John Bremner is retiring. Those words fill me and
many other students with sadness. I am sad to think
of all those aspiring copy editors who will never
experience the fear and awe and love of being in
John Bremner's classroom. Who will teach them all
the things that he can? John Bremner does not simply
teach editing. He teaches everything he knows, and
he expects his students to learn it all.
 |
| Bremner often quizzed his students on the
history of words. |
Del Brinkman, dean of the school of journalism,
describes Professor Bremner as the best in the world. "That
sounds like exaggeration, but I don't think there
is anyone who can teach all the things that are important
in editing any better than John Bremner."
The Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta
Chi, agrees with Dean Brinkman. The society chose
to honor Professor Bremner with its Distinguished
Teaching in Journalism Award this year. The award
recognizes outstanding teaching ability, contributions
to journalism education and contributions toward
maintaining the highest standards of the profession.
. . .
Professor Bremner has been honored at the University
of Kansas also. Two years after he came here in 1969,
he received the Amoco Distinguished Teacher Award
and then the HOPE (Honor for Outstanding Progressive
Educator) Award from KU seniors. In 1977, the School
of Journalism recognized his efforts in teaching
by naming him the Oscar S. Stauffer Distinguished
Professor of Journalism. Dean Brinkman says, "John
Bremner deserves all the awards that he wins and
some that he doesn't."
Professor Bremner is an intimidating, 6-foot-5,
260-pound man with white hair and white beard and
a wealth of knowledge that matches his formidable
figure. He has spent many of his 64 years acquiring
this knowledge. He grew up in Australia and majored
in philosophy and classical languages in college.
He earned a bachelor's degree in theology from Propaganda
Fide University in Rome and continued his theological
studies at All Hallows College in Dublin. He was
ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1943 and was
a priest for 25 years.
Professor Bremner worked in Australia as a magazine
editor, newspaper columnist and radio writer and
announcer before coming to the United States in 1950.
He earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia
University in New York, where he won a Pulitzer Travelling
Scholarship, enabling him to work on newspapers in
Florida and California. He then taught at the University
of San Diego from 1957 - '61. He developed the journalism
sequence there before moving to the University of
Iowa, where he earned a doctorate in mass communications
in 1965. He taught there until 1969.
Professor Bremner says, "Most of the time I
know what I'm going to talk about. Something will
occur to me and I'll think, 'I've never mentioned
this before; maybe they don't know about it. Out
it'll come . . . Ultimately, you remember that you're
trying to teach them the language."
If his students are un-cooperative while he teaches,
Professor Bremner may throw open the window of the
classroom, wave his white handkerchief at passersby
and shout, "Help, I'm surrounded by idiots." Such
events and other theatrics serve to impress upon
students the lessons he gives. His manner is loud,
sometimes ribald, always effective.
Professor Bremner's . . . describes himself as even-tempered,
meaning always surly, and also uses adjectives such
as domineering and intolerant in reference to himself.
His wife disagrees. Mary Bremner says that at heart
he isn't mean; he's very soft. But he is a perfectionist.
Mrs. Bremner says, "Whatever he's going to do,
he goes into it heart and soul, and it's going to
be the very best he can possibly do. There's no simple
way to do it."
Professor Bremner says, "I don't purposely
act. I've just learned over the years that you have
to hold an audience. And you don't hold students
and professionals by simply filling them with facts
and snippets of knowledge. You have also got to entertain
them. You have to make them see why the world of
the mind is the world that's important. You have
to keep them interested, keep them alert."
Dean Brinkman says, "He knows how to motivate,
he knows how to entertain, he knows how to inspire.
Not everybody likes his method, but I don't think
there is anybody who can say that he is not excellent
as a college professor."
. . . Many professional copy editors also had the
chance to learn from the best when the Gannett Foundation
asked Professor Bremner to conduct a series of editing
seminars around the country. The foundation hired
him for the 1980-81 academic year. . . . Gannett
called him back during the 1983-84 year. . . . In
all, he lectured in 44 states.
