Malcolm Gladwell devotes the first episode of Season 3 of his Revisionist History podcast to the significance of one semicolon in the U.S. Constitution. I doubt that the argument would hold up in court (there has to be legal precedent about how that semicolon has been interpreted over the years — right?), but it’s an interesting look at the potential impact of one errant piece of punctuation on the makeup of the Senate and our 50-state (or should it be 54-state?) union.

Further reading:

• How to use a semicolon: the most feared punctuation on earth

Subject-verb agreement can get tricky in complicated sentences. Yet if you make an error, you can end up saying something you didn’t really mean. The Texas Republican Party recently adopted their 2016 platform, which, thanks to an error in subject-verb agreement,  includes an admission that homosexual behavior is ordained in the Bible and has been “shared by the majority of Texans.” I don’t think that was the intended meaning.

See the NPR story for a copy editor’s correction.

Steve Myers at Poynter reports on a recent issue between the AP and a photographer:

The AP has pulled a freelance photographer’s image from its wires because he copied one part of the photo to another in order to cover up his shadow.

I like that he included the AP’s policy. Whether you agree with the AP’s standards or not, the policy couldn’t be clearer, and the photographer clearly violated them.

My friend Ray — who writes an awesome blog about beer, writing, and other things of importance — sent me the link to Laura Miller’s anti-NaNoWriMo essay, “Better Yet, Don’t Write That Novel.” It inspired me to start a new department here: the annals of bad writing.

This general topic has been on my mind for a while. I get angry — yes, angry — when I see bad writing from people who are paid to write. Why? Because the media industry is a mess right now. Smart people are losing jobs or are grossly underpaid, getting the same word rate they received ten years ago. Though many big media executives talk about how “content is king,” they are comically unable to turn a modicum of profit in this time of pervasive content consumption. I mean, come on — the Wired iPad app? Did the editors and Adobe staffers who worked on it actually believe that this mediocre app was actually groundbreaking? Have they drunk that much of their own Kool-Aid.

I can’t change the industry, but I can call out some of the poorly written articles.

Title: “Better Yet, Don’t Write That Novel”
Author: Laura Miller, senior writer and cofounder, Salon.com
Publication: Salon.com
Word Count: 1300 words

Ray described Miller as sounding like “an elitist Chicken Little” in this piece. I would add that her writing is poor, with her arguments ping-ponging wildly: Rough drafts are good! Rough drafts are bad! Writers are narcissists! I’m a writer! The publishing industry is just trying to milk writers for money! Support the publishing industry by reading a novel a month! Consumption is more laudable than creation! By the way, you can buy and read MY book, a reader’s guide to other books!

Buried beneath what feels like sour-grapes kvetching (in case you missed it in her bio, she’s written two books — have you bought them?) is a good point: you’re a better writer if you also read. But did she have to take 1300 words to not even get to that point? It sounds like she does share something in common with many NaNoWriMo writers — she, too, could use a better editor before she subjected others to her writing. This could have been a good 500-word piece, if she actually stated her thesis somewhere.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Based on “Speak with Conviction,” a poem by Taylor Mali.

Recently, Harvard Business School professor Mary Tripsas was fired from her column in the New York Times for accepting an all-expenses paid trip to 3M’s customer innovation center, then writing about it in a favorable light without disclosing to her editor who paid for the trip.

Many of the blogs commenting on it seem to focus on how ridiculous the Times’s standards are, how the piece was a puff piece, etc. They’re missing the main point. As public editor Clark Hoyt discusses in his column, Tripsas and others clearly violated the terms of their contracts. It’s appalling how frequently this happens.

I have a great deal of sympathy for freelancers who are trying to meet the obligations of contracts for an array of publications. Few are easy to read and decipher. Most are unnecessarily long and filled with legal jargon. However, keeping all the contract requirements from different publications straight is one of the responsibilities of a freelancer. Many freelancers feign ignorance or actively flout the contract rules simply because they know that the worst that will happen is that the publication won’t use them again.*

But this is a legally binding contract. Just this last year, I had a writer sell parts of a story that my magazine paid for (and paid travel and other expenses for) to two other publications–or at least, two others that I found. Wait, no. Three other publications. We bought exclusive worldwide rights for the first four months after publication in our magazine. I will never hire that writer again.

The Runner’s World/Newsweek/Sarah Palin photo shoot situation is another version of this same issue. You think that you get what you pay for. Except when the person who you pay decides to ignore the terms of the payment.

Once a writer signs a contract, he or she has agreed to the rules of the game. If you don’t like the rules, don’t sign the contract, or at least discuss it with your editor. (Often, there is some leeway.) Though some of the writers Hoyt mentions felt squeamish or had concerns, none of them actually discussed these concerns with their editor.

*There are many reasons for this. First off, legal battles are expensive and neither publications nor freelancers have much cash to spare. Second, a publication that sues its writers is going to have a far more difficult time finding writers. But as publishers shed titles on an almost weekly basis, these writers are putting short-term gains in front of long-term potential. Editors continue working with reliable, ethical writers.

Apparently we’ve moved on (and up?) from “-gate” to the far more hyperbolic “-geddon” and “-pocalypse.” One added benefit: these form even more awkward constructions, highlighting the use of the newly coined word and bringing more attention to the gloomy drama-queen aspect of the use.

Link: Wordgeddon | GOOD.