Notes on Editing - Chapter 11
By David McHam
Chapter Eleven
Specialized Language
Communications is concerned with terminology. Communicators take the jargon of other fields and translate it into language that can be understood by nonspecialists.
People who work in print journalism, in broadcasting, in public relations and advertising don't spend their days talking about journalism, broadcasting -- or whatever area they're in. They get involved in other areas: medicine, real estate, banking, sports, computers, manufacturing, marketing, etc., etc.,etc.
Those who work as reporters, in public relations or whatever, deal with all sorts of people in all sorts of careers, businesses or professions. And to be effective they have to learn to talk the language of these specialists. People who work in advertising, for example, must master the business of their clients. And when the clients change, the subject matter changes.
Keeping up requires additional study to master new terminology, and in a career in communications the process of study and meeting new challenges never ends. That is one of the appeals of communications as a career.
Our purpose here is to take some random areas of specialization and try to learn to deal with the subject matter as editors.
Academia
People who teach in college are teachers, not professors. Teachers have ranks. Rank is based upon accomplishments and years of service. Being on the tenure track means that after six years the teacher can either be terminated (with an additional year to make the transition) or given what amounts to lifetime job security.
Teachers just beginning to teach will either be instructors or assistant professors, depending on the school and the qualifications of the new teacher. If they are on a tenure track, they more than likely will be assistant professors. In their sixth year, these teachers will be considered for tenure. At that time they may be promoted to associate professor. The rank of professor comes usually after extensive service and significant accomplishments.
Some schools have non-tenure track teachers. These are people who agree not to pursue tenure and are hired year to year or on, say, three-year contracts. They may be called instructors or lecturers, depending upon the school.
Students work toward associate of arts degrees in two-year colleges that may be called community colleges or junior colleges.
A four-year school is either a college or a university. The difference in a college and university is that a university offers significant graduate and professional work.
At colleges and universities, students work toward bachelor's degrees in various disciplines. They may earn bachelor’s degrees in various disciplines -- bachelor of arts (BA), bachelor of science (BS), bachelor of business administration degrees (BBA), bachelor of fine arts degrees (BFA), etc. The graduate earns a bachelor of science in geology, for example.
Students earn honors depending upon their grade point average. In many schools, a 4.0 is an A, a 3.0 a B and a 2.0 a C. In many schools, graduates who have a grade point average of 3.9 graduate summa cum laude, 3.7 magna cum laude and 3.5 cum laude.
What constitutes grade points and honors differs from school to school.
Religion
The confusion starts with names: American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, the Baptist General Convention of Texas. From that point on, almost everything dealing with religion continues to be confusing to all but those associated with that religion.
Some churches have ministers, some don't. Some don't use musical instruments in their churches.
In the Catholic church, Mass is celebrated daily. Requiem Mass is said at funerals. Nuptial Mass is said at weddings. High Mass is mass in which some of the prayers are sung (chanted) by the priest and choir. Solemn High Mass has four participants: celebrant (priest), deacon, subdeacon and master of ceremonies. High Requiem Mass is reserved for the funeral of a prominent church layman. Solemn High Requiem Mass is reserved for the funeral of a clergyman. Solemn High Pontifical Mass is reserved for rare occasions.
A funeral and a Requiem Mass are not the same in the Catholic church. Thus, in obituaries say that a Requiem Mass and funeral were together. A Requiem Mass is not always offered at a funeral.
Masses are offered or celebrated. The people who go to Mass attend Mass or hear Mass. A priest celebrates Mass or says Mass. Rosaries are said or recited. Benediction is given. Confessions are heard. Communion is received (usually at Mass).
Such detail descriptions are used in most denominations.
For instance, the news media sometimes report that delegates to Baptist conventions do such and such. Southern Baptists use the term messengers. Those attending are sent as messengers from local churches. Within a state, churches belong to organizations called conventions. The Southern Baptist Convention has seminaries. But state conventions own and operate schools and hospitals
Also, Baptists have several national bodies, among them the American Baptists, German Baptists. Therefore, the term Baptist is best applied to the organization to which the individual Baptist belongs.
All Methodist churches and schools and hospitals are owned by the United Methodist Church.
Remember that a person is an Episcopalian and a church is Episcopal.
Obituaries
Agreement seems impossible. That is provable through the various obituaries in print. The disagreement is not about the major, feature-type obituaries. They are usually well-written. The differences come on the so-called routine. The death of a person shouldn't be treated as routine, but it tends to be by writers and editors.
Some guidelines: First, avoid euphemisms. Say a person died or was buried, not “went to his reward” or “was laid to rest.” Note the difference in dying and being killed. Be careful in ascribing the cause. The cause is both technical and legal. It shouldn't be handled lightly. If no one in a position of authority has come to a conclusion, be wary of any cause that might be derogatory.
One of the most common causes of death is heart attack. Not, this is not heart failure. Everyone dies of heart failure. The statement, “He died of an apparent heart attack,” however, is not a sound one. Apparent should be used to refer to what can be seen. The better wording would be, “He died, apparently of a heart attack.” Don't say: “He apparently died ...”
In the first account of death, the funeral arrangements may not have been completed. If that's the situation, don't say, “The funeral is pending.” Funerals are always pending after someone dies. Instead say, “Funeral arrangements for so and so are pending.” The term funeral services is a colloquialism that resists change. It's cemetery.
Government
What's important here are the differences in city, county, state and federal forms of government and the related activities. In Texas, counties are run by commissioners courts. Four commissioners are elected from districts of fairly equal population. The county judge, elected at large, presides over the commissioners court. Texas has 254 counties. The Texas Legislature meets every two years in the odd-numbered years. The Texas Senate has 31members and the Texas House of Representatives 150 members.
