June 4, 1982
This journalism racket is really tough. I had no idea that there was a grand scheme behind smacking print on paper.
You know I’m a lawyer by profession and I’m doing what I always wanted to do. After 19 years of plugging away, I am finally a Staff Judge Advocate here at Fort Riley. I have 20 attorneys working for me. And, that probably makes me the head of the largest law firm in Kansas. But cracking the newspaper business is another game.
After I got to where I felt comfortable writing The Judge Says, I decided to branch out into Junction City’s finest, The Daily Union. Each Tuesday, I would carry my little column down to the editor. He would read it and then tell me it was too long or too short (no such problem with the Post paper). Sometimes he would just ask me what in the world I was talking about..
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Army’s silly name changing game (“recruits” are not called “trainees” so they can learn faster). And when I came to a particularly meaningless change, I would insert in parentheses, “humma, humma.” Later, I vented my concern for conservationism with a “humma, humma, humma.”
The editor was concerned whether all his reading public would understand humma, humma. I advised that some would and those who didn’t probably wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
He thought it was inappropriate to use technical military terms such as humma, humma, in a civilian newspaper. I explained that hassle was originally a military term which was now in common usage. And early use of the term humma, humma would just give the Junction Citonians a leg up on the rest of the nation.
As I was leaving, I told him to do what he felt was best. But, by the time I got home for lunch, I had the solution. I called and told him if he would agree to leave the humma, hummus in, I would write the next weeks column explaining what humma, humma meant. Then the editor became concerned about his reading public being confused for an entire week (tough and subtle racket). I reassured him that anyone who reads my column expects to be a little confused.
Well, the humma, humma didn’t make it that week, but I still felt compelled to explain the term. Hence, this column. Then, to my total disbelief, I discovered that humma, humma was not in the Army dictionary (I found HUMRRO, which is a lot closer than I want to talk about).
So now I’ll just have to give you my definition. But I’m uncertain whether humma, humma doesn’t have more than one meaning (like foot). It may depend upon whether the accent is on the first or second humma.
I believe it means much to do about nothing. The grand overplay of something insignificant. My discussions with the editor would be a good example. But the best example is this week’s column (humma, humma).
