At NPR Music, Ann Powers writes about the death of the concert review. An excerpt:
One major change in music writing since screens claimed our brains is the reduction of live reviews within every kind of publication and platform; this has particularly affected major newspapers, which for many years published dozens of reviews per week. Live reviews have actually been on the ropes for a while, an early victim of the internet’s disruption of news as a local thing. I started hearing that they’d been banished at least 15 years ago as part of media companies’ turn toward digital subscriptions; the question posed was, why would someone in Kansas want to read about a show in Manhattan? One could argue this was the start of a shift in news away from public service and toward consumer satisfaction — the model that makes puzzles and recipes the heart of financially successful publications today.Puzzles and recipes: that sounds familiar.
I think it’s appropriate for anyone who cares about music to write (as well as they are able) about music they’ve heard. Sad: for many performances that Elaine and I have heard, what one or the other or both of us have written seems to be the only publicly available record of what transpired. Here’s an example, chosen at random.
Powers’ commentary came in the form of an e-mail with a subject line I like: “1,000 words or it didn’t happen.”
comments: 4
Transpired: Yes, I know that language evolves and that the generally accepted meaning of "transpired" is now "to occur, happen." "Transpired" used to mean "to emerge from secrecy into knowledge, to leak out, to become known by degrees" (Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2d ed. 1965 -- yes, dated), a useful word for describing specific circumstances: "It may yet transpire that ministers knew more than they are admitting at the moment." (Dictionay.Cambridge.org) My guess is that "transpired" was so often misused that grammarians just gave up and accepted its "evolution." I think that the distinction is work keeping -- descriptivists be darned! . . . As another strike against it, "transpired" sounds stuffy and, unless used in a botanical sense, can be readily replaced with "occur," "happen," or "take place," meat-and-potato words.
Just my 2 cents.
Bryan Garner calls it “a mere pomposity.” Merriam-Webster’s Guide to English Usage says “The use of transpire to mean “happen” has attracted criticism for more than a century and will perhaps continue to attract criticism for many years to come, but it is extremely common, can be found in the works of excellent writers, and is in no sense an error.”
I tend to agree with Garner on most things, but I’ll stick with transpired here. I did (cross my heart) write happened first, but that seemed to me an odd way to speak of a concert. Transpired, to my mind, carries more of a suggestion of things happening over time and is thus more fitting here.
I read your blog not only for the topics you discuss but also for the writing. You put a lot of thought into sentence construction and word usage, and it shows. I appreciate your explanation for using "transpire." Thank you!
Thank you for making me think about the word — it's good to know someone is really reading.
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