Category Archives: writing

Picasso Was a Descriptivist!

4 Replies

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I recently attended the Picasso and the Allure of Language exhibition, at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art, which examined the painter’s relationship with another art form: writing. The written word inspired Picasso both as a visual artist and as a poet and playwright. If you’ve seen any of his artwork (click on the image in the link above for examples, including illustrations for books), it’s no surprise Picasso didn’t subscribe to traditional rules of language. As he put it:

“If I begin correcting the mistakes you speak of according to rules with no relation to me, I will lose my individuality to grammar I have not incorporated. I prefer to create myself as I see fit than to bend my words to rules that don’t belong to me.”

This passion for innovation was central to Picasso’s longtime and influential friendship with Gertrude Stein, who played around with the rules of language herself. In her lecture “Poetry and Grammar,” Stein said:

“If writing should go on what had colons and semi-colons to do with it, what had commas to do with it, what had periods to do with it what had small letters and capitals to do with it.”

Copy editors, by default, are prescriptivists, who not only follow but enforce the rules. That’s one reason why I like to edit creative writing. Characters can say “I wish I was” instead of “I wish I were” if it’s true to their voice, and authors can choose to use alternative punctuation or none at all. You don’t do away with rules; you just create your own.

So I guess you could say I’m a descriptivist sympathizer. After all, without Picasso and Stein types, we wouldn’t have cubism or stream of consciousness technique or the interrobang.

But it’s probably best they’re not copy editors.

Thanks to Ivy for pointing out the Picasso quote as blog fodder.

Readers Respond

In the tradition of year-end roundups, I’m using the last post of 2009 to summarize the results of my recent poll asking readers which post topics are your favorites. With sixteen of the forty-nine total votes, “word usage” won out. I wasn’t too surprised, considering the most popular post written this year was about “a while” and “awhile.”

As The Chicago Manual of Style says, “the great mass of linguistic issues that writers and editors wrestle with don’t really concern grammar at all – they concern usage: the collective habits of a language’s native speakers.” (The Big Offenders series focuses on common – and controversial – usage issues, but there are more posts on this topic under the label “word usage.”)

Although “grammar” refers to the structure of language, it’s often used as a catchall to include related subjects, such as usage, punctuation, and spelling; therefore, it makes sense this topic would take second place with eleven votes. Coming in next are the profession-related posts, which appeal to a subset of readers: “style” ranked third with eight votes, and close behind, “copy editing” and “writing” tied for last place with seven votes each.

Thanks to those who voted – I’m looking forward to writing about all of these topics in the New Year!

In a Literary State

In addition to freelancing, I work part time as communications director for the North Carolina Writers’ Network, one of the largest literary organizations in the country. This weekend, I was fortunate to represent the Network at the North Carolina Literary Festival, “a celebration of reading and writing.” The four-day event, hosted by my alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, featured more than one hundred writers, including John Grisham, Anna Deavere Smith, and Elizabeth Strout, author of 2009 Pulitzer Prize–winner Olive Kitteridge.

The South was well represented, as you would expect, especially North Carolina, a state that produces as much writing as tobacco. Tar Heel natives Doris Betts, Clyde Edgerton, and Robert Morgan were in attendance as well as many other writers who like calling North Carolina home, such as Elizabeth Edwards and Daniel Wallace. I had the privilege of introducing novelists Ron Rash and Lee Smith and poets Dorianne Laux and Maureen Sherbondy at their sessions, which were sponsored by the Network.

I also helped man a booth for the Network along with administrative director Virginia Freedman and three fantastic volunteers (and fantastic writers): Mark Hardy, Jan B. Parker, and Whitney Vaughan. Thanks to them, I was able to step away and hear first-time authors (and fellow North Carolinians) Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned) and Erica Eisdorfer (The Wet Nurse’s Tale) discuss their books in a session moderated by the always entertaining Allan Gurganus. I was particularly interested in hearing Tower speak because we went to the same high school. (No, I don’t know him, and yes, that’s his real name.) Another graduate, Sarah Dessen, was also on the schedule. Go Tigers!

The whole experience was both professionally and personally satisfying, being a lifelong reader, creative writer, and North Carolina native myself. So, it got me thinking—shouldn’t we have a grammar and language festival? An event where grammar goddesses Martha Brockenbrough and Mignon Fogarty (a.k.a. Grammar Girl) read from their books and discuss the demise of the semicolon? Comma-Con, perhaps?

Count me in.