Bookselling for illiterates

Erroneous Maximus

Michael Henderson should make sure his own grammar is infallible before casting the first stone! "Waterstone's used to be known for -it's- well-read staff". There is no apostrophe with a possessive pronoun! See Mick, anyone can make simple spelling/grammatical mistakes. The Spectator should review its own standards.

Bookseller

So Mr Henderson is perfect. That much we have learnt. We all know that the bookselling industry is experiencing troubled times, as is most of the retail sector. So how nice it is of Mr Henderson to provide us with this petty and self-righteous insight into what he does with his days - some of us go to work. While we still have a job that is. Kicking the industry when it is down is bad enough but launching a personal attack on the ‘little people’, the staff at the bottom of hierarchy who work tirelessly trying to keep this ailing industry alive, is ignorant and disrespectful.

People make mistakes. Some people’s mistakes lead to countless, needless deaths of innocent civilians that are paramount to war crimes. Some people mistake Evelyn Waugh for a woman. If American spelt with a lower case ‘a’ is the most distressing thing that you have seen this week then I suggest that you come down from your ivory tower, take a look around and re-evaluate your priorities somewhat.

I am a bookseller, I have a degree, I have an MA and I am certainly not a duffer.

George Elliott

I work for Waterstons and I cant understand the point of this article 'cause I'm such a duffer (what does that mean anyway ??)Please could translate in language for dummis ?
George Elliott

IceRoadTrucker

Journalists must hate when readers point out their mistakes. So why would this chap go ahead and do it to these poor bookshop staff? Especially ones who had the gumption to try and tell their customers what books they loved.
How very elitist and how very boring of you Mr. Henderson.

Coningsby

Granted, few pleasures in this life are as much fun as shrieking with derisive laughter at the grammatical errors of shop assistants, but has it occurred to Mr H that most of the blunders he so gleefully draws our attention to were in all likelihood made by people who do not speak English as a first language?

'If Fitzgerald did not existed' is a classic example. It's the kind of mistake that anglophones know instinctly to avoid, but only the likes of Simon Heffer could explain why 'had not existed' is right, and 'did not existed' is wrong. I certainly can't, and I read English at Oxford.

michael henderson

I wrote the piece, not the headline. Journalists do not write headlines above their copy.

Spelling correctly has nothing to do with 'elitism'. Nor was the illiteracy at Waterstone's anything to do with foreigners, who tend to speak and write English rather better than many modern Britons.

As for George Elliott, I'm afraid this is a matter for you and your loved ones.

Dan

Well, Mr. Henderson, I can see instantly that you are a well-rounded and thoughtful individual, who certainly has no sinister undertones revolving around the fact that you write for one of the more unimaginatively right-leaning any-old-target-as-long-as-they're-poorer-than-we publications in Britain. Which really is saying a lot, Mr. Henderson.

Anyway, I should introduce myself, for thus far I've been quite rude, and I'm hoping dearly that you'll read this comment personally and really, actually fucking think about what you write in your newspaper next time (the use of the expletive, before you cry out, up in arms, is entirely justified on this occasion, Mike, and a great deal of the finest writers use expletives on a regular basis, for comic effect or merely for emotional impact, though this list probably doesn't extend to Waugh, which I am sure, Mr. Henderson, you well know, being so well versed and knowledgeable in everything and faultlessly literate at every juncture of your sad, lets-trapse-round-Waterstones-reading-recommends-cards-in-the-hope-of-finding-something-silly-written-by-somebody-who-heaven-forbid-can't-afford-higher-education existence...).

So: My name is Daniel Pryce. I work at Waterstones Piccadilly, and I have done so for, oh, about two and a half months. I'm working to try to afford a Masters course in History. I, little old me, am the author of the Recommends card referenced in your little article pertaining to Fitzgerald. The card, I think, though I'm at present feeling such a 'duffer' (good word, by the way, very nice choice, endlessly humorous) that I can barely remember what I wrote, quoted the rib on Voltaire's 'If God didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him'. Anyway, something like that, I don't know, I just sit around all day watching reruns of Friends. Yet, it just so happened that I made a slight grammatical error on the card, lovingly written, I assure you, by an enormous Fitzgerald fan.

