A couple language links:

1. Today, I learned of the Big Bad Book Blog through Books, Inq. The most recent post addresses words and phrases with sound similar to the ones the speaker/writer intends, like “cut the muster” which is meant to be either “cut the mustard” or “pass muster.”
2. Phil Schroeder of Thinklings wonders if the phrase “criss-cross applesauce” is a p.c. attempt to relabel “indian style” sitting.

Both of these posts get me thinking about the natural changes in language. “Cut the muster” could become the “right” phrase for describing something that meets our standards. I suppose it would be ignorance ushering in the change, but isn’t that part of a living language? I believe “criss-cross applesauce” is a mislabeling of cross-legged sitting, but give it several years and it may become correct.

I enjoy reading about English peculiarities, and I want to write and speak correctly, but I know that living languages don’t toe the line of the stickler, as it were. They change usually for bad reasons. Now, we no longer say “art,” “wert,” “gloam,” “eftsoons,” or “peradventure.”

Mr. Bertrand talks about some pitfalls with that oft-discussed question of Christian artistic excellence.

Fiction has been called “a lie that tells the truth,” a paradox that goes to the heart of the difficulty — and explains why, historically, evangelicals have been suspicious of art and its makers. Many evangelical artists have internalized their community’s critique of art, which has led them to seek ways of doing art that evade the ‘evils’ their fellow believers have articulated. This desire not to be tainted by the criticism has, I think, contributed to the mediocrity problem. Some have been quick to dismiss what they didn’t understand, just to remain in solidarity with other evangelical critics.

For related post (as if he needs me to point out his good posts), see Mr. Bertrand’s posts on “edgy fiction”: Edgy Fiction: A 5-Part Spectrum and Mauriac’s Edgy Fiction

When I pointed to Jana Riess’ post on Christy Award nominees last Friday, I remembered some criticism of a Christian suspense novel which I didn’t mention here on BwB. I’m uncomfortable with negative reviews–well, at least of living authors.
I heard musician Michael Card talk about criticism of his music from the press. I think he said it was almost entirely unhelpful, but he may have said only the negative reviews or pointed critiques were unhelpful, the reason being that the critic is outside the artist’s community. The artist has no relationship with the critic in the press, so negative comments have no context for interpretation. Does the critic really know his subject when he says the artist’s song is a pseudo-type of a purer form (e.g. He says a song has a wanna-be gospel melody. This could be informed feedback or snarkiness.) Card’s point was that artists should live in an active, supportive community with people who can criticize the artwork in a way that builds the artist. Card said he has received only one negative review which helped him, and he thought it showed that his community had failed him by not giving him the same critique before the album was published.
So maybe it’s the same idea that holds me back with some negative criticism I have. I probably should spill forth with vigor and contagious energy whatever positive or negative criticism I can harvest from my fertile brain. And I probably won’t.
Enough of that–what about the book? It was a mystery or suspense novel, so I expected the bad guy, who first appeared in the late middle of the story, to be one of the major characters, maybe one of the more developed minors. There were only a few developed characters, so my expectation didn’t make much sense, but I held it nonetheless. The police floated suspected names from the back-story, not actual characters, but of course if the story went in that direction, it would have felt hollow with no real enemy at all.
The bad guy turned out to be a slightly developed minor character whom my sweet wife had spotted at a distance. She said he was the only character presented in a bad light. I didn’t notice the lighting, but I remember him being an antagonist from the start. I didn’t suspect him because I thought he was too minor a character. And, yes, the story felt a bit hollow because of it.
Another problem I had with this novel was the unannounced Christian flavor. I wasn’t ready to assume the characters were born-again believers before given evidence of their faith, so when the main character prayed quietly, “God, this is a terrible situation,” I assumed he was talking to himself. He did it again later, and I suspected he was praying. At one point, a character was introduced as an unbeliever, and I think that should have been my guideline. Assume faith unless told otherwise. I don’t think that’s a habit I can make.

I’ve been reading Roy Jacobsen’s blog, “Writing, Clear and Simple,” with the intent to link to a post, but I can’t decide what to link to. He has a few interesting posts on the home page, including a grammar puzzle and rules of thumb for writing. Read on.

I learned through Rebecca of Rebecca Writes about ClicheSite.com and the handy Cliche of the Day. At first, I thought this a cool little resource. Now, I think I’ll avoid it. If I fill my head with cliches, I’ll become a twisted and disturbed old man. Maybe I just need the cup of tea I just steeped for a better mood. Maybe I should go out for some live steel combat.

You know, that reminds me of the warning the thespians gave before the start of Julius Caesar at Atlanta’s Shakespeare Tavern. They told us to go the bathroom before or during the intermission, because afterward angry men with real swords could be running through the hallway at any time–which they did. It was great.

Mark Bertrand quotes Melville’s Moby Dick on what great book should tackle: ” . . . Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.” Read the rest of this short post and tell him what you think.

I plead with you not to tell me stories which improve on the world. Instead tell me stories about the world as it is, strange and real and full of grace.

…

This spring I finally got around to reading Moby Dick. (I told you I was a bad reader.) Its opening sentence is one of the most famous in English fiction. “Call me Ishmael”—this is something strange. This is something beyond myself. And yet I’m then plunged into a story that is lavishly involved with the real world of whaling and the anatomy of whales, of ships and the anatomy of ships, of the ocean, and not least of the human heart.

And this is the most basic test for quality in fiction, it seems to me: is it absolutely faithful to the real, and absolutely faithful to what is strange and extraordinary within the real? For the Christian this is another way of saying, is it about grace? Because grace is the interruption of the unexpected in the real. Cheap stories barely touch reality—they present a simplified simulacrum of reality, a version that is easier for the storyteller and for the reader alike. And cheap stories are never really surprising. No one was ever surprised by a game of solitaire.

From Andy Crouch’s address at the 2005 Christy Awards.

The Chicago Tribune aulso got into th act, uezing simpler spelingz in th nuezpaeper for about 40 years, ending in 1975. Plae-riet George Bernard Shaw, hoo roet moest of his mateerial in shorthand, left muny in his wil for th development of a nue English alfabet. . . . But for aul th hi-proefiel and skolarly eforts, the iedeea of funy-luuking but simpler spelingz didn’t captivaet the masez then — or now.

From the article, “Push for Simpler Spelling Persists,” by AP Writer Darlene Superville. She says the idea of overhauling English spelling has not captured “th publix imajinaeshun.”

Alan of Thinklings is talking about an article in which Peter Leithart argues that Modern Protestants can’t write. He says it has something to do with Zwingli. Maybe I’m in a mood tonight, but I find that I don’t care. I don’t care why we haven’t written well in the past. Some write now, and no light-weight, commercially successful novel from an evangelical author takes away from their artist effort. God will raise up artwork to glorify himself. I don’t care who complains about, heh, mere entertainment.

The Thinklings carry on part of the discussion in relation to movies.