The Vine: February 19, 2003
Sars,
Just read Lazy Bum’s letter to you, attesting to his inability to
concentrate, listlessness, lack of motivation, and other general concerns.
If I had written you a letter two years ago, I’d have sounded exactly as he
did. A year ago, and it would have rolled merrily along the way to having
failed out of college, barely able to hold a job enough to support myself,
and having pulled away from all my friends.
Depression was a major portion of it — but I’d been treated for depression
for years, and the lack of motivation never quite went away. I could never
concentrate, even when I was feeling okay, and finally gave in to the
pressure of those few friends who’d stuck by me and reenlisted myself with a
new therapist, one of the more well-respected ones in the area. Three
visits later, I was started on Adderall XR, and the difference was
absoloutely night and day.
The combination of ADD and depression is, apparently, one of the most
difficult to diagnose accurately and treat. The symptoms are quite similar,
and one tends to mask the other. When medicated, the resulting reaction to
the upsurge of symptoms of the untreated portion of the brace tends to be to
presume that the medication is having side effects, or that it isn’t working
properly, or what have you. It took over a decade to finally pin down my
diagnosis, but now that we have, I’m looking forward to finally returning to
school and finishing my education. Eventually? Who knows. I’ve always
dreamed of medical school, but it’s never been a real possibility. Not
until now.
Many therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists/what have you tend to seem to
want to latch onto a single diagnosis and medicate from here to the end of
the world and back without considering other possibilities. I’ve certainly
run into my share of them, and many of the people I know with similar
diagnoses have gone through the same rigmarole before finally straightening
their lives out. There’s hope, though, and that’s the hardest thing to
believe when you’re in Lazy Bum’s place, and through treatment after
treatment that at best may not work quite right, at worst can send you
spiralling into a nosedive.
MCAT-Bound and Not Looking Back
Dear MCAT,
Thanks for your input — I don’t have the training to make these diagnoses, particularly not at a distance, but it did strike me that Lazy could have both things going on, or that one could have come on as a side effect of the other (i.e. he’s distracted because he’s depressed, or conversely, he’s depressed because he can’t motivate).
Either way, I think Lazy should manage the depression and anxiety first and see if that addresses the problem; then, if he’s still having problems concentrating, he’s in a better mental place to deal with that.
Dear Sars:
Love your column; love grammar. But this stumps me. I’m sure you’ve
seen it, but I’d love for you to share the answer.
“Inscription for a Grammar”
Christopher Morley (1890-1957)
There were two cheerful pronouns
And nought did them disturb:
Until they met, out walking
A conjugative verb.
The pronouns, child, were You and I,
We might as well confess;
But, ah, the mischief-making verb
I leave to you to guess!
And now on to my question.
My co-worker has written a 100-page curriculum for a two-day course he
is teaching. He asked me to “edit” it for him — catch typos and
“mistakes” — and I agreed. (I love to go over things like that.) To me,
this meant that the piece was pretty much finished, ready to go, and
just needed a fresh eye to check over it for anything glaringly wrong.
Well, things were mighty glaring. Loads of typos, misspellings, and
worst of all, just badly, badly written. As in, “Aiiiiggggggghhhhhhhhh,
you cannot say that! It is just not okay!” As in, to be presentable,
it really wants to be rewritten. So I talked to my boss, and to the
co-worker, and we agreed that I would work overtime to make
improvements, and work with the co-worker on the parts that are Really
Bad to make them at least understandable. But the co-worker maintains
that he only wants me to fix typos and glaring mistakes — not mess with
content, i.e. his words. But I think the whole thing needs to be
reworked — the content and gist will be the same, but it will be
rewritten.
Finally, the co-worker has graciously offered to put my name on the
cover, as editor. I don’t know if I want my name on this, and don’t
know how to graciously turn him down. “Well, it really sucks, so keep
my name off it”?
So my question(s) are:
1. What does a copy editor do, anyway? Check for errors, or really
rework portions of a piece? Are there ground rules for this? When does
editing mutate into rewriting?2. Any suggestions for how to break into the real copy-editing world?
