Andy's comments

Andy's comments from the Constant Reader group.

Note: Andy is no longer a member of this group.

The best conversations about books I have ever had have been with this group. Several times in the last year I’ve been here, when we are working together on some interpretation of a book, when we are picking up each other’s words and ideas and reactions and running with them, I have felt so connected and understood. It’s a rare and beautiful feeling I hope I will have again.

And I know others have felt that way, too. One of the very new people has said that she is surprised to see so much passion on this forum surrounding the events of Candy’s getting kicked out. I believe that passion that has been demonstrated in people’s posts these last few days comes from that feeling of connectedness and group understanding we have all felt in the past. We are desperate not to lose that feeling, we want to get there again, the moderators don’t want to lose it and the members don’t want to quit, but I have to quit. We don’t want to quit but I am quitting and I don’t want to seek out something similar to this elsewhere because it was so nice here and it was so unique and it worked for me and I know I’ve been kind of a pain lately to some but I know it’s because I so want to feel connected (calling Oprah!), and even those who have been around for a month or a year or two years or more feel so invested.

It takes a lot of work and risk and vulnerability, it takes skill and experience and empathy and probably a bunch of other things for a group like this to work. It’s a bit of a balancing act, it’s a bit like Icarus flying with waxen wings and all those other clichés. Apparently this time we’ve flown too close to the sun.

Everybody should be congratulated for participating in such a nice thing. I have a lot of stuff written about all of this but I am just going to sit on it because it’s all just too sad and I’m very confused and exhausted. I don’t have much nice to say about the moderators who kicked out my friend, except Don’t go bein’ too rigid now, ya hear? Oh, it might be helpful to consider that you are running a publication and it takes all kinds. I’m not sure what your goals are, but I think if your goals are either quantity of members or quality of discussion, you were doing fine on both counts even with that dastardly rogue member lurking about. You might have considered seeking out some resources on how to deal with such a “problem”. I know this is not a day job for anybody, but there are other forums that you could reach out to for advice, there are books on conflict resolution, there are people who have training in how to solve such problems that you could reach out to. You apparently didn’t do any of those things. You just threw her ass out. And then acted like goddamn Soviet intelligence officers.

Oh, if anybody comes across a different group that might like to have me as a member, give me a shout. I’ll keep my goodreads email open. Or if you just want to say hi /smile/

And thanks everybody for great conversations and companionship and for reading my long posts /smile/ I will miss you all very much /smile/

andy

A Short, Incomplete List of Things I Like About Candy

She’s very clever at argumentation.

She’s bold.

She’s confident.

She’s an inspiration to me.

She’s resilient.

She has overcome much diversity and tough stuff.

She’s really funny (and has a terrific smile).

She’s well read and well travelled.

She likes to geek out on art and all kinds of fun stuff.

She’s damn smart.

She’s a great listener and she’s very understanding.

She has a super cool hubster!

She’s excited to meet new people and have new adventures.

She makes films and paintings and killer grilled cheese sandwiches.

She has written a book of poetry.

She introduced me to many terrific people.

She volunteers and got me volunteering.

She’s open and caring.

She approaches this forum the same way everybody else does, but something about her approach makes me see something fresh in everybody.

I learn from her.

She overcomes the bullshit and keeps smiling.

We share a fascination for how forum communication works!

She’s my friend!

Good for you, Janet. Thank you for mentioning the censorship request. That is a very strange behavior for the moderators.

You may have noticed in rereading the apostrophe thread that several posts were removed there. I believe it is a Goodreads issue that when a post is removed, all the subsequent posts are renumbered so it appears that the deleted post was never there in the first place, the only way to notice is to catch references in subsequent posts.

This is a robust group. The ten years of alleged abuse Candy has allegedly doled out have not been enough to keep the group from expanding past one thousand members

Ruth: It’s important to understand that this decision was taken not merely because of the latest unpleasantness here, but after a continuing pattern of insults and abuse.

This whole debacle got me and another member talking via email about a past disagreement we had had. I remembered the disagreement, but I couldn't remember what the topic of the thread was. It's funny how some things loom larger than others in our memories.

broken the protocols of polite conversation
This is the most polite discussion forum I have ever been a part of. Have you been to other Internet sites? I have some great links that demonstrate impoliteness, let me know and I can send them for comparison purposes.

