Ms. Didion Shows No Mercy; Will, Yoo, Glater, and Rich Falter

I read only Joan Didion’s Fixed Ideas and ordered the book on loss of daughter and husband within a short time, poor woman.

Curious about this writer’s remarks on Woodward after Frank Rich’s recent citation, I read “The Deferential Writer,” wonderful title that summarizes the article.

I know Didion is a kind of holy figure in the writing racket, though I don't know why. Her style surprised me in the Review-of-Books piece. It’s 19th century—long sentences clotted with subordinate clauses and phrasal modifiers, parenthetical interpolations, and punctuation that throws no lifeline to the struggling reader. Here’s a sentence from “The Deferential Writer” that daunts:

This account of Mrs. Clinton's not entirely remarkable and in any case private conversations with Jean Houston appeared under the apparently accurate if unarresting headline "At a Difficult Time, First Lady Reaches Out, Looks Within," occupied one-hundred-and-fifty-four column inches, was followed by a six-column-inch box explaining the rules under which Mr. Woodward conducted his interviews, and included among similar revelations the news that, according to an unidentified source (Mr. Woodward tells us that some of his interviews were on the record, others "conducted under journalistic ground rules of 'background' or 'deep background,' meaning the information could be used but the sources of the information would not be identified"), Mrs. Clinton had at an unspecified point in 1995 disclosed to Jean Houston ("Dialogue and quotations come from at least one participant, from memos or from contemporaneous notes or diaries of a participant in the discussion") that "she was sure that good habits were the key to survival."

"Box's explaining" for possessive before the gerund

This sentence runs to 156 words and puts Proust in the shade. Three readings let me extract base sentence: This account …occupied 154 column inches, was followed by by a six-column-inch block, and included the news that she was sure that good habits are the key to survival.

The remaining 127 words comprise modifying underbrush for the hapless reader to whack through to access the basic sentence. Ms. Didion doesn’t use semicolons to separate major sections in this metastasis of a sentence; she sticks to commas, which the reader must distinguish from commas that adorn clot of clause-and- phrase modifiers. Her passive verb “was followed” breaks parallel structure and adds difficulty for the reader.

Broken down, this dense sentence-paragraph provides more access. I offer the following edit. Doing so probably ranks lese majeste due to Ms. Didion’s literary-world holy status:

This account of Mrs. Clinton's not entirely remarkable-- and in any case private-- conversations with Jean Houston appeared under the apparently accurate if unarresting headline "At a Difficult Time, First Lady Reaches Out, Looks Within.” It occupies one-hundred-and-fifty-four column inches. A six-column-inch box's explaining the rules under which Mr. Woodward conducted his interviews included, among similar revelations, the news that, according to an unidentified source, "she was sure that good habits were the key to survival." Mr. Woodward tells us that some of his interviews were on the record, others "conducted under journalistic ground rules of 'background' or 'deep background,' meaning the information could be used but the sources of the information would not be identified." He adds that "Dialogue and quotations come from at least one participant, from memos, or from contemporaneous notes or diaries of a participant in the discussion."

Didion’s article makes the case against Woodward’s ersatz iconic stature, something other members of the writing tribe have shrunk from doing. For that bold service, Ms. Didion--whose picture suggests she weights eighty-five pounds tops--gets a salute for guts from me. Also commendable is her wading through all those badly written books Woodward churned out that people have read as if they were holy writ and that have made him a millionaire. These badly written books have heretofore got universal praise and no murmur of opposition until Ms. Didion’s salutary blast. I trust her pointing out that Emperor Woodward lacks clothes will embolden her colleagues to rethink their worship of this stolid fraud.

Besides an addiction to long sentences, Ms. Didion makes occasional punctuation and grammar errors, samples of which are “…by Dan Balz, running seventy-nine column inches, and headlined "Dole Seeks 'a 10'…,” in which Ms. Didion separates compound participial phrases with a comma; or “…with the candidate telling the head of his search team…,” in which Ms. Didion fails to make “candidate” possessive before a gerund.

I don’t know why Ms. Didion indulges herself in such difficult-to-read style from another era. She may do so from her sense of the privileges of age. Longevity perhaps leads her to claim right to crochety writing style. She means to make the reader work to glean meaning of such willfully dense sentences as the one quoted. She counts on the indulgence of her readers, who are as non-questioning of her venerable status as they were of Woodward’s iconic one.

I refute beforehand the charge that I grannybash Ms. Didion. My status as the granny of ten inoculates me. I also enjoy the trump of being older than Ms. Didion and advise my junior to cut down the length of her sentences, go easy on commas, and use the possessive-before-the-gerund rule. My most potent weapon in daring to dissent, however, is my teaching English to reluctant freshmen and sophomores, every bit as recalcitrant as Ms. Didion may be and probably as loathe to change, for twenty-eight years.

George Will

Searching for Labor's Role

Stern understands the perils of labor becoming perceived as an interest group that lobbies itself.

Le Will misses the possessive before the gerund. This flossy, esoteric punctuation rule should appeal to a guy who wears a bowtie.

Stern would, of course, rather bury Republicans than praise them, but his Democratic allies cannot do the former until they pay attention to him doing the latter, which he does, if only to a point.

Will uses the objective pronoun when he should use the possessive “his” before the gerund.

Steve Chapman

Chicago Tribune

Beyond the imperial presidency
Published December 25, 2005E-mail: schapman@tribune.com.

This is hardly the only example of the president demanding powers he doesn't need.

Mr. Chapman flouts possessive-before-the-gerund rule. This error rages pandemic in newspapers.

At times like this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power.

Chapman omits a contrasting element coma before "not" and inserts a superfluous comma in a correlative.

By the President’s Hand
By John Yoo
Last update: December 22, 2005 at 3:46 PM

Most would agree now that congressional isolationism before World War II harmed U.S. interests, and that FDR should have been able to enter the conflict much earlier.

The guy who writes "Talking Points" on Daily Kos asked readers to comment on Yoo's evading definitive statment on the constitutionality of Bush's wiretapping. I defer that task to others but insist that Professor Yoo inserts a superflous comma between two dependent clauses. If he can be wrong about commas, he can be wrong about the Constitution’s granting the president imperial war powers.

In Criminal Cases, a Court Nominee Hews to Rules

By JONATHAN D. GLATER
Published: December 25, 2005

"Trial counsel conducted an extensive investigation for mitigating evidence," he wrote. "According to their testimony, trial counsel got to know Rompilla well during the course of their representation and established a good relationship with him.”

Glater makes a pronoun-antecedent-agreement error. “Counsel” here is a collective noun. So the counsel pronoun reference should be an “its,” not “their.”

I Saw Jackie Mason Kissing Santa Claus

By FRANK RICH
Published: December 25, 2005

…that ended with a federal judge banishing intelligent design from high school biology classes.

Mr. Rich joins the gang in omitting the possessive before the gerund.

Mr. Frist played God on national television by giving a quack diagnosis of Ms. Schiavo's condition based on a videotape, and then endorsed a so-called Justice Sunday megachurch rally demonizing "activist" judges - including, no doubt, any who may yet pass on the legality of his brilliantly timed stock sales.

Rich double error: he divides with a comma a compound verb; then he misses another possessive before the gerund.

John Kerry told a gathering that he "went back and read the New Testament the other day" - which presumably will prevent him from erroneously citing Job as his favorite New Testament text, as Howard Dean did in 2004.

That trailing adverbial clause gets no comma before it. It is restrictive. Howard Dean cited Job, not Tom Delay.