Woody's defense

Even Woody Allen apparently thinks the furor over his marriage to Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, decades younger, and Mia's accusation that he molested his own daughter represents the center of his life, for he devotes more attention to this than anything else in his 2020 autobiography Apropos of Nothing.

In contrast, he gives just a few sentences to most of the many films he directed. He writes just one paragraph about Magic in the Moonlight, yet neglects to even mention the title. He has made so many movies, in addition to all the other aspects of his long career, that if he gave each one the attention it deserves his book would be much longer than the 392 pages it already is.

That Allen writes so much about Mia Farrow and Soon-Yi, now his wife of many years, seems justified, for too few others have been willing to tell his side of the story. He says that Mia has always been something of a mental case, abusive to her many adopted children, yet she is so beautiful and such a good actress that he cast her in many of his movies even after she started making accusations against him. And her innocent appearance and acting talent also helps explain why her accusations were almost universally believed.

Allen points out that the official investigation into Mia's charges found no evidence of guilt on his part. Soon-Yi was neither his daughter nor stepdaughter — he was never married to Mia — and she was over 18 when they began their relationship, he says. She was only too happy to escape Mia, who once struck her with a phone, Allen writes.

Although he works hard to defend himself, especially against the charge that he abused his own daughter, Dylan, he is otherwise quite self-effacing in his book. He says he loves making movies, but doesn't regard them highly and never watches them or reads what others write about them. He has no interest in awards. He claims to be unworthy of being mentioned in the company of great directors, even though he has actually been in the company of many of these directors, who have welcomed him as their equal.

He repeatedly claims not to be an intellectual, despite the intellectual pretenses of many of his films, especially the dramatic ones few people actually enjoy watching. His comedies did much better at the box office. He does admit to a comedic gift, which shows up on every page of his autobiography, even when he is describing the worst aspects of his life.

Celebrating kinkiness

Kinkiness has been around for a hundred years.

Well, not kinkiness itself. Who knows when that started? But rather the word kinkiness, which was first used in print in 1924, according to There's a Word for It by Sol Steinmetz, a book I open each year at this time to  celebrate words that have just turned 100.

The Roaring Twenties were well underway by 1924, and anything goes, or went as the case may be — even kinkiness apparently.

It seemed to be a good year for slang terms, many of which were welcomed into the language and continue to be used today. Here are some of them: blah, flub, gotta, ho-hum, hooey, magic bullet, malarkey, naysaying, pix, racketeer, sexpert, shush, socko, stinko, stoolie, swoosh, two-time, uh-huh, wisecrack, wow and you-hoo.

That year brought us more serious words, too, such as beautician, headcount, house-train, hype, interstate, Leftist,  photocopy, pressure group, pull tab, superego and voyeurism.

Words of creation

Language shapes even creates, experience. Putting something into words brings it into existence.

Frank Cioffi, One Day in the Life of the English Language

Those words from Frank Cioffi may sound outlandish at first, but think about them for a minute.

The Declaration of Independence created the United States, although there was also a bit of war involved. The Constitution, just words on paper, created the government that nearly 250 years later continues to guide the country's path. The laws written by Congress and other governmental bodies control our lives.

Marriages are created by repeating two simple words: "I do." A marriage is a legal thing, a physical thing, a spiritual thing. Words also end marriages.

Friendships are formed and also ended with mere words. Words do shape and create experience.

Cioffi's idea is also a biblical one. Genesis tells us that God created the universe and everything in it with mere words. "In the beginning was the Word," wrote John.

Cioffi's book is about language usage, and his final point is this: If words are this important, we had better try to use them clearly and correctly.

A voice for everyone

Frank L. Cioffi

To my mind, the most interesting part of Frank L. Cioffi's book One Day in the Life of the English Language comes at the very end when he reflects on why proper language usage, which is what his book is about, is important.

"Language matters because its careful use makes society work more smoothly," he writes. This is one of those things that seem so obvious that we rarely give it much thought. Of course language makes society work more smoothly. To get along and to get things done, we need to communicate effectively with each other. That's what language is all about.

