Carrying... and a book recommendation

Well, you were right. It was guns, not babies.


You see this sign everywhere, round here. On the front door of schools, preschools, health centres, shops, restaurants, offices, libraries. Everywhere. An American friend of mine once pointed to it and said to me "I bet you don't miss that when you're back in Britain", and she's right. I don't. I hate seeing it. Perhaps this is one thing I will never get used to here.

I don't really get this sign, though. I think it must be some kind of legal disclaimer, because surely it has no practical value. Think about it. If I was in the queue at the library, and the guy in front of me pulled a gun out and aimed it at the librarian, I wouldn't tap him on the shoulder, and as he turned round, point to the sign, and say,

"Excuse me, but guns aren't allowed in this library".

I really wouldn't. I'd be far more likely to say,

"I know just how you feel. Those fines are ridiculous. A dollar a day on a dvd? Puh-lease. It's cheaper at Blockbuster."

Or I might whizz to the children's section, and get one of my all-time favourite children's books. This one:


Inspired by Monsieur Saguette's brave example, I might poke my baguette into the man's back, making him think I also have a gun, and saving the day till the police arrive. Of course this would only work if I happened to be carrying a baguette, which is unlikely, but nonetheless, I highly recommend this book. It's full of all kinds of nifty ideas as to what a monsieur can do with his baguette, and you won't be able to avoid putting on a fake French accent as you read it aloud to your children, which is olwez vairy vairy gud fuuhn.

Another shorthand phrase

Here's another of those shorthand phrases I was talking about in a recent post.

Would you have any idea what a friend meant if they said someone was 'carrying'? Although actually, they'd be more likely to say "I didn't know if he was carrying or not". That's because most often the person in question would be 'carrying concealed'. Only today, I saw a sign advertising instruction in how to 'carry concealed'.

I think I'm only going to let non-Americans guess this one, so if you're an American, or resident in America, and you want to leave a comment, you can just say "I know, I know". I'm guessing the rest of you have worked it out by now.

A bunch or a lot?

I know you're all sitting there with bated breath on the whole aseptic drinks issue, but Dillons hasn't replied to my enquiry, so I'm moving on. This is the 21st century, Dillons, and things move quickly. The blogosphere waits for no man. Nor for aseptic drinks.

When I first moved to America, the phrase 'a bunch of' used to amuse me. They use it as we Brits use 'a lot of'. You'll hear "I've got a bunch of stuff to do", or "That's a whole bunch of shopping you're loading into your car" or "There were a bunch of people at the event". I'm de-sensitised to it now, but what used to amuse me was the visual image that last one produces. "A bunch of people" always made me see a cartoon picture of a giant hand holding a group of people as if a bouquet of flowers, ie their legs as the stems, and their heads splayed out like the blooms.

This makes me wonder. Does it sound very odd to Americans when English people talk about 'a lot of' things? If we mention 'a lot of people', do they visualise an auction house, with a group of disgruntled people sitting on the platform, waiting to see what they're worth as the auctioneer takes the bids?

Sleuth in action

Bloggy Friends, never let it be said that I slack in the quest to bring you knowledge, wisdom, and intellectual satisfaction. Since none of you, no, no, not one, could enlighten us all on the aseptic drinks issue, this morning when I went to Dillons, I decided to take my enquiries to the very site of the aseptic drinks mystery itself.

At the checkout, I engaged the friendly Jacob in my first level enquiry. He said that he, too, had often wondered what aseptic drinks were, and we pondered the issue together. Then he spotted the Assistant Store Manager, and called him over.

"I have a curious question for you", he said.

I'm including his exact words, because it's an opportunity to point out that in America, the word curious is used to mean inquisitive or enquiring, as in Curious George (the theme tune for which, "Upside Down", always makes me want to cry, I don't know why). In British English, the word curious means intriguing, unusual, peculiar. In American English, it's the subject of the action that's curious. In British English, it's the object. (I'm sorry, I have to tell you stuff like this. It's the way I'm made.)

Back to Dillons. Now, I have to say that we might have done better with the groceries manager. I think he would work with the detail of grocery vocabulary on a day to day basis, and would have had it down. The Assistant Store Manager, Barry, looked a little blank, and said

"It's the Gatorades and that kind of drink".

