A FINAL
WORD ON JOURNALISM . . . (for now)
This marks the end of yet another season
(the 12th? 13th?) of TODAY'S WORD ON
JOURNALISM. It's been another good run,
mostly: As Papa Hemingway would have
said (did, in fact)--"I have tried
simply to write the best I can; sometimes
I have good luck and write better than
I can."
That's not so hard in my case, since
the WORDmeister's job is simply to crib
and collect the words of others--all
better than I. One of those better writers--I
forget who just at the moment--said
an essential element of good writing
is knowing when to quit. So I'm taking
that advice.
Longtime WORD subscribers know what
happens next: Every May, more or less
at this time, classes end at Utah State,
the students and faculty flee, and those
nice but firm young men from St. Mumbles
Home for the Terminally Verbose come
and take the WORD away to the sanitarium
for the summer. No one minds, really.
It gets a bit quieter in cyberspace,
and the WORD himself needs the time
and space for a little reflective conjugation
and electroshock.
For myself, this epitaph, which I've
used before. But I am pooped, and I
need the rest, if only until August
. . . when the WORD will escape St.
Mumbles and I will rise again.
Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Edward Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God.
--From an 1880s gravestone on Nantucket
Island, Mass. (lightly edited)
Have a wonderful, restful summer. TP
SPEAK
UP! Diss the Word at
http://tedsword.
blogspot.com/
