazy thing in his column, which was very amusing, except that Safire had gotten to use the word "piss"!

He went on: "John Irving the novelist called me a few months ago," Safire wrote, "to protest a decision made by The New York Times not to use that widely used euphemism in a book review he had written. . . . Although authors of the stature of John Irving are cited in dictionaries to illustrate the development and acceptance of words, the following line was published in the Book Review section of the Times: 'The wild journey that only Cecil and Margaret managed to finish ends outside the tent of a trader who was famous for winning bladder-voiding competitions.'" I blush. I should have quit.

At any rate, when I picked this up I was you know what. The boys had gotten to say once again what the girl had been forbidden to, which may be why I accepted this invitation to come here. I knew some day if I bided my time I would be able to get back at Mr. Satire. So here I am again, doing what my mother told me not to.