Bloggy Peeps, I thought of you, and I just knew you weren't going to be satisfied with that. I've been in America long enough that I'm a pretty assertive customer in shops these days (you'd be embarrassed to go shopping with me in England, I tell you), so I probed a little deeper.

"Yes, but what does it mean?"

I think the fundamental problem with the situation at this point was that Barry was with someone else, and no-one likes losing face in front of a colleague. So he hid behind his initial assertion, and repeated

"The Gatorades, those sports-type drinks. That's how the company defines it, anyway".

I assume he was invoking the authority of "the company" to bring the conversation to a close, so Jacob and I shared a companionable shrug, and I let the matter pass. But I know why he didn't want to talk about it any further. It was because he didn't know what aseptic drinks are. Relax, Barry. Nobody does.

They don't call me Iota Sherlock Manhattan for nothing. Actually, they don't call me Iota Sherlock Manhattan at all. Nonetheless, I have emailed Dillons customer services, because... we need to know. Aseptic drinks. I'm on the trail.

Words, words, words

Words, words, words. There are so many of them that just don't translate quite exactly from British English to American English. Here are four that have troubled me this week.

1) I still haven't discovered what 'aseptic drinks' are. There's an aisle in Dillons supermarket that has 'aseptic drinks' as its title (I've mentioned this before, but I never found out the answer). I just hope they're the ones I'm buying, because I sure as heck don't want to discover that I've been putting septic apple juice in my kids' packed lunches.

2) Packed lunches. Now, I know you call them 'sack lunches' over here, but I think maybe sometimes you call them 'packed lunches' too. It's just that every time I think I hear someone say 'packed lunch', I can't quite tell whether it was, in fact, 'sack lunch', and it doesn't feel quite right to say "hang on a minute... did you say 'packed lunch' there, a la British English, or was it just the usual American 'sack lunch' after all?" because, frankly, does it matter anyway?

3) My daughter's homework. The instructions asked us to listen to her read the 'decodable reader'. Hello? Hello, teachers? I think you've forgotten that we're parents here, not people deeply entrenched in the minutiae of education theory. What you're asking us to do, is to listen to her read the sentences about Pam and her hat, which she pats, and Sam and his cap, and the fat cat. I can see why you don't want to call it a book. Thin on plot, thin on characterisation. But 'decodable reader'? Puh-lease. Send her home with a reader that is NOT decodable one time, and then I'll be interested in whether your readers are codable or decodable.

4) Meccano. I thought you didn't have Meccano over here. But you do. You just call it something different. You call it 'Erector'. I discovered this in the toy shop, when the owner was showing me round on my first day. She pointed it out to me, and said

"Erector is popular. You'll find that dads often buy Erector, because..."

and I think she continued

"... they remember playing with it when they were kids",

but by that point in the sentence I had my mental hands over my mental ears and I was mentally singing la la la very loudly to myself.

Erector. Please take me home to a land where they call it Meccano.

Shorthand phrases

There are a few shorthand phrases that people round here use. I don't know if they're universal in the US, or local usages. I'd be interested to find out - if anyone wants to enlighten me. When you're new and haven't learnt the local lingo, they sound very bizarre.

1) You hear about people 'holding' children. This is short-hand for 'holding back from starting school in the academic year in which they would be entitled to do so'. If you feel your summer-birthday child isn't ready for Kindergarten, you can start them a year later. How many British parents would love that flexibility! Until you understand the short-hand, and unless the context helps you, this does make for some puzzling conversations. You might hear a mother say "We decided to hold Esmerelda because that seemed right for her. We didn't hold Grizelda though. She was a different case. No way would we have held her." It sounds very cruel and cold-blooded doesn't it? Those poor children, denied their parents' physical affection...

2) People talk about 'walking'. This took me a while to figure out. A friend was talking about a teacher at school, and said "she must be about the same age as my sister, because I remember they walked together". I assumed this was an exercise regime. But then I had a conversation a few weeks' later with a student who was telling me "I'm hoping to walk in the summer, but if I can't fit it all in, then I'll have to walk at Christmas". To walk means to graduate - from the graduation ceremony, I assume.

