Write Right, Wright

Few words in language are more tangled in a Gordian knot of confused meanings, and homonyms. But when we tug on the right end, the connections are not as tangled as they first appear.

The simplest meaning of RIGHT is the cardinal direction, as in handedness. Roughly five out of six people are right handed in the US. Elsewhere in the world, the ratio is more biased, as left-handedness is considered worse than gauche in some cultures. I am among the minority. Left to our own devices, there would probably be more of us.

After handedness, the second meaning of RIGHT is power. You ask, “Are you kidding?” No. Was it Stalin who said, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun?” Robert Schlain, author of The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, argues that fists, tools and weapons are wielded primarily with the right hand. Men (I’m not being sexist) exercise dominance using the power of a strong right hand.

When we talk about the “Divine Right of Kings” or the “Bill of Rights,” it is power that grasps and sustains those rights. Political scientists say the government has a monopoly on violence. “Might makes Right.” Who can argue against that?

RIGHT also means correct. This is actually a tautology. Correct means “right together.” When we do something right, it is right because it conforms to some norm which has been imposed by those in power. When I took geometry in high school, I was regularly marked down for creating proofs that didn’t conform to the classical ones. I wasn’t wrong.  All my steps were correct, and the result was the same, but the path didn’t match.

Right also means true both in the sense of truth and straight, as in a right angle.

This notion of correctness creeps into insidious corners of language. Adroit – French for right – means skilled in English. Gauche – French for left – means awkward. Sinister is “left” in Latin. Well, you see my point. If you’re right, you’re right.

Expecting conformity to norms can go to extremes. Being “right in the head” is a euphemism for sanity. If you don’t do what’s right, you may be locked up as criminal, insane or both.

Perhaps the most obscurely linked meaning for RIGHT is the political one. We identify conservatives with the label Right, and identify liberals, socialists, Communists and free thinkers with the label Left. Mostly, this comes back to the power question. Conservatives want to preserve their established power structure, which they believe is Right (as in correct). It is also the source of their privilege. Everyone else wants to change something.

While the right hand is associated with power, the left is associated with nurture. Give almost anyone a baby, and they will cradle it in their left arm with the baby’s head next to their heart. When the baby is happy and calm, all is right with the world.

How do RIGHT and WRITE become entangled? Let me return to Robert Schlain. He also argues that alphabetic writing is a right handed task, using the parts of the brain skilled at order and structure. How else would we get grammar and spelling? That fact suggests that writing is a power tool. Things written become an instrument of those in power. If it’s written down, it must be right. Why? Because I say so. I have both the fist and the pen, you see.

There are also two ways to see WRITE.

One follows on from RIGHT as correct. Writing is a skill which ought to be done properly. There are rules of grammar and spelling to follow if we want other people to actually understand us. So we strive to write right, and hope that others do so, as well.

The other WRITE is something else altogether. For writers, writing is a creative act, the antithesis of rule following. We strive to conjure something out of nothing – the space between our ears. By rights, it cannot be a copy of anything which has gone before, it must be original.

The conflict between these two notions creates a dilemma for writers. On one hand, we must follow the rules so our readers can understand what we are trying to say. On the other, we constantly break the bounds of convention to tell stories in compelling new ways. Those tasks use different parts of our brains that may not like working together. That’s what editors are for.

This is true about both fiction and nonfiction. We are all in the business of telling stories. We hope to captivate our readers both with the rhythm of our words and the threads of the tale. When we leave our readers dazed and confused, we have failed.

Accomplishing this is a craft. A craftsman is a WRIGHT, like a shipwright. We sometimes refer to people as wordsmiths. Same idea. Writing is a skill learned and honed through practice.

Only then can a writer wright right.