Fan vs. Fanatic

Ed. note: Results are in for the Second Annual Two Kinds of People Writing Challenge.

fan (noun) — an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc. (origin: 1885-90, Americanism; short for fanatic or, some say, fancy)

fanatic (noun) — a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or politics. (origin: 1515-25, "insane person" from L. fanaticus, "mad, enthusiastic, inspired by god", originally pertaining to a temple, from L. fanum. 

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There are two kinds of people in the world: those who listen to commercial radio and those who listen to public radio.

When I was a kid in the Detroit area, my parents listened to WJR, an AM radio station devoted to news, talk and sports. I hated it. I begged them to listen to music — any kind of music — rather than the blah, blah, blah of broadcasters like J.P. McCarthy. Now it isn't just because of the commercials that I tune out to commercial radio.

I first learned about public radio in college, via my friend Betsy Rippner, but I didn't become a fan until I moved to Chicago and found WBEZ; and I didn't become a fanatic until I became a mininvan mom and the information, news and intelligent conversation provided a potent antacid to a steady diet of Barney and other syrupy-sweet children's programming.

I started slowly, with the lovely works of Selected Shorts (where I finally came to appreciate the short story) and the unexpected FreshAir interviews by the always-curious Terry Gross (who still sounds like a very smart, young undergrad, even though she is now 60ish). My flirtation turned quickly to addiction and obsession, and I lapped it all up: Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation; as well as great locally produced programs like Worldview and Eight-Forty-Eight. I love the silliness of Car Talk, the aural truffles of Re:Sound, and the digestible nature of Science Friday.

And the names. I love the names of public radio: Cokie Roberts, Ira Flatow, Marion McPartland, David Folkenflik, John Ydstie, Nina Totenberg, Heidi Goldfein (who always pronounces every syllable of the letter W), Ira Glass, and Garrison Keillor (whose real name is Gary Edward Keillor, which isn't nearly as good). I revel in sonorous tones of "This is Bob Edwards"; and the distinctive inflections of "I'm Neal Conan", just two of the great voices of this old, yet still relevant medium.

I love the quirky traditions, like Jerome McDonnell's professed love of pledge drives; or the way you know the daily economic outlook by which theme song MarketPlace plays while "doing the numbers" — "We're in the Money" or "Stormy Weather" tell us almost all we need to know. I even tried Susan Stamberg's mother-in-law's Pepto Bismol pink cranberry relish recipe this past Thanksgiving (pretty good, if you like horseradish).

One way you know you have crossed the line from fan to fanatic is when your 12-year-old son downloads 15 podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me for a family road trip. It turns out, though, that family inculcation is not that unusual for NPR listeners. In a great new volume chronicling public radio history called This is NPR: The First Forty Years, Cokie Roberts writes about why she keeps getting up at five a.m. every Monday for Morning Edition:

"Because of the listeners. If you want to be heard by young people, farmers, the chief executives of the Fortune 500, members of Congress, players in the media, and especially moms, NPR's the place for you. Those of us who have been around for a long time constantly have the experience of some young—or not so young—person coming up to us and saying, "I grew up listening to you." And we always joke: 'Your mother made you listen in the car, didn't she?' Somewhat to their embarrassment, they admit it's true."

It is true. My kids have grown up listening to NPR. It has sparked great discussions about everything from the history of mustard (heard on a Wisconsin public radio station in the middle of the night) to the second Iraq war, which started when my middle son was 6 (he is now 14). His question then: "How can we go to war with Iraq?" At least that's what I heard. I tried to explain, but failed miserably. "Mom, what are you talking about? How can we be at war? 'A rock' just sits there unless you throw it at someone." Which pretty much sums up my feelings about our invasion of that country.

Some people like their weather and traffic on the ones. Others prefer to tune in to polarizing pundits on the left or the right. Still others (my husband) go for Howard Stern or one of the other shock jocks. If my kids want music, they can always plug in their earbuds, but even when they complain, I know they really want me to win Carl Kassell's voice on our home answering machine.

