In The Interest Of Purity

If you've read more than one or two pieces I've written, you're probably already aware that I don't edit. I’ve long felt that editing is dishonest.  After all, even God didn’t get two chances at the Stone Tablets. I’m sure it required some extra thought on His part, and it’s likely that He experienced a good bit of performance anxiety while composing the Ten Commandments, but, overall, it seems to have worked out fairly well, all things considered.

Of course, as mere mortals who figured we could do it just a little bit better, we felt it necessary to edit them, to give them just that little bit of extra gusto that would show the world our extraordinary understanding of all things Holy.  First, the Hebrews, then the Catholics, then the Protestants... it rather makes me wonder if Number Ten in the Catholic version, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods”, and edited to “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s”, might not be just a tad overstated.

I envision some fifteenth century devotee of Martin Luther, late one Saturday night, setting type on his brand new printing press, in his desperate attempt to fill up two full columns and meet his Sunday morning deadline.  Who can say whether Martin himself didn’t cut it from “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor his wife’s ass, nor his maidservant’s ass, nor the ass of the cute little servant girl who lives two doors down- the one with the bodacious boobs-, nor anything else that could be pawned for enough cash to buy some pleasures of the flesh or otherwise smacks of Catholicism”. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Sure, it’s irritating to constantly have to reconstruct a writer’s faulty sentence structure, misspelled words and other grammatical faux pas. (Yes, I know it’s singular, but I don’t know what the plural is, and I refuse to go back and find out, it’d violate the premise of this entire piece.  Sue me...) But, isn’t it better for me to maintain a concrete (if misguided and somewhat cloying) posture based on the principles of editorial purity than to give in to temptation and adapt the loose precepts of Microsoft Word journalism that offers me the opportunity to backspace every time I see a red or green line appear under one of my words or phrases?  Such practices are the absolute roots of anarchy! 

So... in conclusion, I beseech you, fair reader, follow my example:  Do it right the first time, and you’ll never be sorry.  Eventually, you’ll be as good at it as I am... and you’ll have all that extra time left to drink beer and sit in the hot tub with your neighbor’s wife (‘neighbour’s’ wife, if you happen to be British), never once worrying that you’ve split an infinitive, fragmented a sentence all to Hell, or that it’s a preposition you’ve ended your sentence with.

Now go write me something pretty.  So what if it ain't perfect, who do you think you are, God? Or worse, Martin Luther? Maybe someday, if you practice, you'll end up like me, working at First Draft Theater.