Reply to Twitter feedback

Ben Westwood, Finds Liaison Officer for Durham, Darlington & Teesside, has responded on Twitter to my earlier post about the silver seal from Shropshire. I'm grateful for his willingness to discuss the issue and his points deserve a thoughtful answer but rather than be constrained by the 280-character-per-tweet limit on Twitter I'll answer them here.

"I/we have no problem with debate or discussion, & don't always get things right. i'm very far from 'outraged' as your alternative interpretation, in fact i think it's very interesting." 

Sorry if I misjudged your level of reaction but a series of no less than fourteen tweets which included the boast "Like it or not, we are experts in portable antiquities & artefacts" did give the impression that you were ever so slightly miffed.

It's not an "alternative interpretation"; it's the only sensible interpretation - the interpretation your colleague should have reached.

"My problem, as i made clear was with the tone & offensive language used. describing a colleagues work as vacuous because you disagree with the way he has chosen to engage with current debate is a poor choice of words, especially given the context."

vacuous: showing a lack of thought

It was precisely "the way he has chosen to engage with current debate" that was vacuous. No matter how virtuous the cause, there is little excuse for a professional FLO to weave some wild fantasy around an artefact merely to fit topicality.

It doesn't require a great deal of 'thought' to show a tiny bit of sense and do at least a minimum of basic homework. It's a silver seal. The typical motif on a silver seal is heraldry - so open a book about heraldry. It's not rocket science. What on earth did he think it was? Some sort of weird trophy?

"That was only part of my critique though, & it's telling you've chosen not comment the main issue here. You part-quote me in relation to these two tweets, but seem to miss that i was drawing attention to @PortantIssues [Paul Barford]"

Huh? Please try to stay focused. Paul and I are not joined at the hip. Paul has his blog, I have my blog. I am discussing the post on my blog. Whatever your "main issue" may be, it has no connection to my post on my blog.

"more worryingly, in your defence of @PortantIssues blog [...] you make no reference to the very offensive language used ['negroid'] ..."

See my comment above. That word makes me uneasy and I personally avoid any terminology that may be insensitive but the term is still used by other people. Indeed, before going ballistic on Twitter, you might want to have a word with your own colleagues at the British Museum (e.g. see Curator's Comments: here, here, here).

"However, you seem sadly to have missed the point of my thread. We encourage, welcome, debate & discussion, but hyperbole and polemicism are not helpful, neither is accusing a heritage colleague of 'pseudo-archaeology', which I really think is unwarranted, & below you."

Please point to a genuine example of 'hyperbole' in my post. 'Polemicism'? I'm not sure you quite understand the difference between polemicism and justifiably strong criticism. Perhaps I expect a higher standard from a professional FLO associated with the nation's most prestigious museum than to cobble together a piece of unresearched rubbish and publish it on an academic website that the public would expect to be reliable. My post about it may have revealed a little of my exasperation but it was in fact very restrained (this current post may be somewhat less so!).

My comment about pseudo-archaeology was intended as a plea. Archaeology starts with evidence and then draws tentative conclusions; pseudo-archaeology starts with a conclusion and then selectively misinterprets evidence to suit it. The Reavill article came dangerously close to the latter.

There's no need for "debate". The article is demonstrably crap. It's also very unfair to those of his colleagues who are more knowledgeable. If your friend wants to write about the slave trade, I suggest he does his colleagues (and the public) a favour, engages in some basic homework, and finds an artefact that actually has something to do with it.

PAS: Just nod meekly or you're blocked

Ha! That was an interesting outcome. Paul Barford, an archaeologist, highlighted a recent Twitter announcement by Jo Ahmet, the Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) for Kent:

Kent FLO:
Heard about this fantastic #AngloSaxon #Treasure #Donation to @MaidstoneMuseum ? Before It goes on display, get a sneak peak now and hear the finder talk about its' discovery.
kentonline.co.uk video/maidstone-museum receives
find more info below: finds.org.uk database record 917780
#ResponsibleDetecting #Thanks 

Barford let the insane superfluity of hashtags (#Thanks - seriously?!) pass without comment but he did rib Ahmet about his apostrophe abuse in the phrase "its' discovery". When David Petts, a Durham academic, leapt to the FLO's defence, the FLO tweeted his gratitude:

Kent FLO:
Thank you David. Also, for once despite my specific learning difficulty I believe ” its’ “, in this context is correct. Being as the sentence is possessive....”it is discovery” is not what I had intended to say 

He then followed that with a GIF of Obama shrugging, as if to ask why the fuss since he was perfectly right anyway.

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Okay, it's a small point but having worked as a copy editor myself, I thought I'd just set the record straight. Without making any comment whatsoever on the FLO's content or anything else, I simply posted a single tweet to point out the correct grammar:

I thought no more about it but a couple of days later I idly wondered if he had thanked, or at least acknowledged, me. Here's what I found:

Whoa! A trifle touchy? If the representative of an organisation seeking 'outreach' to the public is so averse even to someone politely trying to settle a minor point about grammar, I can only imagine what the reaction would be if another member of the public had the audacity to question his attribution of a find. Something like this perhaps?

Kent FLO: Heard about this fantastic #AngloSaxon #Treasure?

Fred Bloggs: I believe the artefact actually dates from the Roman period.

Kent FLO: You're BLOCKED! You can't follow or see my Tweets any longer!

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I'm pretty casual with spelling and grammar in private emails to friends or even in posts on my personal page on Facebook. No big deal. However, perhaps the era of Political Correctness has changed everything but when I was at college we were told that public announcements are a different thing (Ahmet tweeted under the official 'Kent FLO' banner).

It was instilled into us that poor spelling and grammar not only diminish your own credibility, they reflect on the image and standards of the whole institution on whose behalf you are writing. Time to take EXTRA care - especially if you know you have a "specific learning difficulty". After all, finding correct spelling and grammar nowadays is only a mouse-click away.

I suppose you can take the other route - not give a flying fig about the image of the PAS or the British Museum - and I doubt an errant apostrophe is a capital offence even in the leafy suburbs of Kent but crudely blocking someone who merely confirms correct usage seems a bizarre overreaction. I've always had a fond respect for the institution behind the PAS and I'm not sure that somewhat paranoid response is the message its official representative should be sending out to members of the public.

Surely, a simple thanks (or even #Thanks) would have done the trick.