I'm sure we could also find some nice juicy excerpts from some of the books we've read that are much better examples of broken politeness protocols.

conventions of this group. First Jane mentioned some rules, now this business about conventions. I see no other mention of rules or conventions anywhere in Constant Reader.

She has been made fully aware of this over and over again.
How so?

We are saddened
It doesn't seem that way.

unwilling or unable to change her behavior What was the objectionable behavior again?

in the best interests of the group and the free exchange of ideas without fear of abuse or intimidation.
The police chief of a town near me resigned today because he was wrongfully accused of being drunk on the job. Police chiefs have many enemies in the towns they serve. Could it be that somebody who had it in for the chief complained loud enough to the city councilman, who was also an enemy of the chief that they decided to do an investigation? Could it be that Candy had "enemies" on the forum. A lot of disagreements can arise in ten years of discussing philosophy.

I feel like it would be the right thing to do to have an open dialogue with a trained conflict resolution practitioner. There are known conflict-resolution techniques that could be brought to bear on the situation.

I think we need to talk about the specifics of the situation, but it doesn't feel right to do so without Candy here. I think most of the "misbehavior" can be boiled down to misunderstanding.

She didn't quit, the moderators locked her out.

Hi Yulia,
Well, I think Sherry, Jane, and Ruth were very deeply involved in the conflict as it developed. It is difficult for people who were involved with the development of the conflict to mediate it in a way that is just.

If it was a just resolution, this thread we are speaking in wouldn't exist.

And I agree that this isn't the Middle East crisis. But my friend has experience doing things like helping estranged families start talking again, so it isn't necessarily only international conflicts that can benefit from outside help. Like I said, he is a good guy to talk to when it comes to conflicts, and he can talk over email. Actually, his story is very interesting. He was born in Brazil and educated in Mexico and lived in the United States for a long time and travelled back in forth and started a family and now he is 60 and he has committed himself to spending his remaining years trying to bring peace and justice to people that might not have it. He was also my Spanish tutor and the most brilliant teacher I have ever had and a person who just warmed my heart whenever I was around him. I know it probably seems a bit out there to suggest, but he really is a beautiful person, and even before his training with non-violent communication I believe he was and is a gifted person who has a knack for helping people communicate. I don't normally gush about people but there you have it.

Jane: Our rules are stated at the top of this forum.

I don't see them.

***

I'm relatively new. I believe The moderators should be appreciated for creating and maintaining Constant Reader. I believe you Sherry and Jane, when you say you are doing the best that you know how. It is apparent that you are feeling stress over the whole situation. That is why I suggested looking toward an outside moderator to lead a discussion that would hopefully lead to an outcome that is agreeable to more people in the group.

My company runs several large web forums. We have on staff professional moderators who are responsible for settling disagreements that arise on the board. It is often difficult for people who are strongly tied into the conversation to lead a conversation and come to a just outcome. I do know a justice-reconciliation practitioner who does volunteer work on just this sort of issue who may be able to help us. It might be beneficial for the moderators to speak to him, and for Candy to speak to him, if you would like to. If anything, he has useful things to say on how to resolve conflicts and is a good ear. I think in this situation, we are all so emotionally tied up in what is happening, it is useful to know that there are strategies out there for having fruitful dialog, and that those strategies can be helped along by a trained outside party.

Please tell me Sherry or Jane, in a private email if you like, if you would like for me to put you in touch with my friend John Cabral, he is a very nice person and a truly great listener and a person who has had a lot of training and experience in helping communities who are having conflicts. It maybe wouldn't even come to a full-blown mediation, but it might be helpful to talk to somebody outside the group. (My friend has been working on a licensing requirement that requires 40 hours of volunteer conflict resolution work, so he wouldn't require anything in return.)

We know that you want to do what is best for the group, I think there is a way to approach this conflict in a way that will help retain members.

