Hollow Ferns

Copy Edit: Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little

A lot of little things this time around. But I did a double-take after reading the first screenshot, which read, “North Korea says Trump has ‘declared war’ on his country.” For a second, I thought North Korea was saying Donald Trump had declared war on the United States.

Multiplication Rock: Symbol meaning infinity

Can we all take a moment to admire “Multiplication Rock”? Out of the original run of “Schoolhouse Rock!” videos, this series has probably aged the best.

Don’t get me wrong; I cheered when Bill became a law, and I can sing the Preamble from memory. But when “Interplanet Janet” calls Pluto a planet, or “Elbow Room” glosses over the fact that the wide-open West was occupied by Native Americans, it’s clear the decades have tarnished some videos’ educational value.

Math, on the other hand, seemingly never goes out of style. The times tables in “Multiplication Rock" are still as accurate as they were in the ‘70s, and the series transcends its name to teach about more than just multiplication. It manages all this while not underestimating its audience of kids.

Now, if man had been born with six fingers on each hand, he'd also have 12 toes.

Take “Little Twelve Toes,” which, in addition to teaching how to multiply by 12, explains the concept of numerical bases. English and many other languages use a base-10 system, where powers of 10 can be represented as a one followed by a number of zeroes. Little Twelve Toes uses a base-12 system, meaning 12 and its powers, instead of 10, can be represented with one and zeroes.

You can tell the filmmakers did their homework. Remember when the singer counts up to 12 in base-12? (“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, dek, el, do.”) Both the alternate names for 10, 11 and 12 and the symbols that you see on screen are real proposals from the Dozenal Society of America, an advocate for base-12 counting.

And don’t forget about “My Hero, Zero.” It’s an oddball because it doesn’t spend any time multiplying by the number in the title. That would’ve been a short video, but the upshot is the video instead spends its three minutes connecting zero and nothingness to the powers of ten and then to infinity.

And my favorite “Schoolhouse Rock!” video, “Figure Eight,” nods to the idea later on. Imagine: explaining the concept of infinity for elementary school students.

Et cetera, et cetera. Ad infinitum. Ad astra. Forever and ever, with zero, my hero.

Copy Edit: Reported to the Department of Redundancy Department

Nothing’s ungrammatical about “light-speed radio waves” in the first screenshot, but it is redundant. Radio waves are light, and light must move at light speed. So “light-speed” adds no meaning to this phrase.

My 2 percents

The second screenshot incorrectly describes the statistics on Californians who considered moving because of housing costs. Take a look at the data referenced:

Where would you likely relocate?

Considered another state: 25%

Considered another part of California: 14%

Considered another place in same area: 9%

Considered another country: 2%

Have not considered moving: 44%

Don’t know: 6%

That “1 in 4” figure for people who considered moving out of state is out of the overall sample, not just the 56 percent who considered relocating. One could correct the sentence in a couple of ways:

Change “1 in 4” – Of the 56 percent of voters who said they’ve considered moving, nearly half said they’d relocate out of state if they did.

Rephrase to allow “1 in 4” – Of the voters surveyed, 1 in 4 said they’ve considered relocating out of state.

I prefer the second choice for using a figure easily derived from the chart. The first option, while it keeps much of the original sentence, requires a reader to add up percentages and compare the sum to one of those same percentages.

On a different note, I don’t know whether the number agreement in that sentence is right. The AP Stylebook doesn’t say whether a “1 in n” phrase takes singular or plural agreement. I tweeted at the stylebook’s Twitter account about it and will update if I get an answer.

Data visualization expert Alberto Cairo:

The right amount of data is the amount of data necessary to tell the story truthfully and with enough depth. We journalists have the drive to always simplify our stories. I usually discourage people from using the verb “to simplify”. I prefer “to clarify”.

Copy Edit: Do as I say, not like I do.

There are two ways to correct the first screenshot. The AP Stylebook only allows like to be used as a preposition (i.e. before noun phrases) and prefers as in the conjunction usage (before verb phrases). Therefore, one could correct the sentence to as this guy did.

But we need to balance the rules with the outright barbarous. While as this guy did follows AP style, it creates a laughable mix of formal and informal elements, which undermines the sentence’s casual tone. I decided to delete did, recasting like as a preposition. The change reconciles AP style with the writer’s voice.

The New York Times:

I’ve had a bunch of clips waiting around for weeks now. I didn’t post because I didn’t have much to say about any of the corrections. But anyway, I’ll be more diligent next time. Timely clips in future.

I’m fairly certain I’ve made at least one of the missteps described in this Columbia Journalism Review piece (using “wheelchair-bound”), and I need to do more to make sure I’m prepared to write sensitively about people with disabilities. As a start, I’m devoting time to reading the style guide from the National Center on Disability and Journalism.

Writer Wendy Lu focuses on the story of Marty O’Connor, a quadriplegic college student whose mother attended class with him at Chapman University, taking notes for him and writing his answers for exams. O’Connor then arranged for his mother to receive an honorary diploma. Lu raises questions to give the story news value beyond just its emotional impact. One that stood out to me: “Does Chapman provide personal aides for disabled students like Marty O’Connor?”

Here I was, caught up in the heartwarming angle of a mother who moved across the country to help her son succeed. But I’d ignored an obvious line of questioning: Should she have to do that? Is the O’Connors’ situation common among families balancing higher education and disability?

The answers to these queries would bring valuable substance to an article. The O’Connors’ story would anchor the piece in the effect those answers have on a specific family.

Emotion still matters as a means to promote empathy.

Lu quotes Keith Sharon, the journalist who first heard about the story, as saying: “Not everyone understands what a quadriplegic has to deal with, but everyone understands what a relationship is like with their mother. Everyone understands what the effort is like to graduate from college.”

Me, to myself: What's the word for that? "Ineducable"?