We wanted to get to know John McIntyre (NAIWE’s Grammar Expert) better, so last month we sat down with him. Here is what he shared with us.

Remind us why we should be interested in metaphors.

Because human beings are deeply motivated to seek out patterns, comparisons, and correspondences, we are awash in metaphors. Comparing one thing to another leaves us feeling that we have both a sharper and a broader understanding.

And this does not happen exclusively in poetry or more ornate prose. We are bathed in metaphors in our daily speech, some of them so deeply embedded that we no longer perceive them as metaphors.

For example, when we relinquish control of something to someone else, we say that we give that other party “free rein.” It evokes the era of horseback riding, when a rider would drop the reins, giving up control of the horse and going wherever the horse chose to go.

Of course, since most of us no longer ride horses, that image has faded, permitting the frequent, and misguided, substitution of the meaningless homonym, “free reign.”

 

How do metaphors enhance an author’s writing?

They make it interesting.

Infusions of a metaphor into prose can make it more vivid. Without a metaphor, or allied tropes from classical rhetoric, a text would inspire as much interest in the reader as the terms and conditions of your cellphone contract.

 

Can you give us an example?

Frank Roylance, a reporter at The Baltimore Sun, filed an article on physics that employed a simile to help the reader understand a technical point: “Capturing data on the most powerful and mysterious explosion in the universe is a bit like swatting flies. The blasts, called gamma ray bursts, are usually too quick.”

 

If a metaphor is such a good thing, why do we need your workshop?

With metaphors, as with everything else, we are not always the best judges of our own work. Writers can fall in love with a metaphor because they thought it up all by themselves and are not able to recognize that it may be strained or that it carries an unintended double meaning.

That’s why [cough] you need an editor.

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Everyone appreciates an apt simile or striking metaphor. Figurative language enlivens prose and aids the reader’s understanding. But it is easy to get entangled in mixed metaphors, comparisons that fizzle, or images that convey the opposite of what the writer intends. And writers are not always the best judges of their effects. John McIntyre, who has been a working newspaper editor for four decades, will take you on a tour of regrettable metaphors and explain how they fail to achieve their purpose. Some laughter may be involved.

You can join in this conversation on December 15, at 2 pm eastern, when NAIWE will host a discussion on figurative language. The cost for NAIWE members is only $10! Non-members can join for $30. Register today!

We wanted to get to know John McIntyre (NAIWE’s Grammar Expert) better, so last month we sat down with him. Here are some thoughts he shared with us.

What is one thing that you learned about your craft (or grammar) the hard way, and what benefits have you received from it?

In an early post on my blog, “You Don’t Say” at Baltimoresun.com, I published a simplistic explanation of the that/which distinction and was smartly rapped on the knuckles by Geoffrey Pullum, the distinguished linguist. The discovery that having been a newsroom grammar expert did not make me a full-fledged expert was humbling, and it led me to a reexamination—continuing—of what I think and know about grammar and usage. I learn, and unlearn, something nearly every day.

 

What has been your most rewarding grammar experience (or correction), and how was it rewarding? Self? Monetary? Clients?

Blogging since 2005 has given me an audience across the United States and internationally of people who are interested in language and receptive to learning more. I’ve formed friendships with fellow editors, linguists, and lexicographers, some of the smartest and funniest people you could ever expect to encounter. (One of the people I’ve come to know is Professor Pullum, who has endorsed some of my better-informed posts.)

 

What do you associate with grammar expertise?

I call myself an informed presctiptivist. Editing is inherently prescriptive, because it involves making choices, often subjective ones, about what would be better in the text. But I have no truck with the stale pedantry of shibboleths, bogus rules, and superstitions about language retailed by some people who call themselves prescriptivists and embrace the false prescriptivist/descriptivist dichotomy.

Grammar expertise requires flexibility, attention to register, and awareness that the fundamental rule of grammar and usage is “generally, with exceptions.”

__________

We know that split infinitives are okay, sentences can begin with conjunctions, sentence-ending prepositions are perfectly good English, and it’s okay to use hopefully as a sentence adverb. We know this because grammarians and linguists have been gleefully exploding shibboleths and bogus rules. But what rules or usages are worth maintaining? In this webinar, John McIntyre of The Baltimore Sun will examine some defensibles. Should we maintain the imply/infer distinction? Is the traditional sense of “beg the question” in logic hopelessly lost? Is “whom” dead to us?

Sign up, take part, and work out where you want to stand your ground.

You can join in this conversation on November 19, at 2 pm eastern, when NAIWE will host a discussion on grammar.

The cost for NAIWE members is only $10! Non-members can join for $30. To register, send an email with your name and telephone number.