Incidentally, I have been rereading the thread and I find that to be a good exercise. It might even be useful for people who feel very hurt to print it out and talk it over with a loved one, it could take the sting out of it when you look at it after the heat of the moment.

http://www.mediate.com/mediator/details....
http://www.espanoldeljuan.com/

Sherry: This was a decision made for the health of the community.

Jane: We have written to Candy, and she knows why she was made to leave.

These statements make chills run down my spine.

Also, I am worried this thread might turn into a trial of sorts without all parties present. It hasn't happened yet, but if it looks like it's going to become a conversation of specific (perceived?) injustices, I would suggest perhaps employing the services of an outside mediator or alternative dispute resolution practitioner. I don't know if all parties are interested in even having that conversation, but I feel if we want to have a sane conversation about all of this, it would be a good idea to entertain the notion of retaining some outside help.

It might be a good idea to entertain in the interest of the health of the community.

I have received private messages from people who agreed with Candy but felt threatened by several OTHER members of the group. So it seems ejecting Candy from the group is not making the board safer for all.

What I don't understand is if a person is so upset by another person on a message forum, why don't they just ignore said person's posts? Why read something that is going to drive you to such turmoil?

I'd also be curious to know what kind of less strong alternatives were taken before the ejection. (Because I am predisposed to disagree with people myself, I think it would behoove me to know if there are some warning signs to look out for.)

I feel your pain, Jane. But in the last year, I went from using the salutation comma to eliminating it. The trouble I had with Hi, Jane, was when writing a quick email to say thanks. The email invariably ended up like this:

Thanks, Jane.

I would worry, perhaps unreasonably, that it sounded like I was saying Thanks, then signing off with Jane instead of my own name.

So I would write Thanks Jane instead. Then, I decided to start leaving the comma out of Hi Jane too, because, as they say in the publishing business, it is better to be wrong but consistent than it is to be inconsistently right.

Regarding volunteer experiences in relation to grammar, I did work with Hmong immigrants at a school for a couple of years specifically on literacy. The kids were brilliant in general, their speaking was beautiful considering many of their parents did not speak English at all. There was a movement in the school district to combine the school I was at with a more middle-class school, but the parents of the middle-class school killed it because they thought it would bring their children's test scores down.

I've often had interesting situations with the spoken language at different jobs. I worked with a bunch of guys on a route driving job for about nine months, a lot of them asked me what the hell I was doing in that job because of the way I spoke, but I also found myself using language and grammar I wouldn't have otherwise, like "ain't" for instance. To fit in, I suppose. Even at my current job, I refer to many nouns as "her" because, unfortunately, that's how many of the men talk in my office. As in, "I got a new fishin' pole, wanna take her out for a spin?" Ugh. But I work for a magazine that takes as its topic a hobby that is wrapped up with our audience's sense of manhood, and one of the conditions of my being hired was to be passionate about the topic, and I believe that to speak too correctly (ie to refer to a fishin' pole as "it") would reveal me to be decidedly unmannish and would call my passion to question and would therefor threaten my job. Plus, I sit next to a salesman who happens to be very crafty when it comes to "mirroring" the clients he calls on the phone, so it seems that I've begun to mirror him and the other salesman (who I really don't like very much), mirroring my way even unto ungrammatical-land. Which reminds me of another job where I was known to slip into a very mild form of ebonics when talking to some of the women on the job. I really liked it :)

When I worked with Candy at the Outreach, I don't remember changing the way I spoke too much, other than the fact that I was of course using my Chicago voice rather than my Wisconsin accent, which is also back in full swing now that I'm back up here. I may have done a slightly "cooler" language with some of the people, but especially since the people we were working with were often men who I was ever so slightly threatened by, I probably kept things pretty toned down. I was able to be there for quite a few art sessions and I also worked serving food once a week, but I still felt like I was just beginning to get a feeling for how to really relate to the homeless people, I did better I think when I was doing art or eating at the meals and I didn't feel as much like a volunteer but more like just another hungry person.

I think with some people, there is a connection or conflict based on something completely separate from language, whereas between other people, language and inflection and grammar matter very much. It's a mystery to me.

