Reader response essential to follow-up column

An old joke in the newspaper business concerns the foreign correspondent who, when pressed by his New York editor to file a follow-up story to his previous day’s piece on the death of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, cabled the home office with the shortest follow ever recorded: “Haile Selassie still dead.”

That intrepid correspondent may have struck a huge blow for all put-upon reporters in the field who have ever been hounded by a clueless editor back in the home office to provide a “follo” on such-and-such for the morning newspaper.

But even he must have realized the importance of keeping readers abreast of developments in the news; of letting them know how things turned out after publication of an article that had seemed at the time like such a hot item to him and his editors.

It tends to drive readers nuts when, for example, a newspaper makes a big deal of a proposed law that would make it a Class C crime to mow lawns on Sunday, and then – having discovered sexier things to write about – fails to publish another word about the proposition. A newspaper that sends a man to the moon with great Page One fanfare on one day really ought to bring him back from orbit on another, rather than just leave him on hold, largely forgotten, like Ol’ Charlie stuck on that hellish Massachusetts Transit Authority train in the popular song of decades ago.

But worry not on that score here this morning. Protocol calls for a follow-up of last week’s column seeking reader input, and a follow-up there shall be…

You will recall that reader Bill Butler of Aurora sought help from other readers in finding a definition of what he believed to be the word “cormorant” – as in the waterfowl so familiar to Mainers – when applied to some citizens listed in police and court news in newspapers of old. His research had yielded nothing, and it was bugging him something fierce.

Turns out the word Butler had in mind probably was “commorant,” as reader Jack Duncan of Presque Isle was quick to note not long after last Saturday’s newspaper had hit the streets. Upon his advice that “commorant” is a legal term meaning “ordinarily residing; inhabiting,” I Googled the word on the Internet. The computer listed a citation from Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary stating that the word means “inhabiting or occupying temporarily.”

Butler agreed that Webster’s definition would seem to indicate that “commorant” was the word he sought, because some citizens whose names appeared on the police blotters and in the court news a half-century ago likely had temporarily occupied the local hoosegow before their cases were adjudicated.

The other call for help from readers issued last week concerned the mileage of the Maine coast when its many islands, bays, coves and so forth are considered.

Reader Mike Gleason of Bangor had lamented the fact that, despite having been taught that the unofficial length of the coastline in that context is roughly 3,500 miles – compared to a straight-line distance of only 230 miles from border to border, Kittery to Lubec – he recently discovered that the Maine Office of Tourism now says the coastline with all its quirks is closer to 5,500 miles long.

Which is it? Gleason wanted to know. Perhaps readers could shed some light on the deal. Several did, although none so eloquently as Jerry Metz of Addison.

“Take a look at ‘Islands in Time,’ by Philip W. Conkling of The Island Institute (www.downeastbooks.com),” Metz advised in an e-mail message. “He states, on Page 15, ‘Maine’s islands are scattered along a coastline that is … in fact, 7,039 miles long…'”

But measurements can be tricky, Metz cautioned. “There was a time when I couldn’t put more than $20 worth of gasoline in my tank, and now I can fit in more than $30 worth. But I don’t see any bulge in the side of the tank. Maybe they’re making smaller gallons.”

A-yuh. Maybe so.

And while I’m in a follow-up mode, I offer this bonus: Longtime educator Dave Gaw of Guilford e-mailed me after a recent column about young Americans’ scant knowledge of geography to relate an experience he had some years ago while teaching high school American History for sophomores.

“It was test time, and students were to identify [on a map] each New England state and name its capital city,” Gaw wrote. “One student listed correctly Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island, but recognized that ‘boot’ shape commonly called Cape Cod as being in the sixth New England State of … yes … Italy. (Go, Roman Red Sox).”

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.