3) The YMCA here is almost always referred to as 'the Y'. You're probably wondering why on earth it comes up in my conversations at all. Well, the Y operates for most people very much as a council leisure or sports centre does in the UK. Everyone uses it for swimming, gym facilities, exercise classes, sports, and children's activities (gymnastics, dance, swimming, team sports). So it is very much a part of daily life, and it's always called 'the Y'. I heard on the radio this summer that the national organisation has decided to change its name officially from the YMCA to The Y. They can't do that! What about the song?

In return, here's an English usage which must sound very odd to American ears, until they get used to it. I've had to stop myself, whenever I've been going to say it. How bizarre it would sound to local people here if I asked them "what date does school break up?" It would be even more bizarre if I asked (as would be perfectly normal in the UK) "when are your kids breaking up?" It conjures a disturbing visual image. Perhaps it's the children who weren't held who break up.

The blog that will never be

Well, the book News to me is going to Shirley, who was number 1 in the comments. Congratulations (if you can be congratulated on an achievement based entirely on random computer selection). I have emailed you, Shirley, to ask for your address, but if it doesn't reach you, then please email me.

I am itching, itching, ITCHING to start a new blog entitled Tales from the Toy Shop (thanks for that suggestion, Plan B), because after two days in my job, I’m telling you, there is blog fodder a-plenty. I’m not going to, though, as you never know who is reading your blog, and I don’t want to be dooced.

First of all, there are the characters who work there. It figures, I suppose. I mean, you’re going to have characters in a toy shop, aren’t you? I wonder why they recruited me. I’m jolly normal and ordinary! I’ll just have to put that down as one of life’s puzzles...

Then there are the intriguing customers, whose stories I would love to know. The woman who came in, put a toy on the counter, didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and said “I’ve got the receipt for this, it isn’t broken or anything, there isn’t anything wrong with it, it’s just that he didn’t play with it at all, he didn’t like it, there’s no problem with it or anything, but he just didn’t like it so I’m going to change it for something else, I have the receipt and it’s in the original packaging”. And it was – in the original packaging. Well, sort of. It was in the original box, but of course you can’t actually get a toy back into its packaging, with all those odd-shaped bits of cardboard and those irritating plastic tags. It was a toy for a 1 year old - a chunky plastic truck - so really, there wasn’t much for a 1 year old to like or dislike. She picked out a very similar toy for the exchange. And then also bought another toy using a Groupon coupon (have you all discovered Groupon yet?)

What about the online order that came in for a Hello Kitty playset to be sent to an American Forces Overseas address in Afghanistan? That’s a story I would dearly love to hear. Is it a joke present for a squaddie? Or does someone want to be reminded of their daughter back home? Perhaps a soldier has befriended a local child. A tale to be told, for sure.

You’ll enjoy this one. There was a customer who was looking for a present for a 10 year old, who’s just had a bedroom makeover. I asked what the colours were, and it was black and white. So I showed her, helpfully, a big round cushiony zebra, which I thought would be cool for a trendy 10 year old's bed. It was half soft toy, half snuggly pillow. I was just looking at it more closely (which was a bit awkward as it was hanging high up), wondering if it was a clever rolled-up sleeping bag, or perhaps something to put your pyjamas in, when the toy shop owner kindly intervened and stopped me selling the customer a baby play mat. This is it.

I’ve learnt to spot the homeschoolers. You know how? I work from 10.00 to 3.00, so if someone comes in with children of school age, they’re homeschoolers. But I think I could spot them on a Saturday too. They spend AGES in the shop. I think they’re probably trying to fill in time, (which the rest of us do by sending our children to school... Hello? That's what school is for...).

See? It’s potentially a blog post a minute in the toy shop, and I haven’t even started on what's for sale. There’s:

an inflatable turkey (think dining table, not farmyard),

whacky hand puppets (including a flying tree squirrel, a frog in a space-ship, a sinister crow, a leathery turtle, a very weird leggy alien grasshopper, a pig with wings, and yay! a buffalo!),

fabulous books (I couldn’t resist buying Mom and Dad are palindromes), and

fake dog poo in a spray can (it’s called Instapoop, if you ever need to ask for some).

