In"suffix"ient Data

I’ve been playing the guitar for 45 years. You’d think I’d be pretty good at it, but the truth is I’m happy to be able to make some sounds that are occasionally melodic and seem to go together, and they are sufficient to accompany my singing voice and help me write, so far, about a hundred songs. I call myself a “guitar player.”

I am by no means a guitarist.

There is a difference. When we add that ist suffix to words that describe what we do, well, it says something. It says we specialize in an area in which we’ve had either education or experience that takes us to a whole ‘nutha level.

Doctors focus in one practice area and we call them “neurologists” or “anesthetists” or “gastro-enterologists.” Psychology PhD’s go on to do internships and maybe some writing to become “therapists.” In fact, there are lots of specialty areas in which people can become therapists; physical, speech, occupational, sex. All of these, to one degree or another, require additional training and or experience in order to be worthy of the title.

(That’s why I think it only serves to embolden Donald Trump when people call him “sexist,” “misogynist,” or “racist.” He thinks it’s because he’s good at it.)

You can see the confusion.

When a Christian calls a person an “Atheist,” he does so with the same vocal inflection as one would say “drug dealer.” But when an Atheist calls himself that, it’s a source of pride and a deeper understanding that has come with years of experience, frequently—and ironically—as a tithing member of the Christian Church!

By the way, when does one who commits sexual assault become a “rapist?” Because, when I was a kid it only took one rape to be called a “rapist.” Nowadays, the law has softened the language—filled the entire topic with a lot of nuance and legal mumbo-jumbo—so the news can use the words “sexual” and “sex” a lot when covering a rape case. That word isn’t provocative enough, I guess; possibly because we’ve used it to describe a few other situations when someone isn’t actually trying to have sex with us against our will. This car dealer is really trying to rape me on the price.

Speaking of the news, when does a news reporter become a “journalist?” Is it after you’ve knocked out the five “W’s” for a few years and the editor gives you a human interest piece in which you get to show off some flowery language? I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s obvious that being an “ist” can be a very good thing, or a very bad thing. In either case, it identifies a unique sort of pinnacle to which one can aspire.

Except this, this word after word after word thingy with punctuation and all the fun gizmos we have at our disposal to convey our thoughts and feelings. We plug onward—millions of us—day after day, yet those who reach the mountaintop in our business are still called “writers.” Okay, maybe “authors.”

We say Ernest Hemingway and J.K. Rowling and John D. McDonald—the list is really long—are “literary geniuses,” or have “achieved the highest form of the craft.” (I also like the term, “wordsmith;” gives it a real blue collar, Early American feel.)

Why not just call them “writiists?”

And the answer is simply this: None of us will ever get that good at it, not in our own minds, anyway. If you ask any of the “greats” he or she will likely tell you that he or she is not really all that great of a writer. He or she will say—rightfully in many cases—that luck and being in the right place at the right time had more to do with it than talent. And that’s not false modesty or convoluted self-deprecation, either. We all know that, regardless of how wonderful and pointed the last thing we wrote was, we can do better. We must do better.

Success in the literary industry—as in almost any other industry—is judged by the only thing of value in America, money. A few writers who’ve written not-so-hot books are rather wealthy. In their minds, they know what they wrote was not so hot, yet the accolades and the movie rights and the residuals keep coming in, shoring up the lie that they are awesome writers.

Of course, some writers really are terrific; many of them you will never read because the road to literary fame is paved with promotion. Merchandising. And the state of mainstream publishing today is shaky; there are fewer dollars to promote even the publisher’s flagship author, let alone a fledgling newbie. For the millions of us who self-publish, doing so without a bankroll to get the word out means we write for reasons that cannot fill our wallets.

The English language is a beautiful bitch of a thing, rife with contradictions and hair-thin nuances and illogical rule-exceptions and anti-phonetic spellings that ought to be illegal.

And I love it.

Years ago I was called a “columnist.” Today, I am a “blogger.” A writer, but also a “novelist.” I’m a guitar player but also a “lyricist.”

Puzzling, I know. Don’t fret; I struggle with it daily (I just wrote and re-wrote what ended up as those five words, after the semi-colon. I am not kidding.).

Thankfully, I am a world-class typist.