Or, not really.
I know writing copy for a 24hr news website must be fairly tough in such a competetive web2.0 environment. I occasionally persue peruse the BBC News website and their “magazine”. Well, I used to, but it got very cliquey and dull so I stopped. one of the more repetitious points made by the “I’m not a NIMBY, I’m just a whining git” crowd who populate these places was the courseness of the writing on the news site. Spotting headlines made up entirely of nouns and so forth and so on. Now, I’m no angel and I know I don’t proofread my blog posts well enough, or my commments on others’, but then again, I’m not paid to do so. Yet.
But, one could counter, it’s Web2.0 man! C u l8r lozr! To which I rejoin, soundly, give me my langauge back and begone with you foul urchin!
So overall, I don’t really care about English-usage, because I have other things to worry about. I know there are legions of sexually frustrated losers whining gits out there to police these poor journo-hacks, so I needn’t worry.
I think we need to focus more on content and substance. This is especially true for us scientists, as many recent blog posts have made clear. And this has lead to a small skirmish on the edges of the frontlines between the journos and the sci-bloggers. This I love and watch with voyeuristic glee. The journos are fucked going to lose that one. The quality and quantity of scientific reportage available free through blogs and society pages is far greater than that provided by the Fourth Estate. Which of course, means we can’t complain too loudly when the hacks hack up a furball of a story. They’re not scientists, they’re pollys or sportos co-opted for the story.
Anwyay. Like I say, that argument is raging fine without me whipping me trousers down pouring oil on my nethers on the fire.
No, what has got my Oreamnos americanus this particular time is the failure to deliver in a story.
So, as I say, I’m snuffling around the BBC and I came across this:
Venomous mammal caught on camera
Brill! There’s been some chat in paleo/archeology/creationist circles for some time about mammals having a venomous bite. Are the fossils bogus, is this a new development or a hang up etc. And now the little snotnosed-shrew (my name for it, the "real"’ name being as unpronouncable as it’s Latin: Solenodon paradoxus), has shown up in the Dominican Republic.
How marvellous! As much as we think we know, we know so little. To be able to find a new species of mammal (although long suspected to exist, yet feared recently extinct)! Craig Venter can go trawling the benthic deeps and we can exclaim with delight, but not surprise, when he recovers dozens of new and novel species of…things. But a whole new shiny mammal! With a venemous bite! How fun!
But hark. Poor Snotnosed shrew is in trouble and we must conserve it! Or conservate as the Americans say. Whether wee shrew really is in trouble I know not, because ecologists, always short of cash, get most of their funding from conservation bodies. Whether conservation is warrented or not.
Fun stuff. But what of the most important piece of information here?
NB to make sure I’m not being overly pedantic I waited till Monday to post this. I ran the story and my blog post by a friend of mine and he spotted the problem right away…
…It’s a poisonous mammal. I wanna know about its bite! Is it deadly poisonous? Does it hunt humans for sport? Biting them and then herding and them, while neurotoxins slowly corrode syapses until slow death from asphyxiation finally arrives? Or is it venomous like the Stonefish, whose poisson poison causes extreme, untreatable agony for hours causing many poor souls to drown in shallow water, so overcome are they by pain.
Does it have huge pointy teeth? Can it squirt its venom like a snake?
Seriously! not only have we discovered a new mammal, it’s unique, biologically fascinating AND HAS A VENOMOUS BITE and what’s the one, key missing piece of information in the story? The hook?
…the bite, if you will….
Ah, wonderful post. Thanks, Ian. But it is coarseness, by the way. (Despite your disclaimer about proofreading, I can’t help it. I’m too old to change.)
Oh! Maxine! I even re-read and got the dictionary out for this one too. I suppose Grant’ll be along any minute to have a pop too :)
fwiw, you are in the publishing industry, so auto-pilot proofreading is probably built in?
No matter how many times you check;
No matter how assiduously you scrutinize every word,
Every syllable,
Every ellipsis, diphthong or diacritic;
No matter that you stay up until your eyes cross
And your head falls off;
No matter how carefully you arrange those colons, semicolons, commas and interrogatives;
No matter how often you check the spelling of ‘disaccharide’, ‘desiccate’, ‘exfoliative’ or ‘intracellular;
There’s always one more lousy mosprunt that ecsapes your atetention.
Hmm. I would read a “poisonous” mammal as one whose meat would make its predator sick after ingestion, whereas “venomous” snakes and spiders have bites that inject venom into their targets. But do any warm-blooded animals synthesize their own poison? And how can a nerve toxin be ingested by a bird and then secreted, harmlessly to the bird, into its skin appendages?
Perhaps the shrew is in trouble simply because it is on an accursed island. And if the creature hadn’t been observed until now, one might conclude that there aren’t very many of them around. I’d be ill-placed to criticize any scientist’s fund-raising methods, especially they are actually successful.
Er…I seem to remember from my Zoology course that the platypus can actually inject poison in self defense (or when battling other platypuses, or something about those lines). Have they been disqualified as mammals since then? Couldn’t say I’m not for it: nothing that sports such a blatant beak has really any right to claim membership to the club, no matter how “primitive” you may claim to be…
@Heather: Another quote I liked was:
If I put that in a grant application I’d get laughed out of study section.
But, I’m only having a little dig at my ecology colleagues. Some of my best friends are ecologists :) I do understand the reason and the necessity. You don’t need to prove there are only 100 left before you start trying to conserve them. Many of the island’s indigenous species (including humans in some cases) are in trouble. No resason to expect the snotnosed shrew to be any different.
@Cristian: Maybe because the platypus is a marsupial? Innit? And I think the venom is on the claws on the tips of it’s
feetflippersappendages. not its bite.Of all endangered creatures, one
Is surely the solenodon.
Although it’s well known to be rare
It’s not new, so au contraire_!
Google quickly and you’ll see
‘Twas discovered in 1833.
It’s one of those creatures, like the platypus
One of the few mammals to be venomousmammals.
And although its toxic bite
Probably wouldn’t kill outright,
It might if you then made a fuss
And ran beneath the nearest bus.
Scholars who have taken pains
Say that mammal venoms are kallikreins.
That platypus, real name Ornithorhynchus
Is poisonous too, but wouldn’t sink us.
Rather than biting, it prefers
To stab you with its poisonous spurs.
And yes, the playpus is a mammal
But not, I say, a marsupial.
It’s one of the few that still lays eggs
A relic, you might say, or the dregs
Or truly ancient history
Of epochs long before you and me.
I rather like “courseness” by the way. Particularly if applied to those sailing the wrong way or who are’t very good teachers.
…aren’t… (since we are being pedantic).
Hmm, my comment to HG has disappeared :(
@Maxine: tres drole!
Someone should be working on compiling those HG lyrical masterpieces. You never know when his prolific period may come to an end, and certainly we don’t want future generations of NN members to miss on that…!
THat’s not a bad idea, y’know. Although, knowing HG…