Promulgate!

I want to make it safe for me to use this word, the way the late Howard Zinn used it:

We should have a history that enhances human values, humane values, values of brotherhood, sisterhood, peace, justice and equality. Those are the values that historians should actively promulgate in writing history.

Yeah, like that. I want to be able to say "here's how we're going to promulgate the new culture" without fear of being ridiculed for making up words. But that will only happen if people hear the word in context enough times. So here's a start, from a quick search of what's going on in the world:

"Oli said the Maoists would not help promulgate the constitution by the deadline."

"That will let HP promulgate its Converged Infrastructure strategy..."

"They have all contributed to promulgate and popularize the now-how and how-to in the domain of securing a sustainable development for all mankind."

"However, Gelb has been so successful in getting out his message that even in criticizing him, critics unwittingly promulgate it."

"EPA has refused to promulgate an antidegradation implementation plan."

"I hope the media promulgate this study's message far and wide..."

"Nepal is yet to promulgate a new Constitution for the country..."

"We are concerned that sites like this one that promulgate inaccurate perceptions of campus safety may result in a breakdown of the important process of sharing publicly accurate information."

It's a good word. We need to make a place for it.

Long sentence update

If you've been following the long-sentence thread, here and here, I'm happy to say that I have now written a long sentence that got approved, and it goes like this:

So this matters, what we're doing today, this gathering of people, this new office space, these new jobs, those patients out there who need the particular medicine we're bringing them today and the additional medicines we will bring them in the near future and in years to come, this North and South American region we are building, from Canada now, down through the United States, on across Mexico, and into Brazil--all of this matters.

These words appear in a speech, so they don't show up in the script as one sentence. But everything here is an expansion of the subject "this" and the predicate "matters." They are 80 words that belong together, entering the listener's ear on the simple assertion that "this matters," and then going on to paint a richer picture of what "this" actually is: it's this gathering, this space, these jobs, those patients, this region; and when all is said and done, the listener should have a pretty good sense of how it matters.

On narrative, and narrative consistency

I was sitting across the table from a hip hop artist who was explaining his plan for helping other independent artists cross the licensing and distribution chasm to make sure they get paid for what they do. He'd figured it all out for himself, and now he wanted to help others. We were at the end of this long list of things when he finally got to something I understood:

"It's all about the story," he said. "50 Cent sold 10 million copies of Get Rich or Die Tryin' because he got shot nine times."

There you go. The power of narrative. 50 Cent sold 10 million copies of Get Rich or Die Tryin' because he got shot nine times.

By the way, how'd this guy 50 Cent get that name? Wikipedia says he took it from the trade name of a 1980s Brooklyn bank robber. They quote the new 50 Cent as saying he appropriated the old 50 Cent's name "because it says everything I want to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."

There you go again: narrative consistency.

Another long sentence

From Ian McEwan, in the very first paragraph of Solar:

Patrice was seeing a builder, their builder, the one who had repointed their house, fitted their kitchen, retiled their bathroom, the very same heavyset fellow who in a tea break had once shown Michael a photo of his mock-Tudor house, renovated and tudorized by his own hand, with a boat on a trailer under a Victorian-style lamppost on the concreted front driveway, and space on which to erect a decommissioned red phone box.

73 words. Nice.