The good folks who listen to me in the morning from Sunday to Sunday — maybe “endure” would be a better word — know how I often speak of the importance of words and how we should strive to use the right one. And how we should keep them soft and sweet because we never know when we might have to eat them, and so on and so forth.
The reality of words is that they’re about all we’ve got to convey thoughts and ideas and such, short of body language and action — not that those two aren’t important in how we get thoughts and ideas across.
Anyway, from time to time I have thought about how the two vocations in which I have spent most of my life — journalism and pastoral ministry — both rise and fall on words and their correct and appropriate usage. In those two fields, the right word can be what saves the day and the wrong one can be the kiss of death.
Every profession, I know, has its quirks, failures and shortcomings. Doctors, I’ve heard it said, bury their mistakes and lawyers send theirs off to jail. Writers and speakers, however, tend to put their bad moves out in the public domain for all the world to see forever. In short, if it makes it into print or film or tape or DVD it’s there forever.
I’ve had my share of them through the years. Once I did a piece for the local paper in which I lamented that much of our adult population still had trouble reading and writing and that the local community college had launched a program aimed at helping older folks (by definition, I guess, “non-teenagers”) improve themselves in those areas.
Dutifully I did the story and then cast about for a headline and thought I’d prepared a good one when I set in type the words “Literacy still problem in Chatham” — and then followed it up with a smaller headline underneath proclaiming “CCCC working against it.”
I’m pretty sure about 5,000 copies of that paper were printed before I got the chance to holler “Stop the presses,” something I’d seen in movies and always wanted to do but did, I think, only this one time.
During the years of preparing newspaper pages and church bulletins, there have been similar instances. Now they’re funny; at the time it wasn’t always that way.
The curse isn’t limited to only me. Many, if not most or all, of the folks who put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard have tasted it. A dear little lady who for years reported the goings and comings of a certain community in the local media once proclaimed that a young lad of that community was off serving in Uncle Sam’s Navy on a vessel known as an LST (Landing Ship Tank — a big ol’ boy whose front drops down so the tank can crawl off). The writer reported that the young sailor, as part of his duties, “took a trip on LSD.”
If it’s true misery loves company, and maybe laughs with it, a book I picked up some time ago, a collection of mis-types, has given me cause to know they’re everywhere. I especially enjoyed the one that said “The Fulton County Humane Society is hosting their 4th annual beagle barbecue. Come on and join them in this unique event,” and the church newsletter item which read, “The church board of elders has called a special meeting today to decide what it did last week.”
Bottom line is at least we’re trying.
So, as a noted speaker and writer (me) said earlier “Keep your words soft and sweet; you never know when you might have to eat them.”
And don’t forget “please” and “thank you.”
Especially in these hard times.
Thank you.
Bob Wachs is a native of Chatham County and retired long-time managing editor of the Chatham News/Chatham Record, having written a weekly column for more than 30 years. During most of his time with the newspapers, he was also a bi-vocational pastor and today serves Bear Creek Baptist Church for the second time as pastor.
