European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 03, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Doily Magazine by John Barbour associated press someone is following Edwin Newman. Oddly the Veteran Abc newsman author i of two books on the misuse of the English language is More than vaguely aware of his Shadow. When the Man who compiles other peo _ pie s mistakes Speaks these Days his Shadow frequently intrudes to Correct Newman s errant English. He begins a sentence with the phrase oddly enough and halts. His voice drops a note lower and says leave out the  the Shadow is at work. I Don t know How Many years i have gone now but it been quite a few. " Newman stops in mid sentence. Quite a few a stupid phrase the Shadow says. It s quite a Large number of years  so the Shadow does his marvelous work and Newman through his personal example and his books strictly speaking and a civil Tongue does his. I think i can say i make fewer mistakes than most people Newman says. But i m More aware of my own language since i be written those books. I try to change a sentence when i see mistake. Coming and i Correct myself More frequently  when his self consciousness about English began per haps no one can say exactly including Newman. Maybe it was when he met the British woman who became his wife and used the phrase very  very excellent one thing that happened to me As a reporter on the air was that i realized i was pushing along ideas that had no substance. I was taking phrases and using them As if they had substance and they did  instance Lyndon Johnson s great society. In the beginning television reporters would always say Lyndon Johnson s quote great society end quote. But As time slipped by so did the quotation Marks. We began to talk about this As though it were real Newman remembers. It was no doubt a great political slogan but we have no business helping political so  he remembers others too. There was the Kennedy idea of a multilateral nuclear Force for Europe and the grand  which was the Kennedy Label for some kind of cooperation among the United Stales Canada and Western Europe. They turned Newman off after a time and he did the same with them. When you use that kind of phrase you re helping politicians further their own alms make what they Are doing seem important he says now. I was in the Happy position of being Able to Tell myself you re not going to do this  so the Dusty Trail to concise precise English is littered Wilh verbal debris. Like the word  admits that this discovery might sound Small to others but to him it was significant. He had been look ing Over some scripts he had written in Cairo and found that the second or third paragraph of every script began with meanwhile. ,. ."1 became very tired of seeing meanwhile he re then i realized that we use a number of words that Are useless pointless have no Force whatsoever. The associated press does it United press International does it. A Thel word controversial ceased to have value years ago. The word massive is finished. The word rhetoric As a reporter i was taking phrases and using them As if they had substance and they did to Edwin Newman s verbal Shadow i Money la a very Good example of  i. In the Fields we re talking about nobody does t mean whal in used to mean. It s been ruined. There is word after word after word to which that Hap pens. A recent example is the word Gay what has happened is we be destroyed a Good word to mis apply  reporting Newman says writers and speakers use cliches because they Are available and easy even if they Are not conveying information. I m not at All against eloquence but you can be eloquent and straight Forward and Clear and you have to do it with words that Are Concrete. The method of broadcasting is simply to Emit a sound that can be recognized As having something to do with news. A certain tone a certain excitement a  is identified As a news sound. It s not necessarily easy however for people to understand what the news is. When it is coming to them in that Way. In fact i think the opposite is True. A lot of these things came to Gether for  you re not conveying information what Are you in this business for today s troubles begin be thinks. In the academic world where the dictum to publish or perish yield some very perishable publish ments. The less you have the More you will feel obliged to conceal it to package  Newman reasons. The Large Rand More elaborate the package the less there is going to be in it. So it starts in the academic world but it spreads and  government to journalism to business. Make what you do sound difficult and beyond the grasp of Ordinary people. Dress it up in big words. Suggest that special training is needed to understand  do this for self Protection protecting their jobs or protecting their  Friday june 3, 1977 the word Newman says will Ever say Money they la say funding. It somehow makes it sound different. It does t make it sound like you and i Are paying taxes for  Newman a s-foot-2. Ibs Pound Tennis player manages to look smaller and More scholarly behind his desk. He has a Way of leaning Forward lit a confidential manner and he rarely leans Back expansively with his hands behind his head the Way big men Are supposed to do. He has received thousands of letters from his Book readers and they act As a kind of National police Force providing him with More material than be can possibly use. He hands Over newspaper headline inti a Gandhi s successor  do you know what the career awareness stage is he asks. It s when a student from kindergarten to the sixth Grade is trying to figure out what he wants to  when a copier jams he explains it s called an incorrect paper indeed situation. Why he asks did newspapers refer to a hostage situation instead of just saying someone was holding hostages Why when a Federal investigator refused to speculate on the cause of an air crash did he have to say he would be silent until they established onsite evidentiary capability Why does Johns Hopkins University talk about its evening College an innovative interdisciplinary trans disciplinary programming night school Why does the head of the department of transportation want to downsize american cars Why did the head of nato a his forces were not optimized in the posture of essential preparedness obviously he was t ready  must everyone be oriented is an expert in far Eastern affairs Orient oriented once you get to Washington it s very difficult not to speak that Way Newman  s tremendously tempting to people. There s some How More dignity in saying you work in a word processing Center rather than you work in a typing Pool. It s extremely  but the Crux of the problem is in the academic world where much of the jargon begins. When he tells teachers this he gets applause. He himself applauds recent trends to insure that students can read and write. Even teachers Are getting special Educa Tion. They undergo something called remediation unfortunately. This language is repulsive and it will drive Youn people away from writing because they will never have any idea of the enjoyment to be had from language. How would they Ever know if these Are the people who arc in charge of education they believe that what matters is that students relate As they say. To other students that they take part in creative activities. There s even a rather widely accepted theory that the Rales of grammar inhibit express Ion that the requirement that language be Correct will stand in the Way of a student s expressing himself. But if you know the rules of the language and have a vocabulary of some size you can express yourself with much greater eloquence and much greater ease a native new yorker whose parents never were graduated from ugh school Newman came by his love of the language through teachers be still re members. Determined to be a writer he flirted with Short stories a novel some plays and found himself in journalism. For years he had courted the idea of writing a Book on Lan Guage and finally found Lime and courage to do  was helped he thinks by the joint circumstance of watergate and Vietnam which led people to the conclusion thai language could be used to conceal the truth As Well As reveal it i think that something is happening in the country to which i have contributed he says. There Are now insurance companies and Banks that advertise that their policies can be understood. And there is a firm in new York which makes a Good Deal of Money by changing the English of corporations external and  so remember if someone is following Edwin Newman Edwin Newman is following you. The stars and stripes Page 13