I think that would be a challenge for me if I were a teacher, because I'd be inclined to try to talk like my students instead of wanting them to talk like me. Who knows, maybe it would work both ways. It could be my own deficiencies that cause me to lapse into ungrammaticalness to fit in or to try on different expressions. Maybe if I was more confident or stronger I would be more correct in my spoken language use.

I think teachers are doing something right, for while it can often seem that today's young people are hopeless, I believe most research indicates that, at this moment in history, illiteracy rates are lower than ever before, both in the United States and in the world. Yeah teachers!

This is a very fascinating, if thorny, discussion. I don't think it's such a bad thing for "new members" to see honest discussion and true passion. I for one wish I could get certain people in my "outside life" to speak so frankly. It may feel somewhat painful and scary and intense but I think ultimately such rigorous discussion is a good thing especially given the topic.

Jane said
I don't understand why it bothers you that I don't like poor grammar.

Thank you for asking, Jane. If I can get all Oprah on you, and it seems rather benign after having read through the discussion, but I would say in part it is because I was corrected as a child and it really pissed me off. Obviously plenty of people have had that experience; am I the only one who was really bothered by that? Or has everyone else just gotten over that experience and I'm stuck nursing some little scrape that wasn't even that bad twenty years ago? I think we had a poem on cultivating perceived hurts--Scars. But that's not the whole reason for me being annoyed :)

Mary Ellen said:
(But now I await the inevitable response: picture-hanging is politics!!)

Regarding the picture hanging on the wall, it becomes political when one person points out to another person that the picture is crooked. Everybody obviously has the capacity to "go with the flow" and everybody has the capacity to “put their foot down” or “draw a line in the sand.” To me, it's interesting to know why a person chooses to put her foot down when she does. I don't always notice in daily life because I can't think fast enough, I suppose. Sometimes, as is the case with this thread, I am annoyed by a person’s line in the sand. So then I draw a line, too, and suddenly there are two people pointing out crooked pictures, and then a bunch more people jump in and pointed out even more crooked pictures (or what they perceived to be crooked pictures, anyway) and holy cats, this is suddenly one interesting room to be in. Isn’t there something about how having crooked pictures is a sign there is love in the house?

I have been historically annoyed that people don’t want to acknowledge the political implications of their statements about language. I posted what I posted because I thought I had something to share with people that they might find interesting. I was not always aware that being annoyed by grammar had class and power implications so I thought there might be other people out there who also didn’t know who might want to know. I was also trying to show that grammar and usage are forms of thought control (in the sense that if we use a pre-existing language to express an idea, we are formulating and communicating the idea with an apparatus that is partially outside of us, the language, so in that sense, the language has influence on our individual thoughts), which I still believe to be true, which is why I believe, somewhat to my chagrin, that my annoyance is more righteous than the annoyance expressed in the OP. And because of my feeling (and even my idea) of righteous indignation, I did and still do feel compelled to state my positions, especially given that we live in a democracy and especially since the language and who controls it, and even the definition of control, are very much up for grabs.

Yes, everybody is entitled to feel annoyed, and everybody is entitled to share that annoyance on a forum, but in this instance that annoyance provoked a sensation of righteous indignation in a few members and those members feel compelled to say so. (Everyone knows full well that righteous indignation is annoying, too, but we all consider ourselves good stewards of the earth and of humanity, so there you have it.)

So, with all the above being said, I have two more defenses of mistakes in language, with the caveat that most of us are agreeing to disagree:

1. Children make grammatical mistakes as part of their natural language-acquisition process. Mistakes are good when children make them, because it aids in their “mastering” the language. Adults are capable of acquiring language, too. If mistakes are good for learning, couldn’t mistakes be good things?

2. One thing this discussion is missing is a historical perspective on changing language. If nobody ever made a mistake since middle English, we'd still be using the rules of middle English, right? Why else would the language change?

Yes, Jane, we can agree to disagree. I guess while some people are bothered by typos and errors in grammar, I am equally bothered by people being bothered by such.

Good examples of legalese and offialese, Whitaker. Thanks.

A body of people living together must, as a matter of course, agree on certain rules of communication for no other reason than that they need to communicate and communicate clearly.

I agree people need to communicate clearly, and that grammar develops as a way to facilitate clear communication.

