sarah eve kelly

Stephen Fry almost mocks himself when he turns an old Fry and Laurie sketch into a genuine question in one of his more recent blessays. I can’t promise paragraphs nearly as long as his, nor as sensory (I doubt any of my phrases will wobble, or pucker, or be especially fruity), but I figured I had to toss my bit in.

The blessay in question turns out to be a salvo against linguistic pedantry (how pretentious is that?): essentially, stop niggling and start enjoying language; don’t be afraid to make mistakes &c &c. In principle - in broad, yawning principle - I agree. People should feel freedom to splash around in their own language and see what gets licked up. Stephen seems to do his uppermost to commit every infinitesimal sin that the pedant would pick up on and delight in (’I’ for ‘me’, ‘okay’ for ‘OK’, ‘alright’ for ‘all right’, and the weirdest tangle of commas - and lack of commas! - that I’ve ever seen), seemingly baring himself for criticism, knowing how safe he is because he’s Stephen Fry and everybody already knows how clever he is! He seems to want to free others to make similar mistakes - see, I’ve gone and done it, and I’m still readable, people still enjoy what I do with language - but it rings a little false. Not that his intent wasn’t pure, but that it implies (yes, implies, not infers!) a sort of linguistic socialism that doesn’t actually exist.

To quote Studio 60, again (the same episode, actually):

‘Are there good actors and bad actors?’

‘Yes…’

‘Good directors and bad directors?’

‘Yes…’

‘Good reporters and bad reporters?’

‘…’

‘What kind of reporter do you think I am?’

Stephen says, at one point, that language is our only free gift, that it doesn’t require equipment or really any specialized training, that parents teach their children in the ordinary way and children infer legions from those simple lessons. But not everyone turns out to be a good writer. And we can’t say that people don’t try writing enough, because they do. Do you think the downturn in the economy has stopped anyone who wants to from finishing that novel? Finding an agent? Finding a publisher? Updating a blog? Most everyone thinks he has something to offer through the medium of language. Most people don’t set out all the words in a given language and roll around in them to find the best permutations - most people don’t understand what a remarkable toolkit they have. And that’s why Stephen’s plea to ignore the rules will, actually, result in a bunch of people using words like finger paint or flinging words at the wall to see which ones stick, and in what order. Will this result in more or better writers?

It’s hard to say. I imagine that people who were in any way predisposed to do so have already tried.

The truth is that Stephen Fry can break all the rules he wants and still be a beautiful writer, not only because he’s marvellously talented but because he has all the tools he needs. Read any number of his essays - read his autobiography - read the very blessay in question! - and you’ll know what an excellent classical education he’s had. From Cicero to Waugh to Will Self, the parks and spires of his city of language are on firm foundations. Of course everyone in his class had that same education, and only he turned out to be the Stephen Fry I worship. It takes something else to be a good writer, just as it takes a specific body type (or at least the willingness to bend and stretch the body into that type) to be a good dancer or a profound relationship with the diaphragm to be a good singer of any description.

It is easier to be a pedant than it is to be a good writer. It is more common to be a pedant. It is easier to be Statler and Waldorf than it is to be on the stage. Anyone can carry around a bit of Strunk & White and run a good chance of feeling superior to another human being sometime that day. The world - my world, at any rate - is riddled over and under with shibboleths: the use of ‘per se’ or ‘him and I’, the pronunciation of ‘Magdalene’ and ‘Caius’ here at Cambridge (getting this right is particularly important if you’re American here or, as I am, perceived as American). People will laugh or scoff if you don’t get things right - I’d like to think I’m not a mocker or a scoffer, but being right, or being right in the first instance, is important to me.

Language has rules for a reason and they should be learned; this doesn’t mean I like pedants any more than Stephen does. I still abide the mantra of my best writing mentor: ‘Learn the rules, and then break them beautifully.’ Learn them, right? Not meaning of course that it should matter if a conflation of ‘that’ with ‘which’ will upset (or gratify) the most nitpicky of hunters and peckers. Not meaning that the Clarity Police shouldn’t be taken out and shot. But it is obvious throughout any narrative of Stephen Fry’s that he has learned the rules and is electing to break them for the sake of his art. One shouldn’t be ignorant to begin with, if one is able to dispel ignorance.

I keep thinking about Jewish women, because right now I’m supposed to be doing a historiographical review of early modern Jewish women. (Posting is never what I’m supposed to be doing.) It reminds me of a passage in Stephen’s otherwise deeply moving autobiography in which he defines his ‘jewishness’ and his identification with it. Well, he could have saved many pages and just written the word ‘jewishness’. I don’t understand why people who use proper syntax and punctuation and otherwise pay their respects to proper nouns choose not to in an effort to disrespect something. Why not say ‘Jewishness’ and get the point across without seeming to deliberately diminish the word? I don’t say this in defence of Jews or Judaism; I say it in defence of language, and if that makes me a pedant, so be it. Atheists do the same thing to Christianity - they will say ‘god’ or ‘jesus’ in an otherwise perfectly sound sentence. Do we diminish fictional characters by not using capitalization? Do we do this with people we just don’t like? What point are we trying to convey, exactly? Why use tricks when you can use your words? I’m not talking about people who use lower-case for everything, or typos, or people who don’t know any better. I’m asking why is refusing to capitalize something an artistic or moral statement?

Don’t get me wrong: I have a lot of sympathy for (quiet) atheists - I’m almost one myself. But even being among those who think that Jesus was just a guy - I mean, come on, he was still a guy! Just like Stephen. He deserves his capital J to go with his capital punishment. And Jews and Jewishness deserve their capital Js, too.

Learn the rules and break them beautifully. Learn the rules first, and then decide which ones are bullshit. Don’t break them in a tantrum; don’t break them to be pretentious. Don’t saddle the language with that. That makes you a pedant just like everyone else - it makes you a critic, not a lover, just like everyone else. Be different. Learn the rules first, just like Stephen did; only then will you have a fighting chance of writing as beautifully as he does.

Till next time, if God wills it, &c &c.

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1. writing by the rules