COLUMN
ON MY READERS
My column is supposed to be a finely moulded vessel of enlightenment and entertainment, carefully inlaid with precious jewels of wisdom, and decorated with warmth and humour. But sometimes it ain't.
When it ain't, I get emails. I get emails when I do things right as well. But, while those are great for me, they are boring for you. So this column is dedicated to reproving emails I have received recently.
First, the 'meat in Montreal' column. This generated the most correspondence since my article a few years back on a Victorian prison in Pennsylvania. You are an unpredictable lot.
Inevitably, I left out several favourite meaty places. One that elicited several votes was Abie's in Dollard-des-Ormeaux. I will try it out next time I am lost in the West Island. Promise. Stop emailing.
Meanwhile, reader John Limbardi went to one of the places I recommended, Quebec Smoked Meat, and found it wanting. He wrote: 'First of all, smoked meat should be sliced by hand with a knife not a slicer. Nor should it be warmed up in a micro-wave.'
I am shocked, shocked! A microwave? I always bring home my meat where I steam and slice it myself. I had no idea, honest. Sorry John.
Worse, I got the name of the family that owns Moishe's wrong. Evelyn Seligman politely but firmly set me straight: 'I would like to inform you that the name of the family that owns Moishe's Restaurant is Lighter, not Lightner.'
I would make some joke about how ALL steaks should be Lighter, but I am too embarrassed.
Luckily John Brugos sent an email that cheered me up: 'Several years ago my wife and I were in Montreal and dropped into Ben's. When we were ordering our smoked meat sandwich I asked if they had caraway rye. The waiter answered "sorry sir, all we serve is Seagram's VO.''
Good one, John.
Sometimes what I write provokes pure pity in readers (I am so proud). My column about getting sick on the road was one of those. Readers heard my call for help and responded.
One reader had a specific recommendation. There was a health product she thought I should know about. She explained 'I discovered HMS90 several months ago when my nine year old lab/springer was diagnosed with an anal gland tumour.' Her dog is now doing much better.
Being more of a close-the-garden-gate-after-the-anal-gland-has-mutated sort of a person, I was more tempted by an email from Robin Ingle, of Ingle International and Imagine Insurance. Incredibly, after having read the column, the brave man wanted to insure me in exchange for use of a few columns on his website. Done. It is good to know that someone, other than my brother (I help with his homework) now has a vested interest in keeping me healthy.
More mistakes. In my column about Maori greeting practices, I mentioned that I was given a Maori name, 'Wha', which turned out to mean 'three' (there were three of us in the group). The guide, Maurice, jokingly explained that he was bad with names. Seems he may not have been great with numbers either.
Rod Beauprie and his Kiwi wife Liz, let me know that 'New Zealand is a beautiful place, and New Zealanders are wonderful people, but I suspect that your Maori guide was not quite fair dinkum with you.'
Vancouver-based New Zealander John Hight, explained: 'I am probably the 20th person to write to you about this but your most recent article contained an error. The Maori word for 'three' is not 'wha' but 'toru.' The Maori word 'wha' actually means 'four.''
Good one, Maurice.
Mr Hight then wrote back following my column on Tonga. He liked it, so I will not bore you with that part, but he made a very perceptive point about Fiji. It has nothing to do with anything, but I though you might find it interesting.
'To many outside journalists, the political trouble in Fiji is simply a case of indigenous Fijians resenting Indians for their economic success and refusing to be politically subservient to them. And while there may have been an element of that in the first coup (back in 1987), since then, the political turmoil in Fiji has largely been a result of a power struggle between indigenous Fijian clan groups. Parallel to this power struggle (and often intertwined with it) is an ongoing dispute about whether Fiji should become a modern, multicultural democracy or transform itself into a semi-feudal, ethnic state with political power in the hands of the traditional chiefs. Unfortunately most reports about Fiji do not accurately reflect this reality.'
My readers know so much.
For example, after my column on connecting to the internet on the road, Thomas J. Power wrote in to reacquaint me with www.iroam.com (you join and they give you dial-up numbers all over the world). It is a bit pricey, but certainly a very convenient service. Thanks Mr. Power.
As a quick digression on internet matters (skip this paragraph is you are a proud Luddite) if, as I recommended, you are aliasing your email address, pick random numbers and letters for your destination user name (i.e., if you are forwarding me@columnreader.com to somewhere, make that somewhere something such as 2h34k2hj5@somewhere.com. Spam programs automatically generate user names and 'try' them, so if you pick something such as joe@somewhere.com, you'll end up with two times the junk mail (the ones that found me@columnreader.com and the ones that found joe@somewhere.com). The spam programs rarely try complex number and letter combinations.
The most serious complaint I received this month was from someone who does not want me to use his name. He wrote: 'Don't newspaper columnists have to have high school English grammar? Your article on Tonga saddened me. 'The village is waiting. And so is the rest of the country.' is obviously one sentence not two. Avoid starting a sentence with a conjunction. Never start a paragraph with a conjunction. [Ö] You are guilty of the cold blooded murder of the English written word.'
Finally someone noticed. I use sentence fragments. A lot. And I start sentences with conjunctions. Often.
Actually someone else did notice once, a North Bay high school student called Paula Bialski. Ms. Bialski did her Writer's Craft assignment on me. She even had to write in my 'style'. Sentence-starting conjunctions abounded.
Regardless, Ms. Bialski went onto university. When I last heard from her she was an editor at the school newspaper and planning on starting her own radio show. Seems close proximity to deviant conjunctions is not fatal.
But [notice?] I should explain how I ended up a grammatical serial killer. My first journalism job was for a C.B.C. radio show called Anybody Home. It was for kids and by kids. I was 14. From then on I worked regularly in radio, and still do.
When I write radio scripts, I write them as I want them read. Dramatic pauses become periods. Short thoughts become sentence fragments.
When I write columns I do the same thing. I want readers to 'hear' what I am writing. For me, 'The village is waiting. And so is the rest of the country.' gives quite a bit more weight to the second part than 'The village is waiting; and so is the rest of the country.'
As a columnist my voice is supposed to be distinctive. I would/could never be so free and mudersome if I wrote news.
That said, there are two things I try not to do. The first is use 'like' instead of 'as'. That is because there is a professor in England who calls, with sadness and disappointment in his voice, every time I stray from the true path. The other is to use contractions. National Post policy.
Though I did slip in two at the start of this column. You know where to send the complaint emails…