You see, the thing about books for me, Michael Henderson, is that reading them is, in essence, a profoundly personal experience; nobody can tell you what to read or how to read it or what to think about reading it. That is a great percentage of the pleasure involved in reading. And I will also say that I don't fully agree with Recommends cards in Waterstones, as I see it as essentially attempting to put into words something that is unexplainable: that unique feeling you take from reading a book. And each book and reading experience is different and there are only so many superlatives in the world. But I assume you know this, as a great lover of books and a highly intelligent journalist, who never spends his probably incredibly well-paid time lowering himself to insult people (mostly young people, I'll add) who are just trying to get by in life doing something that they enjoy, much like yourself Mr. Henderson, though, uh, I imagine, ahem, not as well-paid, or shall I say, merely, that we don't get the opportunity to dance around London trying to point out inaccuracies and human flaws in cards written by people who are trying passionately to invoke that same passion in others.

Anyway, I could try to prove to you, maybe, how LITERATE I am, the author of your much-attacked Recommends card, on a scale of one to ten, by listing ALL of the books I have read, writing small theses on the nature of Kabbalism in Pynchon, perhaps? Or we could just pull out our manhoods and flop them right out and compare them (you, uh, you know where I work, don't you?) But it would all be useless, of course, is what I'm getting at (oh, aren't I humorous). Because this article, this whole thing, was pathetic and though it's probably a waste of my time (I've had a nice day off, reading in my armchair, in fact, I'm reading Infinite Jest, have you read it, because you should, it's really quite good) I felt I should reply and HOPE that you read it and see what an awful man you are and maybe think twice about attacking people again, especially in a public venue. I'm going to go and feed my cat now, so goodbye Mr. Henderson.

By the way, '50 people who buggered up football'. I mean, Jesus, you're one to talk.

Daniel Pryce

Well, Mr. Henderson, I can see instantly that you are a well-rounded and thoughtful individual, who certainly has no sinister undertones revolving around the fact that you write for one of the more unimaginatively right-leaning any-old-target-as-long-as they’re-younger-and/-or-poorer publications in Britain. Which really is saying a lot, Mr. Henderson.

Anyway, I should introduce myself, for thus far I've been quite rude, and I'm hoping dearly that you'll read this comment personally and really, actually fucking think about what you write in your newspaper next time (the use of the expletive, before you cry out, up in arms, is entirely justified on this occasion, Mike, and a great deal of the finest writers use expletives on a regular basis, for comic effect or merely for emotional impact, though this list probably doesn't extend to Waugh, which I am sure, Mr. Henderson, you well know, being so well versed and knowledgeable in everything and faultlessly literate at every juncture of your sad, lets-trapse-round-Waterstones-reading-recommends-cards-in-the-hope-of-finding-something-silly-written-by-somebody-who-heaven-forbid-can't-afford-higher-education existence...).

My name is Daniel Pryce. I work at Waterstones Piccadilly, and I have done so for, oh, about two and a half months. I'm working to try to afford a Masters course in History. I, little old me, am the author of the Recommends card referenced in your little article: the card pertaining to Fitzgerald’s book ‘The Beautiful and the Damned’. The card, I think, though I'm at present feeling such a 'duffer' (good word, by the way, very nice choice, endlessly humorous) that I can barely remember what I wrote, quoted the rib on Voltaire's 'If God didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him'. Anyway, something like that, I don't know, I just sit around all day watching reruns of Friends. Yet, it just so happened that I made a slight grammatical error on the card, which was, nonetheless, lovingly written, I assure you, by an enormous Fitzgerald fan.

You see, the thing about books for me, Michael Henderson, is that reading them is, in essence, a profoundly personal experience; nobody can tell you what to read or how to read it or what to think about reading it. That is a great percentage of the pleasure involved in reading. And I will also say that I don't fully agree with Recommends cards in Waterstones, as I see it as essentially attempting to put into words something that is unexplainable: that unique feeling you take from reading a book. And each book and reading experience is different and there are only so many superlatives in the world. But I assume you know this, as a great lover of books and a highly intelligent journalist, who never spends his probably incredibly well-paid time lowering himself to insult people (mostly young people, I'll add) who are just trying to get by in life doing something that they enjoy, much like yourself Mr. Henderson, though, uh, I imagine, ahem, not as well-paid, or shall I say, merely, that we don't get the opportunity to dance around London trying to point out inaccuracies and human flaws in cards written by people who are trying passionately to invoke that same passion in others.

Anyway, I could try to prove to you, maybe, how LITERATE I am, the author of your much-attacked Recommends card, on a scale of one to ten, by listing ALL of the books I have read, or writing small theses on the nature of Kabbalism in Pynchon, perhaps? Or we could just pull out our manhoods and flop them right out and compare them (you, uh, you know where I work, don't you?) But it would all be useless, of course, is what I'm getting at (oh, aren't I humorous). Because this article, this whole thing, was pathetic and though it's probably a waste of my time (I've had a nice day off, reading in my armchair, in fact, I'm reading Infinite Jest, have you read it, because you should, it's really quite good) I felt I should reply and HOPE that you read it and see what an awful man you are and maybe think twice about attacking people again, especially in a public venue. I'm going to go and feed my cat now, so goodbye Mr. Henderson.

By the way, '50 people who buggered up football'. I mean, Jesus, you're one to talk.

minime

Mr Henderson, me thinks, is ribbing you all, i think anyone who writes "I have been buying books there for years, including a complete set of Proust, which is not so much a purchase as an investment for life." with a straight face must be applauded.

charlie beckett

Dear Michael,
What a sad, pompous person you are. You witness people (low paid, probably temporary jobs thanks to the kind of market forces you no doubt celebrate) showing enthusiasm for literature and all you can do is carp about their detailed knowledge of punctuation or the author's biography.
Really sad.
And then you have to write about it.
Even sadder.
cheers
Charlie

Daisy

Having worked at various branches of Waterstones in London for two years following my English Literature degree, I can attest that all of the booksellers I encountered had a degree, usually in a humanities subject from a respected university. It was actually quite difficult to get a job at the chain, despite having a first from one of the top-five universities. The clueless staff Henderson encountered were probably taken on to cope with the pre and post-christmas chaos which largely involves unpacking stock and scanning books through the till (which does not require a degree in English Literature) In the larger branches you are treated like a robot, an extra body and therefore enthusiasm for the 'bookselling' part of the job (which comprises roughly 5% of your time) is in short supply. Furthermore, getting paid minimum wage to work late shifts which sometimes last until 10:30 and 'recovery' shifts which start at 7am, not to mention all day on sundays and bank holidays with no extra pay..what does this man expect? Staff at McDonalds earn more money than Waterstones workers and you wouldn't even expect a grunting hello from them. If you want impeccable service try Daunts where the staff are paid what they deserve and therefore offer the passionate and careful service you clearly expect. The problem lies with the company, not the staff.

Katherine

Dear Mr Henderson
GET A LIFE! (and while you're doing that - use your journalistic skills for a higher purpose than sneering, sneering, and oh yes, sneering)
Signed
An independent Bookseller

Mary Finch

Tickled pink that the headline of this pompous article contained such a basic bloomer. Or was it meant as a touch of irony? Somehow I doubt it...

Mary Finch

PS George Eliot, while we are about it.

Posh Totty

Mr Henderson wrote: "I wrote the piece, not the headline. Journalists do not write headlines above their copy." What a saddo. I urge The Spectator to annoint him Proof Reader in Chief immediately. Nay all the newspapers and publishers should humour this great personage with numerous typos and howlers post publication that he may have a niche column that will keep him occupied the rest of his sad life.

The point is why should booksellers who are paid a pittance be expected to write at the level of obscenely paid columnists?

I've been told by staff that the badly written Recommends tend to be books that staff have not read but are co-erced into writing by directives from head office. I have read many of these Recommends and some of them are pure poetry, so beautiful is the writing, so unpretentious, so uncontrived, so funny. Keep it up Waterstones booksellers!

Miss Ann Thrope

Sir,
Once, journalists could write without making spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and broadcast journalists could correctly pronounce â˜ambulanceâ™ and â˜nuclearâ™. Pick up any national newspaper or magazine (including the Spectator) and you will find it is littered with mistakes. So, blaming another journalist for the error in the standfirst wonâ™t help your defence. Mr Henderson you should look to your own profession before criticising booksellers. If all you have to worry about is how badly booksellers write their â˜recommended readingâ™ cards then I envy you.

