Only perfection need apply

Russ Germain died Monday night. He was 62.

For those of us who grew up listening to CBC Radio One, Russ was the voice of the World At Six. Cool, unflappable, with a deep, smooth voice and the professionalism of the consummate newsman, he would be appalled by the structure of this sentence. For Russ, precision in language and clarity of structure were paramount. In radio, after all, listeners only got one chance to understand what you were saying to them, so it was incredibly important to be clear and precise. A pretty good approach for any news person, really, but one that is rarely instilled through constant emphasis and monitoring by one's editors.

When I worked for the Mother Corp. in the mid-90s, I either started my shift by reading the news on the morning show, or ended it with the 5:30pm newscast. This is how I came to know Russ.

Although he was based in Toronto, one of his responsibilities was to monitor all the regional newscasts for consistency, proper use of language, and accuracy. He was a language enforcer, as it were, insisting on perfection. Any slip of the tongue during a seven minute cast and you knew there would be an email or voicemail the next day kindly pointing out the error (in case you hadn't noticed) and offering an improvement.

Those of you who have never been in the news business probably don't realize that every major outlet has their own style guide, and each has their own quirks. Staff are expected to conform to their organization's guide, regardless of what the everyday usage of a word might be. The Mother Corp. was a particular stickler for specificity of pronunciation. Many words in the English language have more than one acceptable pronunciation - tomato, to-mah-to, kill-o-mee-ter, kil-oh-meh-ter, etc. Only one of these is correct for a CBC broadcaster.

One of our biggest ongoing battles was with the term harass. Russ, and therefore CBC, insisted upon hah-russ, which always struck me as vaguely British and kind of poncy. I have never heard anyone who wasn't trained at CBC pronounce it as anything other than HA-rass. It became a bit of a running joke in a newsroom constantly covering court stories, many of which involved harassment of one sort or another.

Proper usage of language was the other component to Russ' training. As radio people, we are encouraged to write like we speak, so it will sound natural to the ear for those who are listening. However, most of us speak with contractions, use words in the wrong context, or use expressions that, while commonplace, are inaccurate. For example, how often have you said "added bonus"? A bonus is by nature an addition, so it doesn't need the adjective. Or "completely destroyed"? Something either is destroyed or it is damaged. Destruction connotes completeness. My favorite is "enormity". People often use that to mean really, really big. It doesn't mean that at all. Enormous means huge - enormity means massively devastating, like "the enormity of the concentration camps cannot be overstated". That doesn't mean the camps were physically huge, but that they had a massively devastating effect.

In preparing to read a newscast then, a broadcaster needed to be aware of how the story was written, fix any misuse of language or awkward structure, be aware of timing and sound clips, and mind one's pronunciation, all with no retakes. It was a challenge most days, but in hindsight, knowing Russ was listening, and knowing there was a universal standard to conform to within the Mother Corp, I know I worked harder to master my on-air skills and pushed myself to constantly do better. Working with him, albeit at a distance, I truly learned how to be an on-air reporter. I suspect there are thousands of folks like me across the country, and abroad, who can say they came into their own under Russ' watchful ear during his 29 years with CBC.

Excuse me?

Sometimes entries just write themselves.

I was reading the New York Times this morning online, as I so often do, trying to wake up and be useful, when I happened upon a story about odd road signs in England, and this photo:


I was now fully awake.

The story http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/europe/23crapstone.html?_r=1&em went on to examine, as it were, a number of quirky and suggestive place names in the British Isles, including Titty Ho, North Piddle, Crapstone, and Penistone. My inner eight-year-old started to giggle.

It seems most of these names date back to when words had different meanings than they do currently. I could have written a serious post on the evolution of language, but the eight-year-old wouldn't let me.

Butt Hole, it turns out, probably referred to a well. Not nearly as much fun now, is it? Damn reason. Gets in the way of all the best stories.

So I got to thinking about Canada's equivalent, and of course, Dildo, Newfoundland popped into my head. It is not terribly far from the trio of Heart's Delight, Heart's Desire, and Heart's Content, which run down the Bay Roberts coast within about 20 kilometres of each other. (I drove through them last year and they are lovely, if wee.) But of course these three aren't nearly as salacious and provocative.

I'm asking all nine of you who read this blog - can you think of any other risque Canadian place names? We have lots of quirky ones, like Moose Jaw, but are there any other Butt Holes, Dildos, or Penistones out there in Canada? Post your comment below.

Do copywriters have grammar-check?

It must be February, because I am even crankier than usual. We're entering our third week of -40ish temperatures, and I realize that's enough to make anyone cranky, but it seems to be having a particularly strong effect on me this year. A week of flu probably hasn't helped matters, but I find that when this seasonal bitchiness sets in, it's helpful to buy some trashy magazines, take my phone off the hook, pour a cup of tea, and slip into my fuzzy slippers. There's probably a blanket involved as well.

So imagine how irritated I was to be yanked out of my trashy blissfulness while thumbing through this week's Entertainment Weekly by the ad on page 58. It's a public service announcement about chronic kidney disease, which is noble enough, but the main part of the text says:

"Most of us would know if they were missing half our money or missing half our friends."

This is a full page ad in a major national magazine. It is sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation, a major American charity. The ad is expensive. And grammatically incorrect. At the risk of taking a page out of LMKIA's book (or magazine), it irritates the bejeepers out of me when people, even copywriters, mix their third and second person plurals, and don't understand the basics of lists. Glen, I'm borrowing the withering look of disapproval (TM). Grrr....