Me, I'm an NPR fanatic. I learn something new every day. I laugh, I cry, I get mad at the people with whom I disagree, because NPR presents many sides of a story. My thirst for knowledge is both fed and stimulated—often simultaneously. I'm guilty of putting extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as I sit in my running car listening to the end of a story. And I'm embarrassed to say I haven't pledged as much as I should. But I swear, the minute my first book is published, I'm going to become a dollar-a-day member.

Do you have a favorite NPR program or personality? Or do you hang out more in the middle of the dial. Please feel free to comment here.

Real Good Grammar

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who get the heebie-jeebies when they see this cover of The Elements of Style, and those who get warm fuzzies.

It's probably no surprise that the classic Strunk and White grammar reference is a favorite among my ever-growing collection of books on writing, grammar and publishing. My brother claims that while he recognizes when something is grammatically incorrect, I can tell you why. If that's true, it's due in large part to my reliance on The Elements of Style.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of E.B. White's reexamination of Professor William Strunk Jr.'s "little" book, originally self-published in 1918. In the 1971 third edition, White wrote in his introduction: "Today, fifty-two years later, its vigor is unimpaired, and for sheer pith I think it probably sets a record that is not likely to be broken. Even after I got through tampering with it, it was still a tiny thing, a barely tarnished gem."

My copy of that "tiny thing" is 92 pages, including the index, and cost $2.95 when I bought it in 1979. A brand-new, hard-cover 50th anniversary edition is $13.27 on Amazon.com and runs a whopping 128 pages. That pith, along with a dose of humor, is what makes this grammar book, of all things, still newsworthy after 90 years. 

I admit that I'm a grammatical fuddy-duddy. E-text makes me crazy. I loathe the misspellings, lack of punctuation, and incomplete sentences that are acceptable — even expected — in e-mail and texting. I cringe as I see already-mediocre vocabularies being whittled down to a pitiful collection of abbreviations and emoticons ;-). Stop telling me that you are FOTFL and let me hear the joke. I'll decide for myself whether it's funny or not.

By Strunk & White's standards, my writing falls far short of ideal: "Do not inject opinion" (pg. 80), they warn. This blog, indeed blogging in general, would be damed for "affecting a breezy manner" (pg. 73):

The breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day. 

But despite the harsh criticism that I imagine I hear directed at me from beyond the grave, I still treasure the advice and simplicity of The Elements of Style. Times change, language grows, and grammar evolves, but evolution does not mean obsolescence. Grammar is the framework upon which we build our stories, the bones that define the features of our characters, and the shiny mirror that allows us to reflect our meaning and our society with clarity and precision. Keeping a few good guides on your desk or bookmarking them online just makes good writing sense.

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy. — Dorothy Parker

If you hate the book because you think it has weakened our study of grammar by reducing it to a mere 100 or so pages, you might enjoy Geoffrey Pullum's "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice." If you hate it because you think grammar is stupid and unnecessary (or are just a word nerd, like me), check out Marc Acito's commentary on NPR's All Things Considered called "Who Needs a Manual to Write Real Good."

For those who have not run screaming into the night, you may be interested to know that the revisions to MLA (Modern Language Association) Style also go into effect this month. 

Happy anniversary, Mssrs. Strunk and White, and thanks. If you have a grammar horror story or favorite writing reference to share, please click here.

Finally, in honor of National Poetry Month, here's Carl Sandburg on grammar:

I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.

Gift Giving 101 — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are good at gift giving and those who aren't. In fact, there are two other kinds of people in the world: those who are good at receiving gifts and those who aren't.

Gift giving and gift receiving are both subtle arts, as evidenced by the recent brouhaha over the gifts exchanged by President Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Seems the 25 DVDs of American film classics that Obama presented to Mr. Brown did not quite compare to the ornamental pen holder made from timbers of the HMS Resolute, the sister to the ship that yielded the wood for the President's desk in the oval office. Oh, yeah, and a framed commission of the of the HMS Resolute. And a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert. We won't even get into the kids gifts.

If it is truly the thought that counts, it doesn't seem to me that a lot of thought went into the DVDs. As British columnist Iain Martin told NPR's Robert Siegel, "We do have television and DVDs over here."

