This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I like words. 

Better than numbers or charts.

That’s been who I am for years.

So it was that I noticed two national newspaper stories recently that focused on words – or, more accurately, in the second of the two, on punctuation marks that help to understand the meaning of sentences.

To provide excerpts of these two stories, I now open one of five departments I run with a free hand to manage as I – and I alone – see fit, the Department of Words Matter.

The others, by the way, are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, the Department of “Just Saying,” and the Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know.

Now, for the words.

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “If you’re a college graduate looking for a job, here’s some advice:  Beware the “like-o-meter.

“It’s a simple device I (the author) invented.  Before interviews with a prospective hire, I put a blank sheet of paper in front of me.  I then make a hash mark every time the applicant uses the word ‘like.’  Too many and I’m already thinking about the next candidate.

“If the interviewee keeps his or her ‘likes’ to an acceptable number, he or she remains in the pool.  When two finalists emerge, the person with the fewest ‘likes’ gets the edge in a tiebreaker.

“I’ve been doing this for several years and have hired some terrific employees because of it.  I got the idea in the early 1990s from an article in an airplane magazine about McKinsey & Co.’s interviewing process.  

“Apparently, the consultancy at one time based its hiring on candidates’ oral presentation skills, the determining factor in a pool filled with impressive academic credentials.  According to the article, the process had great results in the U.S., but didn’t differentiate between candidates as well in England, where schools give priority to oral presentation skills.”

COMMENT:  Like, I like this.  Using the word “like” in sentences which don’t need the word cheapens language.  It’s a lot like – pardon the use of that word this time – the use of “um” and “a” and “you know” when talking.

All of them are crutches not needed in solid speech.

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:  “Donald Trump’s hush money trial unfolded mostly according to dismal plan.  It was a smutty, theatrical mashup of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Liar Liar’ that the entire country saw in out-of-town tryouts for eight years before it lumbered into 100 Center Street for its New York debut.

“But the trial testimony offered one bombshell:  Donald Trump likes the Oxford comma.

“So testified his former personal assistant and ex-director of Oval Office operations, Madeleine Westerhout, who detailed the elaborate fine-tuning that goes into the former president’s social media pronouncements before they’re unveiled to the nation.

“This includes his preference for the Oxford comma, the controversial punctuation also known as the serial comma, used before the ‘and’ in a list of three or more items.”

COMMENT:  First, I cannot believe that anyone reviews what Trump says or writes before he does either.  He is so full of himself that it would be impossible to function as his editor. 

Look only at his many misspellings and punctuation errors to realize that he is not as smart as he believes he is.

But, I never thought I would agree with anything the serial narcissist, Trump, would say or do.  But, I use the Oxford comma, too.  And that is the only that I am like Trump…fortunately!

But in this case, Trump – or at least those who say they “edit” Trump’s posts — are right.  The Oxford comma adds to understanding a sentence.

On the other hand, adding only a piece of punctuation could never add to understanding Trump as he seems to aggrandize himself over everyone else – yes, everyone else.