Ah alas, for the toy shop blog that will never be.

Book give-away: "News to Me"

(Sorry, the click to look inside doesn't work here.)

If you would like a free copy of News to Me, please leave a comment. I will randomly select one on Saturday evening (using a computerized random selector, ooh get me). This offer is open world-wide. I’m happy to pay international postage. I’m nice like that.




Questions and Answers with Laurie Hertzel, author of News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist (and if you're interested in blog-to-book publishing, you'll be interested in her opinions).

How did you find a publisher, or were you approached?

Like everything else in my life, the book was an accident. I had been doing manuscript critiques for the University of Minnesota Press for about 10 years, so I knew one of the editors. I had a manuscript I wanted to show him—the half-completed memoir written by Ernie, an American Finn who grew up in Soviet Russia.

Ernie had died before he was able to finish his book, but his widow was trying to get the fragment published. At the last minute, I printed out my blog postings about my years as a journalist and brought them along when I met with the editor. And in the end, they turned Ernie’s book down, but took mine.

I had not really planned on writing a book at all.

At Cyber Mummy this summer (UK conference for Mummy Bloggers), I went to a seminar on "blog to book" publishing. The publisher spoke about how these days, what they're interested in (as well as the content) is the coverage the author has, ie facebook followers, twitter followers, blog followers. He spoke in terms of thousands, not hundreds. Did your publisher expect you to have these kinds of networks before taking you on as a project?

They asked me none of those questions. Now that we’re in the marketing end of things, Facebook and Twitter are proving quite useful. But they never factored into whether or not my book would get published. My blog certainly doesn’t have followers in the thousands. I get about 100-150 hits a day. Two hundred very rarely.

The publisher also talked about how these days, many writers are opting to cut the publisher out, keep the 15%, and self-promote on Amazon. Did you ever consider doing that?

Never. Never. From where I sit, in my day job as books editor for a major metropolitan newspaper, I would never recommend self-publishing. Sure, it sounds good—you get to control everything, you get to keep all the proceeds. But in reality, you will almost certainly lose money and very few people will ever see your book.

A good, reputable publisher—such as mine—does a lot of things. They edit the book. They copy-edit it. They design it, beautifully. They commission a stunning cover. And then they have an excellent marketing department that does things like plan launch parties (I’m getting two!) and book events in libraries and at book clubs and book stores.

Also, they have book distributors that get books into all the bookstores—small independents, as well as Barnes & Noble and Borders and the other biggies—and to the trade shows. You can’t get self-published books into those stores, and you certainly can’t get your book to the very important trade shows.

My publisher is investing a *lot* of time, energy and money in my book, and I do not begrudge them at all making a profit from it. I hope they do!

I have interviewed people who self-publish, and it can cost as much as $10,000 or even more to make a book. And then the author is left to market the book entirely on his or her own. Good luck with that. Most newspapers will not review self-published books—partly because there are no standards and no quality control (anyone with money can publish anything), and partly because the books are not readily available, except online.

People who have written books talk about the arduous process of getting it to publication. They often look back and say that writing it was the easy bit. Is it really as bad as people make out? Re-writing sections, checking the proofs, endless promotional activities... It sounds such a turn-off.

I would not say that the writing of it is easy. But it’s true that the writing and the marketing are very different things. My editor did not ask for much rewrite at all—he noted that my sentences were pretty short, and my paragraphs were terse, and he urged me to write more fully, which is something I wasn’t used to. In newspapers we try to truncate and cram; I had to get used to a more leisurely pace. Even now, reading it in its final version, I can see where I should have drawn things out a bit more.

Checking the proofs was nerve-racking because by then I had read the book so many times I could barely stand to look at it again, and yet it was my responsibility to make sure that corrections had been made where needed and that all the rest of it was perfect.

The promotional activities are just beginning. I’ve been urged to mention the book on my blog, start a web page, start a facebook page, and get more involved in Twitter. I’ve done all those things, and I try very hard to walk a line—I can’t be overly self-effacing, but I also don’t want to promote myself so much that I get obnoxious and seem vain. It’s tricky.