3. Should I work my ass off for the next two weeks to get this thing
into really great shape, and up to my expectations, or just give it a
lick and a promise and make it “okay”?4. And what do you recommend for the editor’s name on the cover thing?
Is this standard practice? (I suppose I could pick up a book and look.)
Thanks so much. You absolutely rock. And I just picked up the
Dictionary of Modern American Usage — fun, fun, fun!
Grammar Queen
Dear Queen,
I admit that I cheated on the Morley thing and Googled it — still no joy. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I think we’re supposed to derive some hint from the word “conjugative,” but if that’s not the case, the only solution I can imagine is that he’s referring to the verb “to be” and the fact that it takes the objective case in the infinitive. Readers, that’s all you.
As to the copy-editing question, #1 is tricky. If you apply for a copy-editing job advertised in the paper, the publication in question is going to have a reasonably strict definition of what’s involved. Mine is a little more flexible, because it’s based on what a prospective client wants me to do. I offer three different levels of service: proofreading (pretty much checking for typos and formatting errors only); copy-editing (fixing spelling and usage mistakes, doing light rewrites for flow, repairing faulty construction); and the “deep tissue” version, which allows but may not require complete rewrites, structural changes, reordering of text, cuts, the whole shebang. Generally speaking, though, I think that regular editors do most of the heavy lifting, and copy editors don’t rewrite as much as bug-fix with the usage.
So let’s skip ahead to #3. As a freelance editor, again, I do what the client wants, and a lot of times, it’s more a matter of diplomacy than of usage, because writing is like driving; nobody thinks they suck at it, and even when they genuinely want your help, people will react really defensively to corrections sometimes. I adopted a policy back in college when I got paid in cases of beer, and it’s served me well: the client is paying for my expertise, and she is therefore free to do with it what she likes — incorporate it, disregard it, whatever. Just because I suggest an inversion doesn’t mean she has to do it, or do it the way I’ve suggested.
The point here is that you should agree up front what is expected of you as the editor and then do exactly and only that, and in your case, you should do whatever your boss authorized, no more, no less. Make the changes as you see fit, submit them to your co-worker, and tell him you’ve made the appropriate suggestions; he can use them or not, but your boss cleared you for rewrites, so the two of them can fight it out. Let him do as he likes for #4 — unless your job title is “copy editor,” I don’t think it either helps or hurts you.
As for #2, I suspect that it’s like writing — you have to do it until they let you do it.
Sars,
I know it sounds frivolous, and at times I get very frustrated with myself for feeling this way, but…here goes. I hope you deem this worthy of answering.
I have a great (live-in) boyfriend. At least I feel that way most of the time. He is fun and nice, pays half the bills, helps walk the dogs, et cetera. He even cooks — since I don’t — I clean afterwards as a balance. However, I never feel appreciated. I always thought the perfect relationship would have all those little things like flowers and dates and sweet cards. And while I do all these things for him — not the flowers — but get him special desserts, candy, cards, plan dates. He does none of this for me.
My female family members think that I am overreacting. They say that men are just like that and I should just plan all dates, make all reservations et cetera. But it really bothers me…and yes, I have told him both calmly and when I am upset. At this point, we just both feel unappreciated and crappy.
I am at the point where everything bugs me. I am tired of cleaning all the dishes and tired of hearing him gloat about how he has helped — if he finally does after weeks of me being upset. This just sucks.
Help me,
Overreacting and Out Of Control
Dear Over,
Ignore your female family members, because it’s not “a guy thing.” It’s a “the two of you” thing. You want certain attentions from him, and he doesn’t provide them. You’ve expressed your frustration about that, and nothing has changed. You don’t get what you need from him, you resent him, he resents you…end of story. Accept that the two of you don’t really work together, and break up with him, because he’s not going to change and neither are you.