Professor Bremner says a copy editor must know something
about everything, everything about something and
where to find everything else. He calls copy editors
the "guardians of a newspaper's character and
reputation."
He teaches healthy suspicion and is fond of saying, "If
your mother tells you she loves you, check it out." He
also touts the "thrill of monotony," because
being a copy editor involves correcting the same
errors over and over.
Professor Bremner repeatedly emphasizes the importance
of etymology. His fervor for the history of what
he calls, "our beautiful, bastard language" is
illustrated in his book Words on Words: A Dictionary
for Writers and Others Who Care About Words.
. . . Other former students have many memories of
Professor Bremner. Mrs. Bremner says . . ., "To
me, the greatest satisfaction that we both get is
hearing from former students who really remember
him years and years later and write to him to thank
him for yelling at them. Some of the kids in journalism
today say there isn't a day goes by that they don't
use something that he taught them."
Professor Bremner agrees. He says the most rewarding
things about teaching are partly that so many of
his students have gone on to highly responsible positions,
and partly their gratitude. He says, "Did you
ever hear the parable about Christ curing the ten
lepers? And only one of them came back to thank him?
You might want to look it up. It's the gratitude
that keeps you going. That's the ego in it."
One former student in particular, Greg Hack, news
editor for the Kansas City Times, said Professor
Bremner ". . . realizes there's nothing really
quite so important and nothing really quite so beautiful,
once it starts working, as a good mind. . ."
But soon Professor Bremner will retire. I know he
will be sorely missed. Dean Brinkman says, "We
can't replace him. We're not going to try to replace
John Bremner. We're just going to fill a position
with the best person we can find." . .
©Jayhawk Journalist
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A tribute to
Bremner given at the 1996 ASNE Copy Editing Conference
by former Bremner student Mary Carter
Following is a tribute to John Bremner, presented
by Mary Carter, J'86, at the October 1996 ASNE Copy
Editor's Conference held at the University of Kansas.
Carter was a teaching assistant to Professor Bremner
and is an assistant national desk editor at The
Dallas Morning News.
Everyone who ever met John Bremner tried hard to
characterize him. The Associated Press called him
a delightful terror in the classroom. I generally
say he was a cross between Orson Welles and Zeus.
He was big ... and intense. You've heard about his
theatrics all evening. He would stalk around the
classroom, pouncing on his students, spitting questions
and throwing up his hands in dismay when we didn't
know the answers. Sometimes he'd run to the window,
throw it open and wave his handkerchief at the passersby
and yell, "Help me, help me. I'm surrounded
by morons."
I met him when I was 16 years old. Fresh off the
farm in Oklahoma, had never been anywhere and didn't
know anything. I thought I was interested in journalism
but wasn't sure I wanted to be a reporter. My high
school English teacher suggested I come to journalism
camp here at KU, where I met several people who continue
to have an impact on my life. ... And that first
day in class, I mean after I got to where I could
hear something other than my heart pounding in my
ears, I heard this brilliant man talking passionately
about things I loved, too ... and thought I was WEIRD
for caring about ... words and language, etymology
... and he was saying that could be a basis for a
career. That you could make a living out of knowing
that stuff. It was like a door opening. I immediately
knew I had found my way. "This is for me." And
I wonder how many other hundreds of students had
the same revelation as they sat in his class. And
what a tremendous thing to feel that you belong.
He was hard and dogmatic and demanding. Because
he knew that he was preparing us for some of the
hardest, most thankless jobs in journalism. Copy
editors labor in the shadows ... anonymous hands,
working obscure hours, struggling for recognition
and respect from colleagues who don't understand
what we do or just resent it. Professor Bremner taught
that copy editing is a noble undertaking, and that
we have to find satisfaction in making things right,
over and over and over again. He called it "the
thrill of monotony," and he likened it to a
child, being thrown into the air, who when she lands,
squeals "Do it again ... do it again." He
taught us to do it not for recognition or praise,
but because we are the caretakers of the word.
