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books
Fashions for the Times
by Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan
Novelist Anne Bernays and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer
Justin Kaplan recently collaborated on The Language
of Names.
The New York Times regards itself, with some justice, as the Yankees and the Harvard of daily journalism. You shouldn't have to question its reliability, at least in matters of style and usage. There it aims to be beyond reproach, whatever the fashion may be and even at the risk of appearing stodgy. Years behind most other newspapers, and the general public as well, the Times finally got around to legitimizing "Ms." as a courtesy title. The paper's stylebook, now published in a revised edition twenty-three years after its predecessor, contends with the AP stylebook in authority and usefulness.
Allan
M. Siegal and William G. Connolly, the editors of the new Manual, are
both Times staffers, with a perhaps over-generous impression of the audience
their paper hopes to reach. They describe the Times readership as "urbane"
and "literate," "educated and sophisticated — traditional but
not tradition-bound." Siegal and Connolly (their book instructs us to call
them "Mr." in such contexts) put up a heroic, probably unavailing
last stand against the invading tide of blurred distinctions between "persuade"
and "convince," "fewer" and "less," "each
other" and "one another," "infer" and "imply."
In their book, whatever hurricane and disaster reporters may say, "enormity"
still refers to horror, not size. They reject business jargon (to "grow"
a company), social service jargon ("parenting"), faddish adolescent
buzzwords ("wannabe"), overworked slang ("nitty-gritty").
They are wary of the convenient suffix "-gate" (it's tired and "carries
polemical overtones"). Nevertheless "Baligate," referring to
banking scandals in Indonesia, appears in a recent Times headline.
"Nowadays any style manual must grapple with the vocabulary of social issues," the editors say in their foreword. "This one counsels respect for the group sensibilities and preferences that have made themselves heard in the last two or three decades — concerns, for example, of women, minorities, and those with disabilities." A distinct odor of social awareness and (inevitably) political correctness permeates this stylebook. The editors endorse "black" (lowercase) along with "all racial designations derived from skin color" as well as the awkward "African-American." But they add this caution: "Try to determine and use the term preferred by the group or person being described."
The word "holocaust" must be capitalized only when it refers to Nazi destruction of Jews during World War II. This is a distinct advance in sensibility over the Times of World War II: in its report of Dachau the paper omitted any mention that Jews were primary victims.
The 1976 edition of the stylebook was extremely delicate if not to say reticent when it came to Jews and Jewish-related topics. Its only entry was "Jewess." "Do not use. See woman." In the current edition the entry for "Jew(s)" is almost three inches long, ending with Also see Conservative Judaism; Reform, Reformed; Recon structionist Judaism. There are also entries for Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Purim, and so on. In the same spirit, the 1976 entry for Puerto Rico only advised you to "Use P.R. after the names of cities and towns." The new edition offers a six-line instructive essay on the cultural and ethnic identity of the island, reminding you that it is a commonwealth of the U.S., not a territory, possession, or colony. We're advised to avoid the term "Native-American," since it "is rejected by some Indians because government programs extend it to others," such as Eskimos and Pacific Islanders. Whenever possible, avoid "man" and "mankind" and find a "graceful alternative" like "humanity" or "people."
The highest hurdle the Times has had to clear on the way to the twenty-first century is the matter of "obscenity, vulgarity, profanity." In 1896 Adolph Ochs proclaimed that The New York Times would present the news "in language that is parliamentary in good society." Today, the editors suggest, Ochs would avoid euphemism and write "keep it clean." They might also have added that the word "good" in the sense Ochs used it is no longer O.K. (never spelled okay or used as a transitive verb). The Times seems to be the last paper on earth to reflect in its copy the profanity most of us use daily. A while ago, Molly Ivins was fired from the paper for trying to sneak the word "fuck" past the copy desk. She probably would be fired today for the same thing. This is deliberate policy, designed to keep the paper acceptable in classrooms all over the country and at refined breakfast tables: "The Times virtually never prints obscene words, and it maintains a steep threshold for vulgar ones," a standard that must have been stretched to the limits during the Monica Lewinsky episode.
How do the editors tiptoe around some of the thornier aspects of contemporary life? Here's how they suggest rendering a homosexual relationship. Under "partner": "It is a suitable term for an unmarried companion of the same sex or the opposite one. But if the context allows misreading to mean a business partnership, use companion instead. Also see lover." Following this trail we find that "lover" should be restricted to a "literary or historic liaison or a highly visible romance between public personalities — in show business, for example. In writing about more private people, use the less flamboyant companion or partner." In other words, Olive Oyl may be Popeye's "lover," but the two gay guys in the next apartment are "partners." As for "sexual orientation," the editors write, "never use sexual preference, which carries the disputed implication that sexuality is a matter of choice." We're instructed to avoid "admitted homosexual," because it "suggests criminality or shame. Make it acknowledged or declared homosexual, openly gay or openly lesbian if a modifier is indeed necessary."
We dare you to read the entry for "false titles" without laughing, although our sober editors probably didn't mean to be funny: "Do not make titles out of mere descriptions, as in harpsichordist Dale S. Yagyonak. If in doubt, try the 'good morning' test. If it is not possible to imagine saying, for example, 'Good morning, Harpsichordist Yagyonak,' the title is false."