Some states, New Jersey among them, have townships. Louisiana has parishes, not counties. Four states are commonwealths: Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Nebraska has only one body in the legislature, and the representatives to that body are called senators.
Each state sends representatives to the House of Representatives in the United States Congress depending upon the population of the state as determined by the census every 10 years. Members of the United States House of Representatives are elected in districts. Each state has two United States senators, elected state-wide. Members of the House are referred to as Congressmen, or Congresswomen. Members of the Senate, whil in the Congress, are not referred to as Congressmen or Congresswomen.
A bill, not a law, is introduced in the legislative process. A bill becomes a law when passed by both houses and signed by the chief executive. Bills are debated, laws are enacted. Cities pass ordinances, in Texas on a series of votes called readings.
Government offers the opportunity for side trips into highly specialized areas. One example is sewage, sewer and sewerage. Sewage is the waste and sewerage is the system that carries the waste. Sewers are drains for carrying rain water off the streets.
Note that an election and a referendum are different, as are the primary and general elections. On election night, the returns are counted (not the results). The results are the final, total numbers.
Much government nomenclature changes from state to state and peculiar or unusual names are more typical than you would think. For example, the Texas regulatory body of the oil and gas industry is the Railroad Commission.
The Military
The major branches of service in the United States are the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. They have soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines. A GI is an infantryman in the Army. The term came from a reference to the uniform; general issue. A Marine is a Marine, not a GI.
Each branch of the service has its own ranking system. The Army and Air Force ranks are somewhat similar. The Air Force was once a division of the Army known as the Army Air Corps. The Marine Corps designations are not greatly different. The most unusual designations are those of the Navy.
Officers and enlisted personnel have different ranks.
This can be complicated for a person with little background. A good rule is, when in doubt, ask.
Guns
The designations .22, .45 and .243 are, in principle, the bore diameter of a rifled firearm measured groove to groove and expressed in hundredths of an inch. That's caliber. The size is in millimeters when the gun was manufactured in a country using the metric system.
But, principle and practice often do not coincide. A .38 special may be bored out to .350 caliber. The manufacturer keeps the .38 designation from a previous model. A .32 automatic may actually measure .305 and take a .312 bullet.
A revolver stores the bullets behind the chamber in a rotating casing. An automatic has a place in the handle or under the barrel for a clip that holds the bullets. Where the clip goes depends in part on whether the weapon is a pistol (handgun) or a rifle.
Gauge refers to the bore diameter of a shotgun and the terminology is of ancient origin. Gauge is determined by the number of the same size of bore-diameter lead balls that total one pound. This means that for a certain weapon, 20 round lead balls the size of the diameter of the bore may be made from a pound of lead. Hence, the gauge would be 20. If 12 or 16 balls could be made from a pound of lead, the gauge would be that.
Bore refers to the inside diameter of a gun, rifled or otherwise. Rifling is the grooves that make the bullet spin. When preceded by a decimal figure, the designation is caliber. When a whole number is used, that's guage. Therefore, we have pistols that are .38 and .45 caliber, rifles that are .30 caliber and shotguns that are 12, 16 and 20 gauge.
The only designation that doesn't follow that pattern is the .410. The gun was brought out originally as a .44 rifle, then made smaller. At one time it was a combination rifle and shotgun. Now the gun appears mostly as a shotgun. The designation .410 remains. The best way to refer to the gun is as a .410 shotgun.
Other terms: .30/30 and .38/40 refer to weapons of .30 and .38 caliber that were originally designated to handle shells holding 30 and 40 grams of black powder respectively. Although black powder is no longer used, the designation remains. And, .30-'06 refers to a .30 caliber rifle introduced by the United States Army in 1906. The designation remains on modern weapons as a merchandising device.
Magnum ammunition is stepped up in powder beyond what is normally expected. Usually the powder charge is larger and the shell casing longer.
The Court Structure
Courts exist at the various levels of government, and the terms differ from state to state. In general, towns and cities have municipal courts, counties have a variety of courts and take care of all the civil and criminal matters for the state except appeals. The federal government has trial and appellate courts.
Matters before the courts are either civil, which mostly involves disputes among citizens, and criminal, which means the state takes action against a citizen accused of violating the law.
Civil disputes begin with suits being filed and progress through depositions and interrogatories to the trial. No one is found guilty or innocent in a civil matter. The judge or jury must side with the plaintiff, the one bringing the suit, or with the defendant.
Civil matters, in Texas, are not privileged until they become part of a trial. Until then a suit is an allegation by one party against another. The accused party should be given the opportunity to respond in news accounts.
A good example of this is the divorce story. Remember that a civil suit can be dropped at any time along the way. The news media can't afford to get caught having made allegations in a case that ends when the person who brings the suit decides to drop it.
Criminal matters are divided into misdemeanors and felonies. A misdemeanor is punishable by a fine and/or by serving time in the county jail. A person convicted of a misdemeanor is not a felon or an ex-convict. A felony is punishable by a fine and/or by serving time in the state prison system, the penitentiary.
In Texas, misdemeanors are divided into classes and felonies into degrees. What determines whether something is a felony or a misdemeanor and what determines the category of the offense is the state legislature. Legislators must vote to create a criminal offense and at the same time they affix the punishment.
Misdemeanors and felonies are divided into classifications, depending on the severity of the offense. A capital offense is a crime for which a person may be given a death sentence.
Terminology differs from state to state. Texas has only assault, not assault and battery. But some terminology is consistent and often consistently misused. Best examples are the differences in jail and prison and in robbery and burglary. A person convicted of a misdemeanor serves time in jail. A person
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