School Chiefs In Punctuation Ban Row!

It is probably because I drifted into a career in banking through passivity rather than due to any burning desire to work in the industry and remained there for thirty six years more through inertia than anything else that I have always admired and even envied people who have a clear vision of the vocation they want to follow. However, when I was in my last year at school and wondering what I would do for a living, I harboured some thoughts about pursuing a career in journalism. After all, English was probably my best subject and I enjoyed writing, but in truth I was probably too shy, too introverted to consider a profession that generally requires one to have a thick skin, be hardnosed and perhaps even unscrupulous at times. I remember hearing that one could not consider oneself a proper journalist until one had filched a wedding photograph from the home of a grieving widow, something that I could not conceive of myself doing, although as a junior reporter I would probably have been reporting on church fetes, Women's Institute meetings and proceedings at the local magistrate's court, so the requirement to steal mementos from a tearful spouse might be a long time coming, if indeed the need ever arose at all.

Looking back, I have often wondered if I actually heard that tale or if I imagined it. That was until I read Romps, Tots and Boffins: The Strange Language of News by Robert Hutton. As the sub-title suggests, it's a book that explores the language of journalism, or journalese, that inhabits our daily papers, the words and phrases used in newspapers that rarely appear in our normal, day to day speech. Words like 'baron' as in 'oil baron' or phrases like 'foul mouthed tirade,' which normal people would substitute with "effing and blinding" or swearing, or cursing. Then I came across 'death knock,' which Hutton explains is what happens when someone dies in a newsworthy way and a reporter is despatched to counsel the grieving family...and 'get every picture of the loved one that's in the house.' So I hadn't imagined it after all.

You only have to take a cursory glance at any newspaper to see what Hutton means about the particular idioms that reporters employ. In fact there is probably a good parlour game to be had from scouring a paper with a list of words like 'officialdom' or 'plucky,' 'rabid' or 'reeling' and seeing how many you can score. Journalese exists for many reasons. To tell a story in short, punchy phrases that convey their meaning easily for readers whose time is at a premium. To deliver prose that is lively and easy to read and is familiar is an asset in getting the message across when space and time are limited. Thus 'rant' for an argument with which the writer (or paper) does not agree, or 'rapped' when someone is told off. It's a sort of code, but one for which the reader has the key, even if on starting to read a particular newspaper they may have to learn it. As Hutton points out, journalese is a fairly universal language and while at one time there were different dialects for tabloids and broadsheets, (Keith Waterhouse, of whom more later, identified 'tabloidese' as a distinct sub-genre), the lines are now so much more blurred, with words once the preserve of The Sun or Daily Mirror now also commonplace in The Times or The Telegraph. Although journalese evolves (as Hutton tells us, 'mad cow disease' and 'test tube baby' are the inventions of journalists), some expressions are ages old and perhaps no longer relevant. A sports writer describing a footballer turning 'on a sixpence' before executing a 'slide rule pass' is alluding to a coin not in use for over forty years and a calculating device long since supplanted by the pocket calculator. But the reader will immediately know what is meant, even if they have never seen a sixpence, or a slide rule for that matter.

This week a story appeared in the press suggesting that government ministers are concerned about the excessive use of the exclamation mark by children as young as seven. The ! is apparently over used, particularly in social media, and teachers are being advised to curb its use by their pupils. The reporting of this story has sent journalists into a frenzy of journalese in describing  the announcement from the Department of Education (DoE). Teachers are apparently "up in arms" about this guidance, which is described as a "stern edict." This has resulted in a "backlash" with ministers being accused of "taking writing back to the 19th century" since primary school children are to only get credit for using exclamation marks at the end of sentences beginning with 'what' or 'how' as in "What a lovely day!" or "How exciting!" This, by the way prompted the title of my blog this week, as you may have guessed by now. Banning exclamation marks other than in specifically prescribed instances may be somewhat Draconian; it is certainly at odds with the idea that the correct use of punctuation, grammar and even spelling are less important than a child's ability to express themselves, although I have limited patience with that concept. I would agree that the over use of the exclamation mark diminishes its effect; the use of multiple exclamation marks certainly does, but limiting its use to certain sentences will rob others of their meaning, reducing the dramatic to the mundane. Language evolves, and social media, particularly Twitter where brevity is vital given the constraints of 140 characters, is a particular example of how English (and presumably other languages) is changing whether the DoE like it or not.

The media reacted to the exclamation mark rules with typical journalese.

The DoE's pronouncement on the use of the exclamation mark is not the only example of someone wishing to limit its use. Somewhat surprisingly considering the genre in which he writes, Stan Lee, creator of such characters as Spiderman, Iron Man and Hulk, once tried to ban them from Marvel Comics, having decided that they were "too juvenile." There is a theory that exclamation marks were originally used so often in comic books because of the printing process. The use of poor quality paper meant that full stops were often not visible or might be removed by a printer and so a ! ensured that the reader understood what the  writer intended. The story goes that after a short period in which the exclamation mark was not used, Lee relented and they were reinstated, perhaps because a comic book without exclamation marks is like a Big Mac without the pickles.

Spiderman, complete with exclamation marks.

Keith Waterhouse. Picture: The Guardian

In terms of writing styles, I am of a mind with Robert Hutton, who regards the late Keith Waterhouse's book, On Newspaper Style, now more than 30 years old, as an essential guide for writers. As someone who greatly admired Waterhouse's writing, for newspapers such as the Mirror and the Daily Mail and in his novels (Billy Liar would probably be the book I would chose to take if ever asked to appear on Desert Island Discs), I can honestly say that if I could write a tenth as well as him I would die happy. As far as I am concerned, it would probably be better for children to be schooled in their writing by reference to  Waterhouse, whose campaign against the misuse of the apostrophe should be a lesson to us all, than by a bunch of Whitehall mandarins.