Readers on lookout for clunkers

One of the more interesting scam e-mail messages I have received of late supposedly came from an overseas bank. It informed me that I might be in a position to come into a huge sum of money because someone with the same surname – a possible relative? – had made a great investment in the bank and had passed on without naming an heir.

What intrigued me was that in trying to get me to bite, the scammer got too fancy with the language, thereby running afoul of Old Dawg Maxim No. 47: When composing a con letter to reel in greedy suckers, never attempt to impress the rubes by using words beyond your pay grade.

“Our private banking client died interstate and nominated no next of kin to inherit the title of investment made by our bank,” read the come-on, and the image was one of the dearly departed having gone to meet his maker as the result of an unfortunate encounter with a wayward moose out on I-95.

What the bunko artist meant, of course, was that his alleged client had died intestate, or without having made a valid will.

How much better it would have been for the scammer’s objective – and how much clearer for the scam-ees – to have stated as much, the first law of writing being using words that readers (and the writer) will understand.

The all-time greatest illustration of an assemblage of words that no reader in his right mind could possibly understand – or even care to – was a classic show-off paragraph cobbled together by syndicated columnist George Will in writing about Patty Hearst some years ago.

According to fellow syndicated columnist James Kilpatrick in his book “The Writer’s Art,” Will wrote that Hearst’s arrest “provided a coda to a decade of political infantilism, the exegesis of which could be comprehended as a manifestation of bourgeois Weltanschauung.”

Easy for him to say, I suppose. But try to sneak such a William F. Buckley-esque clunker by some editors I have worked for and you’d be quickly defrocked and traded to the Hooterville Weekly Bugle for two glue pots and a cub reporter to be named later.

Impenetrable prose can halt a reader dead in his tracks. But some other journalistic sins – the ever-popular misplaced modifier, for one – can actually make for an enjoyable reading experience.

A recent newspaper article reporting that Saddam Hussein had written a letter to a Jordanian friend, casting himself as a martyr for Arabs, contained a doozy. “Facing possible execution if found guilty in coming trials, Saddam’s letter appeared to include musings on his mortality,” the story reported.

Now, I’ve received lots of letters that could be improved by execution – and may have sent my fair share, as well. But in this case I’d say that that mangled sentence deserves to be bumped off well ahead of Saddam’s egocentric letter to his pal.

An anonymous reader sent me a clipping of a story about a Bangor parade honoring World War II veterans. The item told of “a World War II church bell trailered behind a World War II Jeep that was rung throughout the parade.”

Catherine Lee of Eastport sent a clipping about a convention of doctors at which a spokesman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services discussed the state’s infamously shaky computerized bill-paying system. After explaining where 25 percent of total Medicaid payments had gone, the man reportedly talked about the disposition of “the other 80 percent.” Lee’s note indicated that she now understands why Medicaid is in such a mess.

Jack Duncan of Presque Isle wrote to call attention to a human interest story about a female boxer out on the Left Coast. The article was fascinating. It was the four-line headline (“Boxers’/shot at/$1M/held up”) over the one-column story that was “tops in its obfuscation” and had confused him, Duncan explained.

“Until I read the story, I didn’t know if: a) some boxers had been shot; b) some boxers had shot at $1Million; or c) some boxers had been held up,” he wrote, Turns out it was none of the above.

In the envelope containing the account of the ringing Jeep was a clip of a story about sex education in Maine schools. “Health officials say sexually transmitted infections are increasing partly because of improved health care and testing methods,” the story reported. The sender asked, “Are they confused, or am I?”

I think it’s the reader. To me, it’s painfully obvious that the exegesis of the statement can be comprehended as a manifestation of bourgeois Weltanschauung.

Columnist Kent Ward’s e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.