LETTER FROM THE EDITOR:
Tootling With Vigor
Bill Bryson begins his delightful book The Mother Tongue with a series of mispronouncements by foreign nationals whose desire to communicate in English seriously outstrips their mastery of the language. One of these involves instructions for anglophone motorists in Tokyo: "When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."
That kind of story sticks in my mind--not, I think, due to any chauvinism on my part, but out of a fascination with anything that reveals the potentials and pitfalls (or should I say "pratfalls") hidden in the complexities of language. It's a subject I think about a lot, and read about and talk about and occasionally even dream about.
How odd--I can hear you saying--that an editor should be obsessed with language. And of course, it isn't really strange at all, though I've known the phenomenon to take strange forms. One editor I knew kept a huge and marvelous collection of misbegotten headlines ("Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over"). Another was a master of excruciating puns, all of which--you'll be glad to know--have faded from my memory.
After all, as editors, we're supposed to spend a big part of our days (and an occasional night) trying to think of ways to communicate more effectively. What will make this story more readable and that one more persuasive? What artwork will make this article more provocative? What headline will make a reader pause and dip into the well of words beneath? We develop our own philosophies, pet theories and inevitably, special weaknesses.
For example, a longtime contributor to these pages occasionally takes me to task for choosing headlines that sacrifice exactness for wit, or, as I think he would argue, for a kind of wordplay that passes for wit. But I've always thought the best headlines aren't little essays; they're little poems. They're not discursive; they're evocative. They don't simply describe the contents like a label on canned food; they use the strongest mechanisms of language--metaphor, literary reference, wordplay--to evoke something more powerful. The lure of a great headline, for me, is like that high outside fastball to some hitters. I always imagine I'm going to knock it out of the park. Perhaps too frequently, as my friend notes, I strike out. But at least I like to think I strike out swinging--or maybe, tootling with vigor.
A small case in point is the thematic title on the cover of this issue. To me, the term "natural history" implies a collection of loosely related stories that, taken as a whole, chronicle the natural development of something over time. That, it seemed to me, was exactly what I had assembled in this issue--hence the title, with due homage to a couple of fine books by Diane Ackerman. But the title also evokes for me the ironic bravado of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Clearly one can't really address such an enormous topic in such a small space, but isn't it daring to think so?
--Mark Wood
