LEND ME YOUR EAR: SURVIVAL TACTICS IN USE OF LANGUAGE

Dictionaries and books on language have always topped my list of druthers. But my desire to own another stops short of the third edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. According to reviews, it contains 16,000 new entries, some of which this columnist would never whisper, much less write. Among the printable listed by critics are slang expressions such as "aggro", short for aggravation; "igg", short for ignore; "blivit" for annoying, and "dweeb" for flunky. I don't get "blivit", and "dweeb" defeats me. Is is slang, or baby-talk?

A new edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is equally offensive to those of us who still hold with the classics. Editors boast the addition of 340 not-so-familiar quotations, with 245 others removed. Quotations by Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes have been eliminated to make room for Woody Allen and Elvis Presley. My copy of Bartlett is coming apart at the seams, but I plan to make do rather than replace the deservedly famous with the blatantly notorious.

Macmillan advertises a new Visual Dictionary for readers who can picture the item but not the term, and readers who know the term but can't recall what it looks like. Critics point out that it fails to picture ideas and emotions. What does a bristle look like? How draw or paint the nuances of happiness, despair?

Still, whatever the inadequacies of new books on communicating, they are usually helpful in some ways if only to create a need for another. And the more we hear and read about the unimportance of correct English, the more books and articles on the subject appear to refute it. Not long ago, columnist Paul Greenberg, while denigrating efforts to exercise care in the use of words, had to subdue his thesis because he needed to be understood. As we have pointed out in columns again and again, the misuse of a preposition or omission of an adverb can destroy or negate a critical thought.

In every field of learning, we note a growing emphasis on how to write despite the efforts of educators in high places to belittle the need for teaching basics. Writing contests covering every area continue to proliferate, school newspapers and literary magazines have young people competing for national awards. As a charter member of Cape Central's chapter of Quill and Scroll, I rejoiced to learn of the Golden Key Awards now given and received by the organization. In the beginning, there were no Golden Keys. This added incentive indicates that excellence in writing is still highly prized.

In earlier columns, I have referred to national writing contests open to adults contests for the worst as well as the best. The worst pun, for example, or simile, or the longest sentence. In a recent issue of The American Way, I learned of a contest calling for the creation of "one really bad page of Hemingway or Faulkner." I was never a fan of either of these world-famous authors, but I know what it would be like to try to achieve a really bad page of any writer without a thorough grounding in his work. And I've written enough parodies in my time to understand it takes real word power to achieve the worst on purpose.

Unlike most language columnists, I have no desire to make a book of my slender output. However, I continue to accumulate some of the most highly-recommended productions, recent favorites being Jack Hitt's collection of words that don't exist but ought to, Richard Lederer's "The Miracle of Language", and Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue." And Harry Shaw's Revised Edition of his Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions should be in every English teacher's library.

Among earlier favorites, James Kilpatrick's book "The Writer's Art", published in 1984, remains the most helpful to serious writers. William Safire's highly-touted "Fumblerules" is fun to read if you know your stuff, but only an expert can distinguish between his fumbles and rules. Kilpatrick provides a veritable feast of Horrid Examples interspersed with tongue-in-cheek comments and designated solutions and he writes in a style no other language maven has ever achieved.

This loyal pen-pal of mine has another language book in the making. I look forward with eager anticipation to I predict a second priceless collection of Horrid Examples and chuckles galore, along with plenty of advice that should straighten my face and cause me to check for future use in these columns.