Miss Ann Thrope

Sir,
Once, journalists could write without making spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and broadcast journalists could correctly pronounce ambulance and nuclear. Pick up any national newspaper or magazine (including the Spectator) and you will find it is littered with mistakes. So, blaming another journalist for the error in the standfirst won’t help your defence. Mr Henderson you should look to your own profession before criticising booksellers. If all you have to worry about is how badly booksellers write their recommended reading cards then I envy you.

Coningsby

"The look turned to befuddlement. Presently (an adverb Waugh loved to use) there came a sigh of exasperation, as though it was I, not the card-scribbler, who had committed an indiscretion".

Indiscretion? Really? There is no sense in which lexical imperfection can be thus described. Can it be that Mr Henderson, that well-known and justly-feared scourge of retail duffers everywhere, has confused this word's meaning with that of 'solecism'? How standards have slipped. Once Mr Henderson has finished with Proust, perhaps he should return to Waterstone's and ask if they can recommend a good dictionary.

As for Daniel 'I am bookseller, hear me roar' Pryce, while he has a perfect right to defend himself, the general tone of his reply was aggressive and unpleasant. I happen to think Henderson's article was in poor taste - if only because he probably earned more from writing it than his targets will take home in a week - but it was hardly an assault on decency itself. Nor is it a crime to work for a magazine with whose opinions the formidably well-read Mr Pryce happens to disagree.

We can only hope that if his MA supervisor has occasion to criticise his academic work, he will manage more successfully, I might even say more gracefully, to contain his feelings of outrage and resentment, keenly felt as they no doubt are.

Edna Welthorpe

I have worked for Waterstones. The staff are invariably graduates earning minimum wage, which is thoroughly depressing. I was paid late on a number of occasions. There were seemingly endless layers of management within the shop. I could never quite work out what they were responsible for. I largely spent my days applying stickers to dust jackets.

Additionally, the customer ordering system at Waterstones was ludicrously convoluted and time-consuming when I worked there in 2006, requiring each individual order to be phoned through to the publisher. I actually also worked for much-maligned WHSmith almost 20 years ago and their system was computerised and much faster even then. I was amazed that Waterstones had such a clumsy and antiquated system while Amazon was breathing down their neck.

Jim Burfield

Amazed at the hostile responses to this article. Typing errors are normal, but such illiteracy in bookshop staff is shocking. It is baffling that so many people took the tgrouble to say that it wasn't. And the Oxford English graduate who can't explain the difference between "had not" and did not" should ask for his fees back. If he paid any.

Not Mr H

I back the call for Hendy's appointment as Proof Reader in Chief forthwith. What a waste of enormous talent otherwise. In response to Mr H's diligent footwork, Waterstones is looking for just such a bloke to traipse the shops to correct the Recommends. The awards should appeal to Mr H's sense of fairness: £100 for every missing possessive punctuation mark, £200 for every female author masquerading as male, but hey 1p for every typo-free, grammar perfect, construction perfect, spelling perfect, gender perfect piece.

Doctor Proustus

As long as the bookseller enjoyed the book and is keen to recommend, surely a couple of grammatical errors can be forgiven.
Proper grammar and punctuation are no more important in a bookshop than they are anywhere else in life - these people are only booksellers, not authors or journalists, not paid to write, and their recommend cards are, to an extent, probably just dashed off on the spot.
Lighten up, don't be such a pedant. The examples you cite are probaly about as rare as errors in your fine magazine.

Always hopeful

Well Mr.Henderson, you certainly have a great deal of time on your hands and must have had very little else to write about. Very original to jump on the band wagon when a company is not doing well, it is a truely groundbreaking piece of journalism.
I am sure I can sum you up in a nutshell from this article. You sound like you are from the 19th century, probably reminiscing of the glory days, such as public hangings, class divide and the workhouses.
I think it would be a challenge for you to know any form of contemporary literature. O poppycock, surely no write could possible surpass Dickens?
I am a proud employee of Waterstone's, most likely have terrible grammar and spelling but I work tirelessly to inspire others to read fiction that I truely believe can make an impact on their lives. Do we deserve your cruel jibes and criticism? Do we deserve your mockery and humiliation? No.
Your article was cruel and unnecessary, thank God I will never have to associate myself with someone like you.

