THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 16, 1994 TAG: 9407160239
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
By Page 4 of John Grisham's new novel, ``The Chamber,'' I'd groaned three times - once for each grammatical error I'd found.
Not entirely trusting my own abilities, I read the offending phrases to the grammarian on the other end of the couch. She confirmed that each one was, indeed, incorrect.
Well, Grisham is a lawyer by training, not an English professor, and he tells a decent tale. I kept reading.
But I knew that Jim Henderson would have pitched the book across the room by then. Jim liked a good story, but he didn't suffer fools gladly - particularly those who committed their foolery on the English language. Three mistakes in four pages, you're outta there.
James Rutledge Henderson III will be eulogized this morning by a group of people who know what they lost when he died sometime before dawn on the Fourth of July. Those of you who didn't know him lost something, too.
If you've read this far, you're a dedicated newspaper reader, and Jim Henderson was about the best friend you could have had. For more than 30 years, most of them as an editor, Jim Henderson was your personal protector against sloppy grammar, shoddy reporting, mangled syntax, dumb historical references and all sorts of general stump-headedness. He retired a couple of years ago, so if you've noticed an uptick in those sorts of things, you have a particularly keen eye. He would have liked you.
And you would have liked him, too. Everybody did, which is something of a marvel when you stop to think about it. He was a professional nag. Jim's mission was to point out the failings of the well-educated and ego-driven sorts who write and edit newspapers. He took this mission seriously. He drove about town in a Volkswagen with license plates that said ``NIT PIK.''
Professional nags rank with proctologists and IRS inspectors on our lists of people to be avoided. It wasn't that way with Jim. He could strip a reporter's hide faster than a piranha on a hambone, but he did it so artfully, with such a graceful scalpel of wit, that all the best reporters wanted Jim working on their copy.
Sometimes they just wanted to see what he'd say next.
I remember a reporter confidently approaching the city desk with the rewrite of a story Jim had rejected earlier. ``It's all fixed,'' the reporter said. ``It's 100 percent better now.''
Jim took a quick glance. ``You're right,'' he said. ``It started out as offal. Now it's merely awful.''
He returned one story to a reporter in the form of a paper airplane. Another he dumped on the writer's desk from the end of a stick, the message being: ``I will not risk touching this mess with my bare hands.''
But he never once raised his voice in anger. And for every ounce of hide he removed, he was wise enough to leave an ounce of meat on the bone. People loved him for that, and they worked hard for him. They wanted to learn from him. They wanted his approval.
Once, Jim sent a story to the copy desk that was far shorter than they'd expected. He included this note of apology: ``Sorry it's so short, but a certain amount of muck, spleen, libel, hogwash, garbage, neologism, prurience, presumption, assumption, half-assumption, boobery, quackery and jackassery had to be excised. Well, maybe not HAD to be, but was.''
The ultimate winner in this process was the person who popped some change into the corner news box expecting, in return, a clear, accurate and unvarnished account of the day's events.
Over the years, scores of young journalists became acolytes to Jim Henderson's belief that language is a form of beauty, and that precision is the ultimate truth. They're practicing those beliefs here in Norfolk, and in newsrooms from New York to Los Angeles and many places in between.
They're his legacy to people who love newspapers. And all of us miss him very much. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
James R. Henderson III, who died July 4, defended grammar and good
writing for more than 30 years. He retired from The Virginian-Pilot
in 1990.
by CNB