I mean, I see two possibilities here. One is that you don’t really want flowers; you want little gestures of consideration, signs that he’s thinking about you, and you’ve chosen to fixate on the Hallmarky stuff because you feel taken for granted generally. The other is that you have a non-negotiable checklist of acceptable traditional expressions of thoughtfulness, and he’s not meeting his quota. If it’s the latter, you should think about why you need those things so badly, but either way, there’s just not much to talk about here. He doesn’t give you what you need. Go.
[deep breath] You seem to have a good head on your shoulders, and right now
I need external advice, so here goes:
I am an extroverted, creative person who wants to experience life before
it’s gone. Everything I do (professionally and otherwise) is
creativity-centered, and to make matters short, I love to challenge myself
and to be challenged.
My girlfriend of a few years, “Lil,” is…not. I love her tremendously,
but she is the exact opposite of a risk-taker. For a number of reasons, she
cannot handle any sort of real stress, and struggles with being assertive.
I ask her to speak up whenever something is bothering her because she is
more likely to bury it, despite her desire to be upfront with me.
We’ve both become concerned recently because she knows my feelings on
travel. I want to try living in other cities in my life for a year or two;
I’m even intrigued by the possibility of raising children in another
country. Lil, in barely-awake moments of utter honesty, told me that she
cannot imagine living far from her parents or having children away from
them, even for a little while, even with the usual visitations. This is one
example of how she’s moving her life somewhere safe, and I’m diving headlong
into risky waters.
We’re in college now, but she wants to find a place to settle soon.
Permanently. I’m not afraid of commitment to her, but I am afraid of
committing to one place and the stasis that could bring on. I can’t imagine
life without her, but I can’t give up who I am. She’s afraid of what this
means…and I’ve discovered that I can’t tell her she shouldn’t be.
Thanks,
Unafraid of Sharks
Dear Unafraid,
I…don’t see a question here. I don’t mean that sarcastically, but you haven’t actually asked me anything, and I suspect it’s because you already know what’s what and what I’d say.
Couples can work through most minor compatibility issues, and even a few of the major ones, but this one isn’t minor, primarily because the only compromise available isn’t a compromise at all — either Lil hauls her ass all over creation, or you settle down in one place, but either way, one of you has to give up something, and it’s going to cause resentments and dissatisfaction.
But you knew that before you hit “send,” so here’s the good news. The two of you seem to have a good, static-free line of communication open about things; you’ve spoken to each other honestly about the issue, and you’ve stayed together so far despite a serious difference of opinion, so hope is not dead. With that in mind, perhaps you could work something out whereby you do the traveling you want to do and Lil stays put, and you see each other when you can and try to keep things going that way.
But a lot changes after college graduation — a lot. Deciding where, or whether, to put down roots isn’t the only big decision either of you is going to face, or change as a result of, in the next five years. So, if you want my advice, don’t commit yourself to anything just yet. Wait and see how things go. Keep talking to Lil about these issues. Life has a way of putting us where we belong, whether we like it or not, so try to relax and see where you get put.
Recently, a couple of friends moved; they hired Company XYZ to come with the super-colossal humongous moving van. Now, mind you, these vans are like the H.M.S. Titanic; they need to go in full reverse for like five minutes before they even slow down. When said van shows up, it appears that the driver is intoxicated.
I say they should have called Company XYZ and explained the situation — something like, “Get us a new crew or we’ll call the police for a field sobriety test.”
Alas, my friends were too intimidated — and stressed out — to do so, partly because the NEXT family is waiting to move in later that day. What would you have done?
Thanks,
Leslie in Pennsylvania
Dear Leslie,
If your friends had any evidence of the driver’s intoxication, any at all — he smelled like booze, he couldn’t walk straight — they should have called the company and demanded a new driver. I can’t imagine XYZ wouldn’t have sent one posthaste; these moving companies have enough insurance headaches without disgruntled customers reporting to the Better Business Bureau that they sent a plastered driver.
Plus…come on. The next family can wait another couple of hours if it means preventing a serious accident.
Tags: boys (and girls) grammar
