Bulbous Writing

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You could say there are four different kinds or qualities of writing:

  • bad writing in which no care is given to the choice of words or the basics of grammar and syntax, and so it is a disorganized mess in which it is hard to figure out what the writer is trying to say
  • good, clear writing
  • over-writing, in which the writer just tries to hard, conjures up words more to impress than to convey meaning, and doesn’t understand images and metaphors
  • literary writing, writing which is art

One of the great satire organizations that sprang up around the beginning of the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency was the Lincoln Project. Their stated goal was to do what they could to help ensure that he was not re-elected. I followed them on Twitter and enjoyed the snarky commentary by one of the co-founders, Rick Wilson, and I also got to see the many videos that they produced, which ranged in emotion from genuinely, sadly moving to harsh, uncompromising satire and sarcasm. Their signature tease for the latter, when they were working on a video on someone, was “Abe is watching.” It was great fun and very funny.

The project is in the news now for a very different reason though: another of the co-founders, Mike Weaver, has admitted to sexually harassing men online—but boys as well, including a 14-year-old to whom he promised political favours for, well, you know. Weaver actually left the Lincoln Project in the summer of 2020, and these allegations were only published a couple of weeks ago. The project has initiated an independent investigation of Weaver’s behaviour during his time with them, and that continues.

So what does any of this have to do with writing?
Yet another co-founder of the Lincoln Project is Steve Schmidt. When he was asked for his reaction to the accusations, he said that he was “incandescently angry” at Weaver. Incandescently angry. Think about that. That is writing that is not sincere. It’s writing that’s trying too hard to make an effect by using an unusual adverb. It’s writing that is more animated by a desire to stand out rather than by genuine emotion. It’s technically accurate, a correct use of the word, but it’s writing by thesaurus. It’s over-writing. It’s bad writing.

I am no longer on Twitter. Since I am writing a book about Sam Johnson, I was on there at the time to follow scholars and others who know something about the 18th century. But much of the conversation was about Trump, in which I participated as well, and when that was all over, as I was clearing out my mind for the new year, I thought my Twitter account would be something I could easily toss in the trash. I haven’t missed it.

(Side note: My other Twitter-related incident is that an account I had before this one was actually suspended by Twitter because of comments I made about Trump, and Lou Dobbs (who recently lost his Fox News show) complained about it. I had the choice of waiting it out and being returned to the fold eventually, but I decided to delete the entire account.)

When I was on Twitter as @SamJohnsonBook, I followed Schmidt until I just couldn’t bear it any more. I would respond to his tweets and tell him that he didn’t know how to write. I begged him to contact me, an editor, so that I could help him. Of course I knew that these tweets of mine would have no effect, that he probably wouldn’t even see them. After a while I got tired of flailing my arms and just stopped following him so that I could have some peace of mind, so that I wouldn’t have to be exposed to his over-writing.

The thing about over-writing is that it is pretentious in both senses of the word: bragging and snobby, but at the same time pretending or aspiring to be great writing when it is not. You can see examples of Schmidt’s bad writing even in the letter which he has issued about the Weaver affair. Like:

A telltale sign of someone who knows nothing about writing is that there is no logic in the images and metaphors that they use. In this case a faith which is just a flicker is suddenly immolated (sacrificed by burning) by anger. Yes, they both have to do with fire, but a successful metaphor or image has to have a real-life logic to it. Here, the faith is flickering, but then anger elsewhere destructively sets it on fire. The mess is compounded when in the next sentence Schmidt says he felt “like something that anchored me was stolen.” This relegates the writing even further to a mixed metaphor, where a fire has somehow been transformed into an anchor.

Sam Johnson, the 18th-century writer I am writing a biography about, is often cited as someone whose writing is close to impenetrable or even incomprehensible to modern readers. That is true to a certain extent, though it depends a lot of what work of Sam’s you are reading. What is also true, though, is that the difficulty in understanding his writing has nothing to do with confused or mixed metaphors or the wrong choices of words. It is partly that he was writing over two centuries ago, and much has changed in the English language since then. It is also partly Sam’s style. Most of his comtemporaries had little difficulty with it, but some of them mocked him for his big words and his long sentences.

Sam understood metaphor though. And he was never trying to use words to impress in a superficial way, but to convey meaning with the vocabulary that he had at hand. He was an imperfect man, and coincidentally suffered from two of the traits that Steve Schmidt says afflicted him as well: anger and depression. Some people can write about it successfully though, and others cannot.

Bad Writing in Belated Support of a Good Dictionary

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Samuel Johnson is a relatively obscure figure for most people, but there are a few facts about him that – if they know anything about him at all – people are likely to know. One is that he’s somehow associated with James Boswell, and that’s certainly true. A lot of readers know Johnson only through Boswell’s chatty and readable biography that he published about him seven years after his death. It’s a little long, but there are many edited versions available and still being published, all these years later.

Another is that Sam was a writer, and a writer of essays, and that those essays were often of the “how to live life” type. Here, people are generally referring to a series of twice-weekly essays called The Rambler that Johnson published for two years when he was in his early 40s. Boswell, who lacked a supportive father and often needed encouragement and moral guidance in his life, treated these essays sometimes like a manual (other people did as well).

But perhaps the work that Sam is most famous for is the dictionary of the English language that he compiled over a period of nine years when he was in his late 30s to mid-40s. It was published in 1755 and immediately became the authoritative source for definitions of English words. Sam’s dictionary was reprinted during his lifetime and editions were published well into the 19th century after his death.

There are many great anecdotes about the dictionary, but the one I want to mention involves the support – or lack of it – that Sam received from his “patron” during the course of the writing of the dictionary. Patrons were a common means of promotion for any book to be published in the 18th century. Usually a person of high social status would act as patron, and the idea was not only promotion and conferring legitimacy on the book project in order to encourage people to buy it when it would be published, but also financial help as well. The benefit to the patron was being associated with the “world of letters.”

Sam’s patron for his dictionary was Lord Chesterfield (Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield), and during the eight years of patronage, while Sam worked on this massive project and also supported himself financially by writing essays (The Rambler from 1750 to 1752 and The Adventurer for two years after that), and also endured the death of his wife – Chesterfield basically did nothing. It was only in late 1754, when the work on the dictionary was finished and it was on the point of being published, that suddenly Chesterfield sprang to life with two cringe-worthy letters in a periodical called The World. Not only is the “help” late in coming for Sam, but Chesterfield’s writing is atrocious – pompous and sycophantic. Here’s a sample:

I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a free-born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dictatorship. Nay more; I will not only obey him, like an old Roman, as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair; but no longer.

(The World, No. 100 (Nov. 28, 1754), pp. 601-602)

Sam wasn’t impressed and certainly not deferential. His letter in reply to Chesterfield’s has become a classic in speaking up to power and authority, and as an example of Sam not being thankful when he felt that it wasn’t deserved. Here’s part of his reply:

I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the publick, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address … When I had once addressed your Lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before …
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it …

February 7, 1755

In the end, Sam defined patron in his dictionary like this: