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Make it sing - Bloggercises

Make it sing 3: The words of two great Australians

December 7th 2008 06:04

Macfarlane Burnet

Barry Marshall and Macfarlane Burnet have three obvious things in common: they are Australian, they have won Nobel prizes for science, and they know how to make words sing.

Frank Macfarlane Burnett, who died in 1985 aged 86, won the 1960 Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.

Barry James Marshall, born in 1951, shared the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine with Robin Warren for their discovery of the bacterium helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.

Barry Marshall's acceptance speech was short, witty and charming, due in some measure to the inclusion of part of Burnet's acceptance speech from 45 years earlier.

How do you impress a live audience which includes kings and queens and some of the best minds on the planet, along with a global academic community keen to hear your thoughts and a future ready to judge you forever for your words?

You make your words sing.

The text of Barry Marshall's acceptance speech is eight paragraphs long. The first paragraph starts, "Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses ...", which is not the way many of us are called upon to start a speech. The next two paragraphs acknowledge his fellow laureate Robin Warren and the wives of both men.

What follows is the rest of speech.

"Robin and I follow in the footsteps of other notable Australians and I would like to quote the words of Australia's most honoured scientist, Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet. These are the words he spoke 45 years ago on the night of his award.

" 'I think that this occasion has a rather special significance for my own country, a middling small country a little bigger than Sweden but only now beginning to create an image of itself in the eyes of the world. Some day I hope that we will take our place along with Sweden as one of the centres where knowledge can go along with social progress to the good life that we all seek.'

"I like to think that I have benefited from the expansion of knowledge and social progress that Macfarlane Burnet hoped for, and I hope that in my own way I will contribute to its development in the future.

"Let me clarify here, while it is true that Macfarlane Burnet injected himself with the rabbit myxoma virus, and I did actually infect myself with helicobacter pylori, I don't suggest to other aspiring Aussie scientists that this process will guarantee a Nobel Prize. But to young people listening tonight I would say, find passion in your work - whatever it is. If, like me, you are working in the area of science, I can promise you that it can be the most exciting and rewarding of careers.

"So work hard, keep balance in your life and, just in case, always be nice to Swedish people."

Barry Marshall

Robin Warren receives his Nobel Prize from King Carl Gustav of Sweden

abc.net.au, Reuters, Wikipedia, www.msnbc.msn.com

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Make it sing

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Bloggercises: Make it sing 2

October 1st 2008 23:56

In her wonderful book Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has a moment of soaring realisation. Gilbert, an American, is in Italy pursuing a dream to learn Italian. On page 104 of the book, we find her in a train chatting to a young local man who, with forthright smile and evocative words, is obviously trying to hit on her.

The writer's first response is to be pleased that someone much younger finds her attractive. Then comes the bombshell: all this is happening in Italian, and she is coping with the conversation. After all the study, suddenly here she is, speaking conversational Italian.

Now, how to convey to the reader the wonder of the moment in something other than mundane language and multiple exclamation marks?

Gilbert wrote, "The kid thinks I like him, but it's the words I'm flirting with. My God - I have decanted myself! I have uncorked my tongue and Italian is pouring forth!"

It's a beautiful metaphor, the kind that makes me laugh out loud with pleasure. The three words which hold it together are decanted, uncorked and pouring. Gilbert could have written, "At that moment, my life changed." Instead, she made it sing.

Remember the words of our two great guides (see Make it sing 1: For he's a jolly good bellow) on the subject: Mark Twain, who said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug," and The Round Mound of Sound, who said, "Make it sing."

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Make it sing

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For he's a jolly good bellow

September 29th 2008 00:53

I heard someone call my name. It was close to first edition deadline and I was deep in concentration, wrestling with a Page 3 story. Body copy too long, good headline idea too short. Good headline ideas never fit close to deadline.

Across a crowded subs desk, I heard someone call my name again.

When I concentrate, I concentrate hard, and when I am interrupted, switching attention feels like swimming in treacle.

It was the editor. He was standing, hands on large stomach, at the far end of the table, asking me a question for the second time. People were looking at me, no doubt wishing I would hurry up and deal with the intrusion, so typical of this strange leader, so they could return to the business of putting out a newspaper.

Our editor was of the New Order of Journalism. He and his precocious generation had swept aside the newspaper values of precision, punctuation and punctuality, and replaced them, in his case, with brashness, bombast and bullshit.

He bellowed. He would stand around the subs desk and assault us with stream-of-consciousness bellowing. He was a short, fat man with more front than the Great Wall of China and more confidence than a nuclear warhead. We called him the Round Mound of Sound.

He knew the newspaper business, however. He could motivate reporters to find the truth and nothing but the truth; he could write a heading that would make you laugh out loud; and he could write a caption that would twist your heart.

"Make it sing," he often bellowed, when his consciousness wasn't streaming. He understood what those words represented, and how important that concept was to good writing.

Back at the subs desk, all attention was on me, but I hadn't heard the question. As I looked at the editor, standing there like a little Buddha, hands clasped on his enormous belly, I reached into my sub-conscious and hit replay. "Champion!" I heard him say, "it's big, isn't it?"

Big? That's all I could find. I looked at him. "What is," I asked, "your stomach?"

I sat on that subs desk for seven years and the only time I ever heard instant, unanimous, full-throated laughter was at that moment. I still can't tell you what the question was; it was just one of his random, overweening interrogations. In my confusion, I had answered as best I could.

I was young then, and I had no mechanism for dealing with the terror of that moment. The Round Mound of Editor just looked at me. The laughter continued for an eternity - as much an outlet for general resentment as about the comedy of the moment.

Today, more than 20 years later, what is my primary memory of this man? It is this, "Make it sing."

It encapsulates the magic that words can have. It is what a good writer can do. Mark Twain said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

Make it sing. It is a subject which, as editor of Bloggercises, I would like to explore in future posts. I promise not to bellow.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging, Make it sing, Writing

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