06.02.08
The backspace button on your radio dial
Writers are often driven into their craft by what we might call “aftershock eloquence.” We can get our thoughts together, but not until after the “moment,” somewhat like an earthquake aftershock. The perfect repost to an insult from a friend surfaces . . . three days after the argument. I admire those with quick wit and quick reasoning (in both the original sense of quick as “living” and its current sense as “speedy”). Me, I tend to do what small level of thinking I’m able to achieve at the keyboard.
Luckily, I don’t have that problem when talking about subjects I’m passionate about, English among them. (Barbeque, too, but that’s a topic for another day.) I’ve been blessed with dozens of opportunities to speak at writers conferences and in radio interviews. This past weekend, “Cincinnati Edition” on public radio WVXU broadcast this interview on public radio WVXU, talking about Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. My segment starts around 28:15. Trust me–I was in this instance appreciative of pre-recording and editing–though primarily because of pauses, slight stutters and such of the sort that had quickly dashed my brief college-days aspiration of being DJ. All Adjectives, All the Time!
Listening to the interview, I experience aftershock eloquence–that’s the editor in me. Could have said that better. Forgot to add such-and-such a tidbit. And so on. Which is fine, because now I get to write about it.
If you’ve ever experienced aftershock eloquence, don’t be frustrated or embarrassed. Cherish the qualities–the thinking and the creativity–involved in reaching “the perfect retort” or whatever good phrasings surface after the fact. They’re part of what makes us writers in the first place.
By the by, in the interview I chat about something that should give you nightmares: the possibility of a certain internet emoticon becoming a standard punctuation symbol in the next century, and perhaps you can guess which one:)
, 
and 
. Feel free to 
JohnnyB said,
June 2, 2008 at 8:25 am
In England, they spell it with a “-”, as in : - )
Bill Brohaugh said,
June 2, 2008 at 8:58 am
Actually, in England they spell it :u) to place a U in the emoticon to correspond with words like humour:u)
Or, in theatrical comedies, they spell it ): the way they transpose the final letters in theatre):
JohnnyB said,
June 3, 2008 at 7:08 am
Thanks for fixing my smile, doctor.