Next up, beginning now, are radio and TV appearances, and a lot of book talks and signings. I am a shy person, and this will be *very* hard for me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

As a journalist, do you feel positive about the future of newspapers? In the UK, The Times online, which used to be open to all, has now started charging a subscription of a pound. I've heard it said that news is free, but you have to pay for good comment. Is that true these days?

I wish that newspapers, all newspapers, had started charging from the very beginning—we’d be in a lot stronger situation than we are now. Yes, the news is free. But the reported, edited, written, thought-about stories and photographs about the news should not be free. Journalists don’t work for free. The stuff that people read free online every day was quite expensive to uncover and produce. I do feel positive about the future of newspapers—I have to. I believe newspapers are necessary to a democracy. I believe that people will continue to subscribe to newspapers because they need to understand what’s going on in the world, and they need a measured, objective voice to tell them.

You've been a journalist; you're a blogger; you've now published a memoir. Have a wild guess about the future of your own writing career.

Oh dear. Will I write another book? I might. I enjoyed writing this one. But right now my plan is to concentrate on giving this book a good start in the world, and then getting back to my day job and trying to get caught up!

Thank you, Laurie!

You can read Laurie Hertzel's blog at Three Dog Blog.
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Book review: "News to Me"

In my early days of blogging, every now and again there would be a little flurry of excitement, as someone would announce, out of the blue, “I’ve got a book deal!” That was a moment, for the rest of us, of smugness and hope. Smugness because we’d think “I’ve known all along that x is a good writer – I wouldn’t be following her blog otherwise”. And hope, because we’d think “Book deal? Aaah, so they do exist”.

The blogging book deals are fewer and farther between now, but here’s one that’s come to fruition. I’d like to tell you about News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist, by Laurie Hertzel, writer of Three Dog Blog.

(Sorry, you can't click to look inside, but this was the only image I could find of a reasonable size).

To quote from the blurb, “News to Me is the adventurous story of Hertzel’s journey into the bustling world of print journalism in the mid-1970’s, a time when copy was still banged out on typewriters by chain-smoking men in fedoras and everybody read the paper… Hertzel’s eighteen-year career at the Duluth News-Tribune began when journalism was a predominantly male profession. And while the newspaper trade was booming, Duluth had fallen on difficult times… Hertzel describes her climb up the ranks of the paper against the backdrop of a Midwestern city during a time of extraordinary change.”

I enjoyed this book. You can tell it’s written by a journalist. The stories are brought alive by carefully chosen details. Laurie’s writing is intelligent and disciplined, as you would expect from a newspaper reporter. Her style is easy to read; her sentences are crisp and to the point. She has a fondness for the semi-colon.

I’ve never been to Duluth, Minnesota, but we have friends there, and our first summer in the US, we considered making it our holiday destination. I did quite a bit of research, reading about the town and the area, and looking at photos. So I was interested to read about a life lived there. Her fondness for the place and its people is very evident.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Laurie’s trip to Soviet Russia in 1986. A group in Duluth were trying to establish a twin town relationship with Petrozavodsk, near the Finnish border. Their persistent letters and telexes received no clear answer, and so, although the Soviet Union had not approved a twinning for 13 years, they decided to send a delegation to present the request in person. They made plans to fly from Duluth to Moscow, via Chicago and Belgrade, then take the train to Leningrad, and finally an overnight train to Petrozavodsk. For me, the description of the trip provided a reminder of an era that’s easy to forget, when Russia was a very closed book, and a visit such as this was a brave undertaking, full of uncertainty and difficulty.

The other highlights for me were Laurie’s reflections on writing, and what journalism is all about. For example:

“I was interested in tales, and I began to think of myself more broadly – not just as a journalist but as a story-teller… I was drawn to stories about people who would not normally be in the newspaper. Some would call these feature stories, but in my mind there was a distinction between features (which I considered to be fluffy, “nice” stories) and what I was trying to do. I wanted to tell tales about real life – how real people handled change and obstacles and tragedies and successes…

...You cannot approach journalism with the idea that you have everything figured out; you have to approach stories, and people, with a very open mind, lest you run the risk of not hearing what it is they have to say.”

