The Non-Expert
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi Has a Cold
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week, ELIZABETH KIEM consults JOSEPH PATRICK, an editor at the United Nations, to help translate a reader’s garbled query.
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Question: Could please give me a one and a half pages of your analysis of target audience in two hours? Thanks. Forgot to do my paper on your web site. I read your site daily and forgot about this assignment. Ooopsie.
Answer: Here is my analysis: The target audience might be willing to overlook the lack of subject pronouns and the usage of the singular determiner in this poorly crafted missive if only it hadn’t assumed thanks would be in order.
Further to the point, the target audience expresses a less emotional than quizzical reaction to regrets regarding a forgotten assignment. Is it, perhaps, a paper regarding our web site that you failed to remember to write or is there a portal of unknown assignation through which papers are done and forgotten?
Finally, “Ooopsie?” Oh, fuck it, at this point I do what I generally do with unintelligible prose. I send it to Joseph Patrick, an editor at the U.N. who has grappled with such winners as:
On World Water Day every district leader selects one day for engaging in a week of life-saving interventions like puppet shows and purification tablets. “I can wash my hands just like Wiggles,” shouts Benji as he joyfully pens ink into the rubber doll.And also:
The Heavy-Duty Stapler located in front of Room 984 which belongs to the Director’s Office was taken and has not been returned since over 2 weeks now. To the person(s) who borrowed the stapler, kindly return it to me immediately as it is needed urgently.
From United Nations Editor Joseph Patrick
Thank you for your query. I’m a bit confused about how it arrived in my inbox. Was it intentionally forwarded by some exasperated web editor who retains a quaint notion that the U.N. really is the arbiter of last resort when it comes to issues such as nuclear proliferation, the global economic crisis, climate change, and extremely bad writing?To begin, I wonder if it’s possible that you really are a student. I suppose you are. Incoherence knows no academic bounds. On the other hand, I’m delighted to hear that you were so enraptured by reading anything—even if it was only a web site—that you neglected your assignment. Ooopsie, indeed.
In my daily labors, I take pride in offering constructive feedback to our writers before I let loose the inevitable withering criticism. Thus, I wish to congratulate you on what is clearly your great strength: brevity. As you may know, this is a quality that we do not encounter every day here at the Secretariat. Perhaps you heard about Colonel Gaddafi’s recent small indiscretion in the matter of word counts. No offense to the Brother Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, but the Colonel’s statement to the General Assembly was excessive in more ways than one.
In fact, nothing would please me more than 100 minutes of carefully constructed rhetoric. But alas, that was not on the agenda on September 23. To wit:
Why there is no Libyan immigration to Italy? Because Italy accepted compensation and Italy accepted that colonization was wrong and Italy would not accept to be attacked by air or sea by Libyans and Italy said they would build hospitals for the Libyans who lost their fingers or their hands in the Second World War. Italy said it was sorry. Italy was a kingdom and it was during the fascist regime and Italy did a glorious thing.This is merely one highlight. For the sake of delicacy, suffice it to say that the text is an object lesson in subject-verb agreement and the use of antecedents. I hope it will not be lost on you. Also, mind your fingers.
Of course, Colonel Gaddafi is not the only head of state or government who has taken such liberties at the General Assembly. President Chavez, at least, added a bit of color to the proceedings with his sulfuric reference last year. Which leads me to your own former President George W. Bush (for I sense that you are American; your email has that distinct odor). Mr. Bush’s fulminations always reminded one of an under-qualified middle school teacher who tried, but failed, to stay a chapter ahead of his students. But I digress.
How can I ever forget the report from a drought-stricken land where it was barely 11 a.m. but the day’s temperature had been soaring over the past few weeks?Perhaps you would consider a different approach to your request for an analysis of the target audience. Try a more diplomatic tone. Substitute the timeframe for a response “in two hours” with something less demanding—“at your earliest convenience,” for example. That is, unless you are referring to the audience which is to be targeted two hours hence. I am not inclined toward that interpretation, though.
Moreover, it is critically important that you define your terms, e.g.: one and a half pages, double-spaced?
I admit to knowing very little about target audiences. In my line of work, we aim for either the broadest possible global constituency or the one represented by the personage who currently holds the rotating Presidency. What I do know about—all too well, I’m afraid—is very, very bad writing. In the last month alone, my receptionist, Mrs. Braithwaite, has printed scores of reports from our program officers in the field for my review. Even allowing for language barriers, these communiqués achieve an almost transcendental state of muddled thinking that dare not call itself prose.
There was the submission from Afghanistan about the village elder whose eyes lost their bitter reflect as the hard expression of his chimney softened and he smiled for the first time since the beginning of the interview. Then came the story of the women in West Africa who were sensibilizated about breastfeeding at the maternity clinic. How can I ever forget the report from a drought-stricken land where it was barely 11 a.m. but the day’s temperature had been soaring over the past few weeks? Or the touching tale of an adolescent Peruvian, a simple boy who goes to school, loves his cinnamon rolls, and bathes three times a day? Even more deeply etched in my mind is the profile of young Suleiman and his dream of becoming a doctor who operates on people so that they can’t dance.
I could go on. For instance, I could mention the rapporteur who filed a draft resolution supporting the mobilization of equal opportunity for every person, whether or not s/he is male or female. But I think you get the idea.
I trust that the above is sufficient to fill one and a half pages, though I fear that it does not address the substance of your question. Still, it will have to do. I’ll have Mrs. Braithwaite transcribe this exquisitely handwritten response and email it to you first thing Monday. On second thought, I’ll ask her to print my latest pension statement first and then send this. Early retirement never looked so good.
Now, off to bed with you, young scholar. As the Brother Leader and Guide so memorably said: “You should be asleep!”
—Published October 9, 2009
