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Gov 2.0: Revolution Brewing
The push for open government has, to my mind, as many negatives as positives. I pride myself in being open minded about such initiatives but I remain concerned about security, privacy and confidential commercial information. A great deal of good thinking and planning has already been completed in these areas, but it is going to be a difficult balancing act. Add to that the different mindset that about 165 000 APS staff will have to accept and act upon, let alone the thousands working in state, territory and local government organisations. No matter whether you think government 2.0 and the concept of open government are good or bad, it is important to be engaged with the process. The more involvement, the better the outcome. No surprise that the excellent report of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce has that title: Engage. Check out the Australian and international websites that focus on this important issue on our new page dedicated to government 2.0 resources. Add your own links, too. Gov 2.0 Resources Save the 'postrophe! Read Imre Salusinszky's wonderful article on a precious piece of punctuation. http://bit.ly/q3L2eF Job Description Read the fascinating job description that someone, who was leaving Google, received from Facebook. 'Come hang out with us for a while and we'll see what happens.' Question Time Brief Becomes World-Wide Hit Watch my favourite Question Time Brief being delivered by Minister Hans-Rudolph Merz of Switzerland's Bundesrat. The QTB's author is unknown. Punctuation is Usually Seen But Not Heard Watch the classic Victor Borge routine that puts punctuation into everyday conversation.
Jane Austen’s Punctuation Problem There is a remarkable fact about authors that their parents and editors know very well. Many successful writers do not understand punctuation. Part of the manuscript of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion is on display in the British Library in London. She used dashes for subordinate clauses. Occasionally, she dropped in a comma but, apparently, in odd places. Austen didn’t ‘get’ paragraphs, at all. In this manuscript, she used none. There are stories around that Henry Lawson struggled with punctuation. Of course, he had the ‘voice of the bush’ down pat. More interestingly, Charles Dickens used decisive and eccentric punctuation to intensify his prose. His text benefited from this brilliant enhancement.
The ‘E’ and the Hyphen at the Start of e-Words Should we use a hyphen in words that begin with ‘e’ (for electronic)? How do we deal with upper case letters? I’ve struck this issue many times and I must admit that I am often uncertain about the best approach. The Commonwealth Style Manual recommends hyphens: ‘e-book’, ‘e-business’ and ‘e-learning’. I do not always follow that recommendation. For example, I use ‘email’ and ‘ebook’. However, I would not use ‘elearning’ or ‘ewriting’. So, I am far from consistent. I am worried that my decisions are simply based on how the word looks with an ‘e’ in front of it. There is another problem. Should I use an upper case ‘e’ or should the letter following the ‘e’ become a capital? I would prefer not follow the Style Manual’s recommendation to begin sentences with an upper case ‘e’. It looks odd to write ‘Ebook’, ‘Ebusiness’, ‘Elearning’ and ‘Ewriting’ (when I don’t use the hyphen). So, that leaves me with ‘e-Book’, ‘e-Business’, ‘e-Learning’ and ‘e-Writing’.
It’s time for a decision. Suddenly, the use of the hyphen looks appropriate.
Maybe, I should go back to the Style Manual’s approach: ‘e-book’,
‘e-business’, ‘e-learning’ and ‘e-writing’. Same Difference I have been thinking about ornamentation in writing: the rhymes, rhythms and resonances that enliven text. I love repeated patterns like parallelism, cadence and consonance. Alliteration works well, as does assonance. It’s a joy to read similar sounds soaring to a climax that ends in an ominous onomatopoeia. Someone recently pointed out (a little insensitively) that I am conflicted in writing. I love the rules of grammar and punctuation, that’s true. But, I fly to the poetic oddity and the occasional inelegant lurch of language. For me, repeated patterns are fun, but so are contrasts (in a different way). I like occurrences that are contradictory. I laugh when an oxymoron runs slowly to mind and enjoy the bump of unexpected stress points. I pause over odd-used words gleaming with calculated ambiguity and thrill to the single exclamation after a page of sprawling sentences. I want to hear my heart sing. To see pigs fly. To touch the sky. But, sameness and difference in ornamentation have worried away at me for longer than they ought. There seems to be a more profound role for these two concepts in writing (and in communication more generally). Sameness has a deeper significance. Think of subject–verb agreement. Think of consistency in spelling. Think of repeated sentences using active voice. Think of full stops at the end of every sentence. Sameness is at the core of grammar, punctuation, spelling and style. Then, there is difference. It lies within the heart of ‘however’, ‘yet’, ‘but’ and ‘despite’. These transitions tilt different facts against each other, set the mind to measuring and create structure in the process. Different voices set the antagonist against the protagonist to create the drama of a scene. Irony layers a different story for those who care to notice. So, writing is shot through with sameness and difference that works for and against each other all at once. In fact, human communication seems to be saturated with sameness and difference, as well as the delicious harmonies and discords of their interaction. I think that writing (and human communication) is utterly simple. It’s repetition and dissonance. It’s repetition and splatter. My guide to writing, simply
put, is ‘Repeat. Repeat. Then, shatter the pattern’. AP Stylebook Breaks New Ground Associated Press has released its 2010 Stylebook. It’s important because many writers, not just journalists, use the AP Stylebook for guidance in relation to modern style. The biggest reaction by readers was to the change in the word (note the singular) ‘website’. It was previously ‘web site’. The Stylebook also has a new section, ‘Social Media Guidelines’, on how to deal with Twitter and Facebook. The authors have included explanations of neologisms such as ‘app, blogs, click-throughs, friend, unfriend, metadata, RSS, search engine optimization, smart phone, trending, widget and wiki’. They have decided to stay with ‘e-mail’, ‘e-book’ and ‘e-reader’. That worries me because ‘email’, for example, has become internationally standardised. But, ‘ereader’, of course, may take a little longer to settle in. US State Department Engages Directly Via Twitter I was reading through my 'government' twitter list when I saw the following:
I immediately noticed the interesting use of the question mark and the apostrophe to signify the word 'questions' and the embedded hashtags for Secretary Clinton and China. What drew my attention even more was the direct and powerful relationship being established between the State Department and those using Twitter to learn more about US foreign affairs. Such engagement and openness should be applauded. Isn't it time Australian government leaders and officials began engaging more openly with citizens through Twitter? Grammatical Rules Become Tyrannical For a long time, I have thought that prescriptivism is more about social control than about correct grammar. Of course, if you use correct grammar, you are more likely to be understood. However, I have seen too many people using their knowledge as a social weapon. Endlessly trying to correct other people's language can be irritating or worse. In government, we should try to use language that is easily understood and socially appropriate. To follow labyrinthine rules (some of which may be of dubious provenance) is almost always a waste of time. It is refreshing to read about grammar without the prescriptivists constantly demanding corrections. Federal Government
Responds to Engage:
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