Edwin Newman Dies

Edwin Newman has died. No doubt you might not know him or how much he influenced people to speak clearly and without the overused jargon language is infested with today. Newman was a prominent newscaster on NBC TV, documentarian, news forum host from the 50's through the early 80's and the author of several books on language that were both funny and amazingly insightful in showing how to and not to use English properly.

One of Newman's books that I read long ago was called "Strictly Speaking". I still have the book in my bookcase as a security blanket to remind me that not all people have dumbed down their English usage and that there is hope one day that people will speak and write much better than most do today.

In another of his books, Civil Tongue, he described what our ordinary language should resemble. "A civil tongue means to me a language that is not bogged down in jargon, not puffed up with false dignity, not studded with trick phrases that have lost their meaning. It is direct, specific, concrete, vigorous, colorful, subtle and imaginative when it should be, and as lucid and eloquent as we are able to make it. It is something to revel in and enjoy."

Do you think we have a civil tongue today? I don't. Even on the mediums that are supposed to be edited and guardians for standard English use, language today is used badly more often than not, and is so couched in slang and repetitive jargon it's a wonder anyone understands what is said. Oh perhaps they don't. It may explain the demands and dissent so many special interest groups express. Maybe if they communicated better some of that turmoil would evaporate.

Edwin Newman was educated at Louisiana's (my state)own LSU, so he always had a local lilt to his style that I liked. I remember as a boy that I liked Newman more than the ballyhooed Walter Cronkites of broadcasting. he made me want to speak and write clearly without ever seeming to ask that. Newman just did his work using language well and inspired a bit in the process.

Sadly, his type of journalist doesn't appear much anymore. Journalism today belongs more to those who scream loudest and make the most outrageous comments about the most insignificant people, places and things.. They more often create news that shouldn't exist as news and ignore what is important to the audience. In fact, they're not journalists at all, they're entertainers. I doubt they inspire anyone or that they will be missed like Newsman will be.