Where have all the capital letters and periods gone?
Category: Communications
Silver Linings: IRS, the Nutcracker and YouTube
It isn’t every day that calling the IRS to complain about tax-evading politicians turns out to be entertaining. I had a few minutes to spare, and my new method for letting things go that make me incensed is to take some action. Even a small fruitless action helps me to move on.
What had me incensed was the news of Tom Daschle’s little tax hiccup causing him to withdraw his cabinet nomination for Health and Human Services. Is he too good to lose? Opinions abound, but many of us would rather take a draconian view and get rid of him. Our goodwill towards people in high positions is threadbare these days. Let some political forest fires rage and they might leave fresh ground for new growth.
I had just witnessed Barack Obama’s inauguration in person. Two days later I see news of my city’s mayor facing questions about his teen sex scandal. Opposing factions are calling for him to stay or resign. Is it my civic duty to consider his governing abilities before casting my verdict? I used to think so but who has the energy anymore? My fear is that events like this are becoming quotidian. How does remain interested and involved in the face of looming cynicism—our own and theirs?
Having just written a check for a $90 underpayment on last year’s taxes (that’s $90, not $900, $9000, or $90,000), I couldn’t help but wonder how the IRS could miss $128,000 of Daschle’s unpaid taxes. Sure, his taxes are more complicated than mine are. But that’s not my problem.
So I called the IRS expecting not to get through or to be taken seriously. I was transferred to the Procedures and Rules department. I pictured the cubicled workers snickering at the whack job who called to ask why the IRS wasn’t doing their job. I hope I wasn’t the only one calling.
I waited on hold for long enough to hear Mozart’s Symphony No. in G minor, then his Eine Kleine Nactmusik, and finally Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker. It was all quite lovely. I can thank my sister’s long-ago ex-husband, who was a violin teacher, for why I know the titles of these pieces.
I couldn’t help but laugh listening to Tchaikovsky. Anyone who has seen the movie Top Secret is familar with the famous ballet scene in which the Nutcracker’s Waltz of the Flowers is performed. Nearly every scene is a parody, and here the male ballet dancers have enormous codpieces on which the female dancers eventually leap to and fro. There are so many ridiculous lines and scenes in this movie. And this, coming from someone who doesn’t like slapstick.
Just recently, my brother and I were inspired, while inside a Catholic cathedral, to recite the scene in which a prisoner is given last rites by a priest before being executed. He reads from a bible every Latin phrase having nothing to do with last rites—veni vidi vici, e pluribus unum, ipso facto, pro bono and so on. We never fail to collapse in laughter and see which of us can remember the most lines. Perhaps Mr. Daschle had a little lapsus memoriae.
An IRS woman finally answered the phone and I was yanked out of my YouTube reverie. She assured me that “Mr. Dashle would have received notices from the IRS.” And that she “was also a taxpayer who pays her taxes and thinks the system should be fixed.” Oddly, it made me feel a little better. I say a little. This is either reassuring or disturbing to know that you can owe that much money to the IRS and not be thrown in jail.
At least the time I spent on hold and in YouTube meant no dollars earned and, thus, fewer taxes to pay.
Where Have All the Proofreaders Marks Gone?
Back in the early days of my graphic design career, I took a not-so-glamorous route and worked in a university publications department. After a whopping six years, I moved to another not-so-glamorous job as an art director at an association. But what I lacked in the sexy-projects department, I gained in the word department.
Multiply the number of pages of edits that came across my desk times the number of projects times six years and it equals a lot of decoding of proofreader’s marks. I was blessed being surrounded by scholarly editors and writers. I say scholarly to contrast them with the marketing department because their respective focus was different. And we designers enjoyed the usage war that silently raged between the writer writers and the marketing writers. The latter took great liberties with the English language much to the former’s dismay.
Indeed, there is a time and place for the modifying of proper usage or grammar for the sake of boldness or simplicity, like Apple’s “Think Different” slogan. But I appreciated the delicate, focused care that these editors put into their work—plodding along word by word, line by line, page by page, ironing out the wrinkles. I then pressed out the remaining wrinkles, and learned by doing. There is something refreshing about (mostly) unequivocal rules. With design, anything can be questioned. (I have since learned that anything can be questioned about writing and editing.)
Even so, it was eye-blurring work, deciphering the correct spot in which to insert a commas. Enter proofreader’s marks—this wonderful shorthand of symbols became etched on my brain. It was among a designer’s responsibilities to know what the symbols meant. Now their application seems like a dying art. Making corrections to a document these days is a bit like dancing with a different partner on a dance floor, each using a different style that you must adjust to.
The beauty of proofreaders marks is that they are universal. Each one has a unique meaning and purpose and are, therefore, unambiguous. They are also shorthand for what would otherwise be spelled out, leaving the page less cluttered and leaving the edit easier to understand. A curlicue means delete, whereas a cross out means lowercase. Cross out a whole word and one has to think too long, use guess work or make more errors.
Now, with many proofs coming to designers in the form of marked-up PDFs, there may be no need for proofreaders symbols. These PDFs have their benefits, especially the ability to check off each edit as it is made. But it’s a cumbersome way to make corrections, switching back and forth on screen between software programs. Call me a luddite but I still love a marked-up (in red), hard-copy proof. Those were the days. But then again, those were also the days of making halftones in a dark room using a stat camera for hours while inhaling chemicals. Some progress is good.