Blah blah

Thank God for Mr. Henderson otherwise we may be subjected to having dyslexic people trying to comment on literature!

Colin G

Waterstones bashing is a popular pastime. First The Guardian, now The Spectator. Sigh...Bookselling in this country used to be the preserve of booklovers. Unfortunately Waterstones lost its way after Tim sold out, and reduced booksellers to shop assistants. I'll bet you that they are now being trained to be SALES assistants, not quite hard selling, but that's what the consultants will recommend in a bid to save Waterstones from going the way of Borders. Put a uniform on them and people become robotic. The current profile of the Waterstones bookseller seems to be a foreigner, English not mother tongue, doesn't read books in English, doesn't understand the nuances and subtleties of a language that is not their mother tongue, and certainly lacking in passion for books in English.

StarterFor10

I started off agreeing with Colin G's comment, before it turned into a badly articulated, borderline racist tosh.

"The current profile of the Waterstones bookseller seems to be a foreigner, English not mother tongue, doesn't read books in English, doesn't understand the nuances and subtleties of a language that is not their mother tongue."

Interesting that Mr G chooses to comment on an article criticising bad grammar with something so ungrammatical as to be almost unreadable. More interesting, though, is that he complains about foreigners' disreagard for our mother-tongue by throwing together sentances seemingly at random. Here's an apt word for a change - hyporite.

Anyway, it's interesting to see Michael Henderson has quietened down after feebly attempting to stick up for himself at first. Now he seems to have retreated under the weight of opposition to his petty, moronic article. What a mug - I'd love to see his shopping list, no doubt it's a work of art.

Ink Slave

The fundamental point of this article is a very valid one: written English has fallen into a nationwide state of neglect; so much so that even a once-respectable bookshop seemingly cannot be bothered to preserve the sacred trinity of grammar, punctuation and spelling.

There is absolutely no excuse for the linguistic errors observed by Michael Henderson, nor can the Evelyn Waugh episode be deemed as anything less than extraordinarily embarrassing for Waterstone's as a whole.

A few facts are worth pointing out however:

Waterstone's booksellers are often encouraged to recommend books they have never read.

Great batches of those little recommendation cards that Michael Henderson had such fun scrutinizing often have to be hurriedly rewritten (rarely by their original authors) whenever a new design of recommendation card is introduced (which is more frequently than one might imagine).

Waterstone's booksellers are certainly not hired for their literacy or knowledge of literature - their sole purpose is to maximise sales opportunities.

Lastly, one could be forgiven for wondering how all those errors went unnoticed by senior staff members in the branches concerned.

Perhaps Waterstone's managers are the real duffers of this story!

biblio phil

@Edna: long-suffering Waterstone's customers like myself would say that telephoning publishers to make sure particular books are available had a number of advantages over the current system, 48 hour promises notwithstanding, where staff cannot guarantee that obscure titles will come at all. If they don't have it at their warehouse, my advice is to refuse to pay a deposit.

mrblack

then you definitely won't get your book. :-)

Gilbert Pinfold

Mr Henderson, your detractors here seem to have come onto this site looking for moral inferiors. I'm not sure they are quite our sort. Anyway I've followed your career since 2005 when you wrote an excellent piece, in this magazine, about the dumbing down of our national culture. This country, sir, needs more men like you.

Niall Ward

Gilbert, I don't understand how you managed to write a comment so legibly while licking Mr Henderson's arse so much. Who says that men can't multi-task?

I don't really have much to add to this comment section that hasn't been repeated 20 times before me. But I might as well say it anyway. People make mistakes, Mr Henderson. If you've ever worked in any shop you'll know that it is stressful and you rarely have much time to think, even if you are the most passionate person in the world about literature, it does not mean you are completely infallible.

Jake Dove

You went store to store calling out booksellers and finding mistakes. Asking about them and saying "you should know this, you work in a book store"
Wow