However, I think there is a conflict here between what works for the group and what works for the individual. Grammar, usage, and the conventions of the whole language can sometimes work against the individual's ability to precisely communicate an idea or feeling. Jane mentioned in the OP that French is much more precise when it comes to the possessive case. And, Enlish has essentially eliminated the subjunctive mood. An individual might have a hard time communicating the feeling of subjunctiveness in English. Perhaps eliminating the subjunctive has facilitated clear communication for the group. I know no one would advocate dumbing down the language, but is that what English has done by eliminating the subjunctive? Fewer rules and forms to learn make for clearer communication?

Certainly some poets and writers have taken it upon themselves to explore how constricted the rules of correct written usage are. James Joyce, ee cummings, Cormac McCarthy, others?

And then there are accents and regionalisms. Are grammar errors the written equivalent to a "creative" spoken usage?

Perhaps, too, there is something else being communicated when a person uses incorrect grammar. For one, at times, the person is communicating the fact that they have never grasped the correct usage in some instances. Or perhaps the person is communicating the fact they received an inferior education. Or perhaps they are communicating that they just don't care about grammar. Or they are communicating that they would rather not play by the rules dictated by the language police.

Well I can agree to disagree, but it certainly is a prickly subject.

My friend is a big Craig Ferguson fan. Maybe I will get it for her birthday!

That's really cool, Janet! I bet it will be neat to read all those papers and hear the students' responses. And I bet your publisher is happy for the sales!

Sara, you're right, I was being a bit confrontational/defensive. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to convince the good people of CR that language is politics!

Theresa, I agree that there is body language grammar, but body language is not specifically prescribed and taught like other forms of language. (And I didn't mean to offend with the crack about legal and academic language.)

Could language arts instruction include written, verbal, AND body language?

Pontalba, that sounds like a great story, I hope you can remember the book! And thanks for the body language link.

The Nick Adams Stories by Hemingway and
Hot Water Music by Bukowski. I don't think either of these is strictly autobiographical short fiction, but as the Amazon page for Nick Adams Stories says, they closely parallel the author's life. Bukowski is awfully bleak, in my opinion. The Nick Adams Stories are great...

Somebody asked the very same question here:
http://languageisavirus.com/questions/wh...
The answers on that website:
1. Ernest Hemingway. Look for the Nick Adams stories. They are all based around his life.
2. Charles Bukowski
. Any of his novels and short stories are autobiographical.
3. Andre Dubus. All of his short stories are based, to a certain degree, on his life.
4. John Fante
5. Richard Brautigan’s short stories. He has a surrealist twist to his stories, though.
6. Tobias Wolff…In Pharaoh’s Army (this is a novel/memoir in the form of connected stories/vignettes.
7. Tim O’Brien. The Things They carried. They are short stories based on his service in Vietnam.

I guess the examples above are not all that contemporary. There is a short story group here on GoodReads that seems to discuss contemporary short stories (they don't really discuss the stories, they just discuss books and authors) but they might have some more ideas for you.
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1213...

So why do you ask, Sonya?

How about this question:
Why do we have correct spoken-language grammar and correct written-language grammar, but no specific body-language grammar?

Candy wrote: "That was a fun article, thanks. I always try to see what people are reading on the public transit. It's amazing how many people are reading. Actually, one day I saw someone reading a book we were h..."

Yeah, if I'm not reading something myself, I was always peeking over people's shoulders to see what they were reading.

I was fond of reading Spanish poetry when I was trying to learn Spanish...

I thought the first commment on the Daily Mail article brought up an interesting point. The conventions of legal language and academic writing make for terrible reading. But still nobody ever complains about their offenses. It's funny when academics complain that students just don't know how to write, then teach them to write in a style that makes the eyes bleed to read.

Erin wrote: "Andy, I'm intrigued by the Seven Levels of Punctuation. Do you know where I could find more information? I wish my undergrad writing program had included a course like this - now that I'm in my g..."

I'll try to dig out a handout from my files. I believe the seven levels of punctuation is a somewhat proprietary theory developed perhaps by the professor's department as a graduate student. I think if I find some of the materials more information will be forthcoming. If I find the notes, Erin, I can send you an email with attachment.