I think he would be very gratified by this gathering,
to see the American Society of Newspaper Editors
recognizing copy editors and listening to us, and
all of you who have come here to try to make our
voice heard and to seek ways to nurture the craft
and those who practice it. I think he would say thank
you. And so do I.
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The
following are excerpts from the September 1987
issue of Editorially Speaking, a Gannett
publication. It is reprinted with Gannett's permission.
"A tribute
to John B. Bremner: His words, his lessons, his
inspiration"
By Phil Currie:
... we devote this Editorially Speaking issue
to this master craftsman (John Bremner).
I guess my favorite John Bremner saying is: "If
your mother says she loves you, check it out."
That seems to deliver the right message to all journalists
and would-be journalists:
Check your facts: get them right.
...John Bremner retired from the University of Kansas
in December 1985 after more than three decades of
teaching. On July 30, 1987 in Ponce Inlet, Fla.,
he died at age 66.
But the teaching that John Bremner did goes on today,
even after his death.
Many of his students now are journalists around
the country ...
...When you finish reading the collected material,
you will understand -- if you do not know already
-- what a special person John Bremner was.
Journalists, educators and students respected and
admired his skills and often were awed by his abilities.
And among his followers were many who also loved
the man dearly.
We know that for sure. We checked it out.
"Bremner
the professor: His lessons live on, although
he scared his students to death"
By Charles T. Wanninger:
... He scared me to death.
But he taught me about words.
About editing. About newspapers. The nuts-and-bolts
stuff I needed as I pursued a career. And maybe he
taught me some things about fairness. And love. And
compassion. About walking the extra mile.
... And for hundreds of us -- scattered now, on
newspaper staffs across the land -- John's love for
the language was infectious.
That, by the way, is not always a blessing. I have
squirmed in a restaurant chair as John "edited" a
menu. And then pointed out the errors to a poor waitress
who obviously was not to blame.
And, for the last 20 years, I have jotted a message
to John on a Christmas card. Then I would read what
I had written. And read it again. And again. Just
to make sure there were no errors of spelling or
grammar....
"Bremner
the writer: His dictionary was for all who care
about words"
John Bremner's wit and wisdom are preserved in
his 1980 book, "Words on Words: A Dictionary
for Writers and Others Who Care About Words." The
... excerpts that follow are but a small sample
of Bremner's observations on spelling, grammar,
usage, language and life.
CLICHE Busy as a beaver all day, he was as
tired as a dog when he hit the hay last night. He
thought he would fall into the arms of Morpheus and
sleep like a log, but his pad was cold as ice and
he tossed and turned and didn't sleep a wink. Well,
to cut a long story short, in the wee small hours
he hit the deck like a bolt from the blue to get
himself a hair of the dog to warm the cockles of
his heart, but, as luck would have it, this was more
easily said than done because he was fresh out of
what the doctor ordered. Make no bones about it,
he was really over a barrel. Little did he think
he would be without the necessary. He was in a pretty
kettle of fish, it goes without saying. Rather than
open a new can of worms, he threw in the sponge without
further ado and hit the sack to await Old Sol and
another day, another dollar. It was too funny for
words, needless to say.
You get sick of reading and hearing cliches. Sick
and tired.
A cliche, from French clicher, to stereotype,
to cast from a mold, is an expression that is trite
(from Latin Terere, to rub, hence worn-out
by use), hackneyed (from hackney, a horse
for hire, worn-out by service).
Speech is often riddled with cliches because people
speak faster than they think and because they speak
in phrases rather than in words. They have picked
up the phrases over the years and don't stop to think
what the words mean. At their creation, the phrases
were original and bright. Down the years, they have
become worn-out by use. What we need are new cliches.
