European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 24, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 18 column the stars Ano stripes monday August 24.19s7 today s crossword Many students ignorant of grammar by James j. Kilpatrick one of the giants in our Craft John Burton arc run or. Died recently or cancer in Florida he was a Mas Ter of what he called our Beautiful Bastard Lan to every Reader who loves to work with words i would say i wish you could have known him. He was a great teacher and a delightful Man. He had an unusual life. Bom in Brisbane austra Lia in 1920, he was reared in a devoutly Cai Otic family. After study in Rome he was ordained a pne in 1943. He resumed to Australia for a successful career As editor and columnist for Catholic publications. He came to the United slates in 1950, look his master s degree in journalism Al Columbia univer sity then taught Al he University of san Diego and the University of Iowa. He took his doctorate to Iowa in 1965. In 1969 he settled Down at the University of Kansas where he became Saufter Pray visor of journalism. Meanwhile in 1960 he had become � naturalized citizen and he had fallen in love. In 1968 he renounced his holy orders and married Mary Ann Mccutc. I was Al Kansas in 1980, that he put the distilled essence of his teaching into a Fine Book words on words a dictionary for writers and others who care about let me quote from his introduction. He began by deploring the steady growth of literary ignorance thai he had observed Over his lifetime. Many of his students he said arrive in his writing and editing claws with an almost total ignorance of English grammar and usage and Only a smattering of any foreign the blame for this condition be Longs mostly to their teachers Many of whom Don t know the grammar of their own language. You can t give what you Don t have. Worse yet Many Young teachers Are being taught not to teach grammar. What used to be the Art of the trivium has become to love anything John wite you must first know it. To love words you Musl first know what they Are. Yes words Are symbols of ideas. But Many words have lives of i hair own. They have their own historical and etymological associations their own romantic and environmental dalliances their own sonic and visual not Long ago a gloomy letter came to me from a gentleman in Park City 111. He wrote to say that he regularly reads this column but in depresses matters he said have deteriorated Well beyond the confusion of affect and effect or lie and Lay " we must acknowledge the decay of language and with it the decline of Well that was heavy stuff but he caught me in a cheerful humor. I wrote Back to say that All is not yet lost. To be sure our publications abound with awful abuses of the English language. You readers Send me 1,500 to 2,000 clippings a year and 99 percent of them Are horrid examples of errors in syntax spelling punctuation and grammar. I m he one who ought to be depressed yet we should be comforted by the Many examples of Good writing that Are All around us. I am not think ing of such playwrights As Tom Stoppard or such novelists As Saul Bellow and Lee Smith. I am thinking of the prose stylists who write Beautiful things on the Sands of everyday journalism Charles Krauthammer Meg Greenfield. Lvin Trillin George will Mary Mcgrory the faceless feature writers of the wire services. These Are the add Soiu and sleeves of our Day. Now and then the mail brings an editorial from some Small daily or weekly newspaper that rings with the Bell like sound of English put to splendid use. I began writing this column in july 1981. In the ensuing six Yean thousands of you readers have writ ten me to the same effect you love our language you care deeply about it you hate to see it misused. So Long a to Large a body of caring readers exists 1 do not fear for the decay of language and the decline of yes 1 wish our schools were doing a better Job of teaching elementary reacting and High school composition but Many schools ire doing Well in these areas. The situation is serious. In is not Hope Only seems hopeless when you it to this sen tence from an article in insight Magazine last month having to do with the Short distance that separates passenger in subway car the shortness of that distance is surely what was on the mind of Bernhard Goetz when having been mugged before he bought his in the illegal Possession of which he has now been convicted gracious or this san Lance from the bulletin of a methodist Church in North Carolina talking about subjects on which we ought la be informed such is child abuse which mrs. Martha Noflis from the health depart ment talked to the morning circe of the ump there s no ironclad Rule against ending a sen tence with a preposition often this is the natural arrangement of words but Icse examples Are Hor rid arrangement in t everything in prose com position but poor arrange men will get you in All kinds of trouble. A sportswriter in Miami ice us know in june that Don Baylor of the red sox broke a record by being Hil with a Pilch for the 244th time in Boson s 6-2 Victory Over the this occurred in the sixth inning. Poor Baylor it was a won Der he Ever staggered to the seventh. From Spokane wash., the associated press reported that one of five Yakima indians convicted of illegal fishing in Federal court will be released next maybe he was fishing in a Pool of jurors. To Olympia wash., readers Learned of a Tacoma woman who had delivered a baby bom from a Frozen embryo. She gave birth in May after trying unsuccessfully for seven years to gel pregnant with tubal other health news came from parkers Burg w.va., in an alarming headline a proposal to prevent aids spread by Federal officials i m not quite sure what to say about this sentence from a court Story in the Las vegas review journal the City has been trying unsuccessfully for More than a year to close Pluto a where a police officer testified he saw nude people of the opposite sex Shar ing a hot across 1 a Nanny s faithful Solil Irr b Turtle spa nip fun 8 whirl in 12 Suft mineral13 in 39 Uno plus due 41 aril ruler 42 talks Point numb 45 slate of 49 motrin Ink jackets 11 pm try 52 away from the a torn 53 commando ahnrwr4 Ranung 3 Sac red hectic 5 darn St worker 6 the rums 7 gossip Slang 8 Ermine Whitney 14 one Type Man 10 african 16 Community 56 army meal 11 ending setups 18 explore 20 in Andun s river21 Karla a ions 23 to Mir Robert 24 smrt Harr Elrd 28 line or nurty31 Iirth 32 an _ 34 tas i ill mat.35 Nti Isnec e 37 Lulu 56 Madison Tor like Ait or Idle products " of
