During my brief and unlamented period as a graduate student teaching the basic college composition course, and in my current job as a “Writing Consultant”, one of the most important things that I’ve tried to impress on my students and consultees (not really sure what to call them: clients? victims?) is that WORDS HAVE MEANING!!!! That the order/organization of the words in a sentence conveys meaning, and can either accurately convey the writer’s intentions, or confuse the reader, causing them to misunderstand what’s being said.

I fear that it is a futile endeavor. For a long time, I’ve been dismayed by the quality of writing I see in the public sphere, especially in regard to the news. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t notice some glaring grammatical, or even spelling, error in the news coverage of the day. Which leads me to the following headline from today’s Daily Mail, a British newspaper that also publishes American and Australian versions:

Cops: Georgia homeowner shot dead intruder breaking into his house

I will admit to a bit of confusion: initially, I thought the homeowner was killed, and was sad for a moment, until I read on, and realized that the homeowner is fine, and that he had actually shot a dead intruder for breaking into his house.

Now, as a fan of horror and apocalyptic novels and movies, I have to admit, I was both excited – there’s real-world zombie action! – and worried – there’s real-world zombie action?! Oh shit! Needless to say, I felt the need to learn more. I clicked on the link, and you can imagine my dismay when it almost immediately became obvious that I had been misled.

There are so many ways that this headline could have been worded to accurately convey it’s meaning: “Georgia homeowner shoots intruder dead for breaking into his house”, OR “Georgia homeowner kills intruder”, OR “Intruder killed by Georgial homeowner”, OR “Intruder shot dead by homeowner in Georgia”.

So why did the Daily Mail go with their headline? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a British thing, like adding U’s to words like honour, humour, etc. Maybe they are trying to appeal to a more morbid, gothic readership? Whatever the reason, my disappointment/relief about the apparently-not-impending zombie apocalypse was eclipsed by my disappointment in the sinking standards for public writing.

On the upside, bad writing, whether it be mechanical (grammar, punctuation, etc.), or communicative (actually conveying the intended meaning) would seem to be a unifying factor in an increasingly fractured world. It doesn’t matter whether a publication or writer is conservative, liberal, gay, straight, authoritarian, anti-fascist, or whatever other faction you want to mention, or if they’re a professional writer, semi-pro, or hobbyist blogger like me, or if the publication is reputable, disreputable, or just click-bait nonsense, apparently the idea that WORDS HAVE MEANING!!!! means less and less influence every day.

Of course, there are always exceptions – like myself. I pride myslef on vigorously proofreading every word and sentence I write, before sending them out into the world, lavishing all the care on them that most people apply to their children. I would be mortified if errors were to be found in any of my own deathless prose! Except of course, for those intentional errors I plant occasionally, just to prove to myself that readers are just as careless, and uncaring, about words as most writers are. The fact that no one has ever brought any such error to my attention proves that. But I dirgess.

To go back to my initial point, I have to say, irresponsible writing, like that evidenced in writing like: “Cops: Georgia homeowner shot dead intruder breaking into his house” certainly doesn’t make my job any easier. On the other hand, it does provide a certain amount of job security.