There is less excuse for cliches in writing than
in speech. A writer has more time to seek the right
word, to avoid triteness. If, however, he decides
that a cliche is the best way to convey his meaning
he should go ahead and use it. He should not apologize
for using it by adding a patronizing phrase such
as "if you'll pardon the expression," "to
coin a phrase," or "as the old saying goes."
FACILITY As a building, informally, a facility is
an outhouse. As a building, formally, a facility is
a flatulent word tacked onto anything from a concert
hall to a prison. Facilities is a handy generic
word for a collection of buildings and assembly rooms
with different purposes, as in "The university
will open all its facilities during homecoming." But
call a gymnasium a gymnasium, not a recreational
facility, and a school a school, not an educational
facility.
UNKNOWN Crime stories sometimes report that
the victim was unknown. Surely he hadn't gone through
life unknown by anyone. Somebody must have known
the poor guy. Make it unidentified.
"Bremner
the Teacher: His students guard the language
he taught them to love"
By Dick Thien
If you are lucky, you know one.
They are so much alike. Yet, they are so different,
at least from the others who didn't have their Teacher.
They sit at a terminal, sometimes looking as though
they are frowning. But they aren't. They are intense.
Other times, they are, indeed, frowning. They are
irritated -- angry even -- at what they see: a writer
who, as their Teacher put it, fails "to stay
the surge of literary barbarism."
As they read, they often move their lips.
And they read a lot. They have discovered the thrill
of monotony.
... they know the etymology of what their Teacher
called "our beautiful bastard language, bred
from so many other languages, ancient and modern."
They are the guardians of a newspaper's character
and reputation, he told them. Their Teacher taught
them to "know something about everything and
where to find out everything and where to find out
everything about anything."
They have confidence; their Teacher instilled it.
They have humility; their Teacher caused it.
They wear a crown that is envied by all who do not
have one, placed on their heads by the master Wordsmith.
The crown carries a responsibility.
They must guard our language. Doing that consistently
is honest and pure and noble and true because Dr.
John B. Bremner told them so.
They reflect his intellectual elegance. They are
Bremnerites.
"Bremner
the evangelist: His 52 seminars brought the gospel
of language to 3,800"
By Gerald Sass
When Bremner was involved, there were never any
losers. He defined excellence by constant example
in and out of the classroom. He breathed into (Bremner
would have said that's what "inspire" means)
his students a desire to know, to be accurate, to
be right.
These were Bremner's final messages to us: that
we find excellence not in the language but in ourselves;
and that the only ultimate tragedy is not sickness
and death but failing to use our talents to the fullest
every day.
In short, the giant lived and breathed excellence,
and he expected nothing less from others.
"Bremner
the giant: His name is on list of nation's legendary
lexicographers"
By James J. Kilpatrick
"To love anything," John wrote, "you
must first know it. To love words, you must first
know what they are. Yes, words are symbols of ideas.
But many words have lives of their own. They have
there own historical and etymological associations,
their own romantic and environmental dalliances,
their own sonic and visual delights."
I would bid him nunc dimittis and requiescat
in pace, were it not for a premonition that
a growl would come from the grave. "Stick
to English," he would say, "so as not
to reveal your ignorance of Latin."
"Meanwhile
comma John comma peace period"
John's disciples:
Jerry
Sass
The half-joking stereotype portrayed the copy desk
as a haven for burned-out reporters and drunks.
Bremner made it a bastion of language purity....
Many can be identified by the cool confidence with
which they try to teach grammar, usage and sequence
of tense to their superiors.
Chris
Cobler
In the midst of particularly grueling sessions,
he would serenade us. That semester he usually sang "Send
in the Clowns."
We got the point.
Deborah
Gump
Then he would say ... "Meanwhile comma peace period,"
pronouncing the punctuation in a final reminder to think
about what you say and write.
John Bremner breathed such life into words that it seemed
the breath never could leave him. If he had last words,
I'm sure he loved them, whatever they were, in spite of
their finality.
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