My Love of English* (*Subject to Change)

If I have learned nothing else through my fifteen-plus years of education, it is this: I love words. Beyond this simple fact, I have found that I am interested in too many subjects for my own good. As my college transcript shows, I have willingly taken a wide breadth of classes to satisfy each, including forays into medicine, film, music, art, chemistry, and psychology, with none of them satisfying a requirement for graduation from my community college. Through my study of atoms, cardiology, Freud, and Hitchcock, I’ve narrowed my major field of study to the simple word that contains so many: English. Although I’ve rendezvoused with many educational flings, I have found that my greatest romance is not with the varying subject matter, but in the development and transcription of my ideas.

Throughout my schooling, grade-school teachers and college professors alike have communicated that I possess linguistic skills and have encouraged my pursuit of writing. I never paid too much attention to what I did to receive the praise, but it appeared, and I was grateful. Eventually, I began to devote more time and effort to improving myself as a writer, initiating a willful learning process that will hopefully never end.

Writing has become a foundation of my being, but as I’ve come to find out, even greater joy is elicited from sitting down with my work and shaping it with the editor’s blade, the pen. In my experience, I have found that I will make a correction or alteration during every single reading of every paper (including this one). After a session, my papers often end up looking as though they hold more ink from my utensil than from what the printer bestowed upon it. Realizing this gets me to understand that a piece of writing is malleable and can be infinitely edited without ever becoming perfect.

Through each journey between the margins, I’ve learned that adept writers do not channel beautiful writing by opening a tap in their mind and letting publishable sentences flow, but rather, they create masterful work through the art of revision. I could have taken the time to craft all the sentences in this piece in my mind first, honing them in sequential order before writing them down. If I had, however, your eyes would not yet meet these words. Thus, I feel that talented writers do not earn their reputation on the quality of a first draft, but by their ability to revisit their work, locate what can be improved, and truly improve it.

I have yet to decide whether to pursue editing for a publishing house or a newspaper; I merely know of my desire for editing. I believe that one’s college years are the most formative in their career search, so as a way of investing time in my options, I currently serve as a copy-editor for The Sandspur and devote hours a week working in TJ’s as a writing consultant. Working for The Sandspur allows me to experience journalistic editing with a paper that demands excellence from its staff, as it is the oldest college newspaper in Florida, has remarkable tradition, and is the only newspaper I know that tackles such stimulating issues as dormitory defecation.

As a writing consultant, I don’t have my pen to the page as much, but by helping others grasp grammatical concepts, style and cohesiveness, my own abilities are strengthened. Accepting this job was logical for me, for I have always had friends approach me for advice with their own work, that I might look over their papers and help without altering their written thoughts to become my own.

The title English Simplified may seem to reflect an impossible task, but if I am to remain on course in my education, I must be up to the challenge of deciphering the language myself. As clichés go, the work of an editor is never done; even now, I’m thinking of drawing a caret between “never” and “done” and adding the word “ever” at least fifty-seven times. A quote attributed to Oscar Wide states: “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.” It would be funny if it weren’t true.