One of the many negatives about four years of an open U.S. border is that the majority of those flooding across that border do not speak English. This poses difficulties not just for assimilation but also for education, employment, law enforcement, medical care, shopping and even driving down streets and highways.

Yet even among those who speak the same language, misunderstandings and conflict can occur when one or more parties does not understand the meaning of words or cannot communicate clearly.

Cioffi goes even further when he says, "Giving everyone a voice is the start —no, more: a prerequisite — for a better, even a moral, culture." And so he moves from a smoothly operating culture to one that is better and finally to one that is more moral — all because of better language usage.

He is talking not just about speech, which has obvious importance. But now, perhaps more than ever before, it is important for people to be literate. So much communication is now done through texts, emails and other platforms that require reading and writing.

In a smooth running, better operating and more moral society, everyone has a voice, but that requires everyone knowing how to use that society's primary language.

Still learning the language

After 16 years of formal education and a lifetime spent working with the English language, including several years as a copy editor, I still do not know what terms like gerund and past participle mean. Nor do I care. So why did I read a language-usage book called One Day in the Life of the English Language (2015) by Frank L. Cioffi that is full of such terms?

Perhaps it was the title and the concept behind the book. Cioffi simply picks a day — Dec. 29, 2008 — and samples various newspapers, magazines and other publications printed that day and explores how the English language was used on that particular day. Mostly he finds fault, which is interesting especially when his target is The New Yorker, a magazine with a reputation for its careful editing.

The fact is, there is much disagreement about what is proper language usage, and Cioffi even concedes that writers and editors should follow the style of their own publication, even while insisting that his own views are more correct.

For instance, he says there should be a comma before the "and" in a series, as with "bell, book, and candle." The Associated Press Stylebook, which I followed during my long newspaper career, regards that comma as unnecessary. In other words, AP favors "bell, book and candle." I continue to follow AP style, and not just out of habit, except in rare instances where one more comma can add to clarity. Cioffi's view is that, yes, that last comma is usually unnecessary but should be used anyway because of those rare instances when it is helpful.

Most of his book is about as interesting as any English class about grammar and usage you ever sat through when you were in school, yet it does have its moments, such as when he finds fault with highbrow publications like The New Yorker. ( And when he writes about when to use such as and when to use like. Did I get it right this time?)

The time for low standards

Isaac Asimov

Sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov famously said, "If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster."

Asimov was known for being a prolific writer, with hundreds of books to his credit. These included not just science fiction, but also books on science and such subjects as Shakespeare and the Bible. He was also noted for writing quickly off the top of his head. He didn't worry about drafts or revisions, and he left the editing to his editors.

Asimov would not have agreed with writing teacher Roy Peter Clark, who not only urged starting with a rough draft but also said, "Lower your standards at the beginning."

While I admired Isaac Asimov and have read many of his books, I write more in the way Clark suggests. Start with a draft and with low standards. And I mean low standards about everything — spelling, punctuation, grammar, factual accuracy, style, everything.

The important thing is to get your basic idea or argument or story down on paper — or on your computer — and then improve on it later. Spend too much time getting your first paragraph perfect and you can lose track of where you intended to go with your second paragraph.

Asimov, in effect, wrote nothing but first drafts, and perhaps he was not as far from Roy Peter Clark's thinking as it might first appear. He put down his ideas, and that was enough for his readers because they were wonderful ideas. He was never known for his style or for the grace of his language. He just wrote first drafts, and for him that was enough.

Joy and light, but not much else

It still baffles me that one must go to the mystery section of any bookstore to find the novels of Alexander McCall Smith. Even his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels are out of place there. In The Joy and Light Bus Company (2021), the most intriguing mystery is whether Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni will lose his shirt, his auto repair shop and his wife's detective agency by investing in a bus company.

Precious Ramotswe does have a client for her agency, a man worried that his aging father will leave his home to a "wicked woman," the nurse who had taken care of him for years. But this generates little interest. Let's get back to the Joy and Light Bus Company, readers are probably thinking.

The 22nd novel in the wonderful series retains the charm and humor that has made the series so popular, yet it lacks the cohesive strength of earlier books. McCall Smith does give us some weak surprises, but they are not enough to make a novel we will remember as fondly as some of the others.