Now, I would NOT make a good journalist. This article is already over 600 words, and I have a Q and A session with Laurie that I want to add. I would NOT be popular in the newsroom. I think what I will have to do is stop here, and save Laurie’s words for tomorrow’s edition. Blog post, I mean.

Meanwhile, I will summarize by saying that I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it as a fast-paced insight into a fast-paced world. It's fascinating to learn about the logistics of how a newspaper used to be put together. If I have a criticism, it's that the writing reflects its journalistic origins, and the material is pared down a bit too much for my taste. Characters from the newspaper are introduced, and I was frustrated that we don’t learn more about them. Stories are told with minimal detail, when I wanted a fuller picture. I read Laurie on another blog saying that this was a criticism her editor made along the way, so I feel a little smug at this point. Always nice to have your own opinion chime in with someone who knows what they’re talking about. Of course the upside of this is that the book is quick to read, and covers a lot of ground in a short space. It's not a book you'll get bogged down in.

Please return tomorrow, to read Laurie’s Q and A session. For those of you who do so, there’ll be an opportunity to win a copy of the book.

Disclaimer: I received two copies of the book, but no other incentive to write this review. (I was sent an advance copy, and when I lost that, a frustrating few pages before the end, Laurie kindly arranged for me to receive another copy, this time a proper hardback jobbie – which is the one I’m happy to give away tomorrow, because I know that other copy will turn up somewhere, sooner or later.)

300 not out

“I think you’d be a great addition to the team”, the Toy Shop Owner said.

Yay! I’m starting a week tomorrow, doing probably a couple of days a week, 10.00am to 3.00pm, in September, and building up as necessary through October, November, and the busiest period of the year in December. I love the fact that this has all fallen into place so easily. One phone call. That’s all it took. Sometimes you get a lucky break, and this has been one of mine. All I need now is a social security number. And there I was, thinking that getting the green card marked the end of the bureaucracy…

The children are so excited. I’ve just picked up 9-yo from school, and he’s already told his whole class, two teachers and the principal. Not bad going in one afternoon.

This is my 300th blog post. I still haven’t decided on a new name (I thought I might launch the new name at the 300th post, but it’s snuck up on me.) I’m thinking I might just call the blog “Iota”. Is that a bit pretentious? I really wish we lived in Iowa, because then I could be “Iota in Iowa”. Then we should move to an island off the coast of Scotland, and I could be “Iota: from Iowa to Iona”.

I like my profile picture, of the notice nailed to the tree trunk, and I was wondering about tying the name in with that. How about “Iota stakes her claim”? Kind of assertive. Or perhaps a reference to the American writing style: “Iota: discursive in cursive”. I’ve wondered about:

Iota, actually
Iota, Stateside
Iota’s Quota, which would abbreviate rather pleasingly to IQ.
Iota, Wife in the West
Iota on the Great Plains… She’s Great, but she isn’t Plain. Trouble with that, is that one slip of the keyboard, and you’re into “She’s Great, but she isn’t Palin”, and then I’d attract all kinds of unwanted political traffic.

Of course there’s still “Among the Bison with my Dyson”. I can’t rule that one out yet. It has so much potential for a fantastic visual image on the header.

What about tornadoes? They’re the other well-known feature of life in the Midwest. How about “Torn ado about nothing”? No? Thought not.

Sorry to be wittering on so much about names, but they are important things. Colgate, for example, is (I’m told) ‘hang yourself’ in Spanish. Persil is ‘parsley’ in French (and I believe it is marketed in France under that name). And who, who on earth, thought that Pepto-Bismol was a good name for a medicine for indigestion? It just sounds like 'Pept-Abysmal'. Mind you, I do wonder if the Pepto-Bismol marketing department operates on some kind of reverse psychology, because no-one in their right mind would consider buying medicine for indigestion that lurid pink colour. No-one except Barbie, and clearly she never gets indigestion because she never eats anything except Slim-fast.

Barbie… toys… toyshop… job… All witterings come full circle if you let them run their course.

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