I love choosing the exact right gift for someone. It's gotten harder, both due to tough economic times and lack of actual time, to put the same kind of thought and effort into my gift giving, but it still affords me great pleasure when I do it right. And doing it right has nothing to do with how much something costs. The question should always be "Will this delight the person receiving it?" The right gift can be something longed for, or something never even dreamed of. It can be huge or tiny or completely intangible. It can be the result of great effort or a serendipitous find. But the perfect gift is always personal — meaning specific to that person.

I once gave my father several DVDs as a gift for some holiday or other; not 25 of them, but several at least, maybe five or ten. My father is a movie buff and these were the films of Stanley Kubrick, his favorite director. He loved them. The DVDs were personal for him.

I've tried to instill this love of gift giving in my children as a sort of antidote to the constant case of the "I wants" that seems to infect the young (and the not-so-young). Even more importantly, I've tried to teach them the fine art of being a wonderful gift receiver. This isn't as easy as it sounds.

When I was a kid, we visited a distant elderly relative who gave my brother and me each a wildly inappropriate gift, hopelessly out of fashion and much too young for us. I seem to remember accepting it reluctantly and proffering a very weak "thank you." My mother was furious, and gave a lecture on the way home that still stings when I think about it. It ran along the lines of how lovely it was that someone who barely knew us took the time to go out shopping, spending perfectly good money to purchase a gift for each of us, and that that effort alone was a precious gift, and that if we were ever lucky enough to receive another gift in our lifetimes, we had best show profound and humble gratitude, no matter what that gift was.

I will also say that my mother set the best example, still reigning as the champion gift receiver of all time. We gave her some really lame gifts when we were kids, including an atrocious brooch with plastic turquoise cherries, some horrible perfume and a plastic cup that my brother melted in the oven for some scouting project. She loved them all. I swear you could wrap an empty box in the Sunday comics and my mom would say: "For me? Oh, thank you so much." And you would feel so good. I hope I have taught my children as well.

On the other hand, I know people who, no matter what gift is given, always ask if I kept the receipt so they can return it. How rude.

Sometimes we receive gifts that may not be exactly what we wanted or expected. Perhaps the gift giver was busy or preoccupied, say with a crushing economic crisis, mounting unemployment and a brand new job. This is where knowing how to receive gifts graciously can make the entire experience pleasant for everyone. After all, giving and receiving gifts is meant to be joyful.

So, on behalf of the American people, I would like to thank Mr. Brown for the lovely, thoughtful gifts he bestowed on our new President. I hope he and his family enjoy the movies. And to Mr. Martin and the rest of the British press, my mother says that a simple "thank you" will do.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't busy wrapping presents and writing thank you notes, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Once I built a railroad, made it run, 

made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad; now it's done. 

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower, up to the sun, 

brick and rivet, and lime;

Once I built a tower, now it's done. 

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (1931), lyrics Yip Harburg

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who fundraise and those who are hit up by fundraisers. Seems everyone has a hand out these days. Magazine sales for two different schools. Pleas from WBEZ, my beloved local NPR station, to shorten the fall fundraising drive by pledging now. Dunning notices. Late fees. A plummeting Dow. Yikes, man.

I think we are all more than a little frightened about money these days, and with good reason. The Dow fell 777 points on Monday, the biggest one-day drop ever — bigger than the Black Tuesday that precipitated the Great Depression; bigger than the 684 points it fell on the first trading day after 9/11. I like to joke that a falling stock market doesn't affect me — I'm too broke to own any stock — but the fact is, we are all affected by the economic mess in which we find ourselves. 

I'm no financial genius (huge understatement here), but there is one investment I know will never fail: education. If we want our children to make a difference in this world, to build a clean, cost-efficient public transportation system and make it run, to build a green tower using the power of the sun, we must support public education.

This post is a response to my first Chicago Moms Blog challenge, in which those of us who contribute have been asked to write about DonorsChoose.org. Last year's challenge helped more than 75,000 students in high-need public schools. I have mixed feelings about hocking my readers for a donation, so I offer this post as information only. I've checked out the group and it seems pretty cool. One of the most interesting aspects of it is that it allows donors to choose which specific educational project they would like to support. 

This is the time of year when many of us count our blessings, as well as our pennies. As you you count yours, if you find a few extra pennies under the cushions, considering passing them on to a cause you support. It's free to comment or make a pitch for your favorite cause by clicking here. 

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