Viewpoint -- Take A Trip Down The River, So To Speak

Dec. 21, 2004

Immerse yourself in the language of Far Appalachia.

The response sounded like the executive equivalent of geek-speak. The question had been put simply enough to the senior manufacturing manager. But his answer was something else. Somewhere among his subjects, verbs, and direct objects his points were being mugged into incomprehensibility by such management jargon as "transformational work," "integrative collaborative processes," "differentiating initiatives," "customer-relationship management environments," and "customer sets." His listener was left wondering whether the speaker might be, dare we speculate, surreptitiously interfacing without impacting. Or perhaps he was imperfectly prioritizing in the participatory pursuit of sustainable change. Or maybe the executive was just as confused as was his bewildered listener. We'll never know, because although the manager was enunciating the words clearly enough, he was not even coming close to communicating his ideas. He was speaking a private language. It was a jumble of jargon. There is a place for specialized language. Medical doctors, for example, speak of infarcts, TIAs, acetaminophen, polycythemia vera, and bipolar disorders. Airline pilots and air-traffic controllers know the meaning of "Speedbird 217 heavy proceed direct Leesburg." And more of us are learning that spam is not only the name of a Hormel lunchmeat -- or that reboot doesn't mean to put on galoshes again. But when language gets in the way of ideas, or data, or information, or the communication of knowledge, it constrains. It limits. It fails not only the speaker or writer, but the listener or reader as well. Contrast the executive's incomprehensible and off-putting jargon with these three sentences. "We are deep in West Virginia on a Sunday morning. The air is chilly, colder than the river. If you had a cabin on the west ridge above us you'd be in sunlight but down here on the river warmth is two hours away." Or with this sentence: "The churches of the small communities are the still points of history -- men and women would have stood on the steps of South Fork Baptist talking about what they might do if the North invaded and started the war." These are words that work wondrously well. This is language that does not limit understanding but rather expands it. It succeeds for the writer as well as for the reader. It is the language of Far Appalachia:Following the New River North, by NPR's Noah Adams, the co-host of All Things Considered. Adams follows the New River north on its course out of North Carolina and well into West Virginia for 238 quiet, powerful, and eloquent pages. Even in the economy of Adams' language, you turn with canoeist, looking over your shoulder for a house built of natural materials high on the hillside and facing downriver near the State Highway 221 bridge in North Carolina. And through the amazing presence of Adams' language you are in the Virginia town of Ivanhoe, a place with only a few buildings downtown, many more white frame houses with gardens along the side streets, and a Fourth of July parade with dogs in the backs of pickup trucks. Adams' language gives you witness to the 1940s look of the Bluestone Dam, its vast swoops and steps of concrete crossing a valley in West Virginia. And Adams' language makes you a passenger in a rubber river raft. You feel the river and the raft as the boat bends to accept the force of the second wave in Surprise, a funnel of a rapid near Thurmond, W. Va. You spill to the center of the boat. You scramble to regain the edge. You feel the boat rock sideways, skid past boulders, and slide into the pool at the bottom of Surprise. And you do not drown in jargon. Simple yet wonderfully, unpredictably constructed sentences put you in the places where Adams is. You see what he sees. You feel what he feels -- the alternate serenities and surprises of the present, the unloadable burdens of the past, the promise that the future will contain all three -- and be different as well. Far Appalachia is a book for all seasons and a book to be read for all sorts of reasons. It is a book about adventure and a search for heritage. But, this summer, pick it up and read it for its language. Let it reacquaint you with narrative and simple dialogue at some of their most effective. Let his trip down the New River renew your spoken and written words, not only for this summer, but also for many seasons to come. Take a trip down the river -- so to speak. John S. McClenahen is an IW senior editor. He is based in Washington.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.