. 'Turpen-time' on campus
Victims become 'forgotten people' By Matthew Driskill Associate Editor "Oklahoma politics is like an arena (rodeo). If you haven't been thrown, you ain't been riding," said State Attorney General Mike Turpen in a speech Wednesday in the Liberal Arts building auditorium. The speech was sponsored by the Pre-law club. Turpen came to CSU to talk with students about the role of the attorney general's office in Oklahoma. Turpen is not a stranger to the CSU campus. He attended Boy's State this year and addressed the group and gave a speech at this year's commencent exercises. "I am famous for the fact that I gave the shortest commencement speech in Central State history. I told the students that night I was going to be the shortest speaker they ever heard and they gave me a standing ovation right at that point," Turpen told the audience. Turpen gave the audience a brief background on himself and then launched into the different aspects of his job. "Getting elected in Oklahoma takes hard work," Turpen said. "It takes money of course because you have to get on television and on the radio. But if you don't work hard then you're never going to make it. "I remember when I was running for office and my public relations man called me up at four in the morning and said, hey I've got it. How about 'Time for Turpen'? Then he said, no, no. How about `Turpentime'? I asked him what he had been drinking, but he thought it was good. Then he called me back about two weeks later and told me that was the best he could do, so we went with it. "I'm kind of embarrassed about the slogan, but hey, I won, so I'm not that embarrassed about it.
Turpen said that every two to four years there is a peaceful revolution at America's polls. "The power of the ballot box is pretty impressive, but the day comes when you have to get in there and do the job that you were hired by the people to do," Turpen said. "I think the office is one of service," Turpen said. "Some people see it as a power trip, but I see it as one of service. If I don't serve the people then I'm out of a job in four years." "I've tried to assemble the best staff possible I can. I tell them that if that phone rings at five on Friday when they are getting ready to go home that that may be the only time that person ever calls their state attorney and I want somone on the other end that wants to help that person." Turpen went on to describe the different aspects of his job as attorney general. "I try and fight for the 'givers,' the victims of the crimes that are committed," Turpen said. He said that he was trying to enforce the death penalty as strenuously as possible. Turpen said he felt it was a personal challenge as the attorney general to be a voice for law-abiding people. Turpen called victims of crime the "forgotten people." He also said when the criminals get away with crimes it is sometimes a case of organized crime over disorganized law enforcement. Turpen cited a case that he handled when he was district attorney of Muskogee as an example of the forgotten victim and a criminal that is getting off easy. "I was involved in one case where a man by the name of John Roxey Seward was shot and now Charles Colman, the
guy we convicted of the murder, is on death row, suing me for a $1 million because we won't give him the money we proved he took in the robbery that led to Seward's murder. "If we're not careful then victims like John Roxy Seward will become forgotten people and people like Charles Colman sit there and run death row," Turpen said. Turpen also told the group how the attorney general's office was fighting for the consumer. "We've set up a public protection division to fight for the consumer against high utility rates. I've got a lawyer sitting over at the Corporation Commission everyday, being a voice for the Oklahoma ratepayer. "We challenged OG&E in May when they wanted an interim rate increase. They said it was an emergency but we told the commission we didn't think there was an emergency. In the summer of 1983 there was not a rate increase because we opposed it." Turpen stressed that he thought there were good people working for the utilities but wanted the companies to get "down to their fighting weight. "I get people in my office all the time asking me what the deal is. I just tell them I want to trim some of the fat from their works. Let's give the consumer the best possible service for the lowest possible price," Turpen said. "We've also formed a citizens hot line where we have people answering questions over the phone about problems that people may have. We're trying to be a mediator between business and the consumer and trying to bring government back to the people back to the state," Turpen said.
THE October 6, 1983 Central State University, Edmond, Oklahoma Vol. 82, No. 12
State of the language:
English has 'never been healthier'
Attorney General Mike Turpen addresses students Wednesday in the Liberal Arts building auditorium.
In this issue. . . Contest participant takes prize...page 3 Ultralights: ultimate `high'...page 4 RHA aids residents...page 5 Dormitories undergo renovation...page 6 Rolle out for season...page 7 Preview of the foe: East Central...page 8
By Traci Baucom "G-U-R-A-L-N-I-K," replied David Guralnik, lexicographer, when asked to spell his name. "It's a very phonemic name, spelled exactly as it sounds. There isn't an extraneous letter in it," he explained proudly. Guralnik is one of the world's leading lexicographers. What is a lexicographer, you ask? "A lexicographer is a person who assumes the responsibility of notifying the rest of the community about the state of the language—what words are generally accepted to mean, how they are generally accepted to be pronouned, what the general acceptations of the spellings are. "We are reporters. We report the state of the language." Guralnik's abridged definition of his title appears in Simon and Schuster's "Webster's New World Dictionary": "lex-i-cog-ra-pher (n.) a person who writes or compiles a dictionary." Guralnik has been a lexicogtapher since 1941. He is editor in chief of Simon and Schuster's Webster dictionary division and author of "Making A New Dictionary". He has been recognized by the Ohio Library Association for his contribution to American lexicography by the Dictionary Society of North America and the American Names Society. As one might have guessed, Guralnik has a better than average grasp of the English language. He visited CSU Tuesday.to present a $1,000 scholarship check to Claude Aughtry, a Simon and Schuster contest winner (related story page 3). He had this to say about the English language and languages in general: "The English language is alive and flourishing. It has never been healthier in its life, contrary to all the rumors about its imminent demise. It will not die, I assure you. At least not until the culture that supports it dies. "There is a general principal that I'm certain applies to English as it does to most other
languages—languages tend to get better as they get older. Better in the sense that there is a greater richness from which to borrow. "The English language is at least three times the size of the language that Shakespeare had available to him and at least ten times the size that Chaucer had available to him. It's much richer. "We tend to have an idealized view of Elizabethan English. It was obviously a very effective form of the language for its time. Of course we only see record of those supreme writers who used it. We don't have the records of those who didn't use it as effectively. "Today we see everybody's uses. When we strike an average we have a tendency sometimes to think there is a decline in literacy, but I assure you, there isn't. When asked to comment on English professors' claims that newspapers are killing the English language, Guralnik replied, "Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Absolute nonsense. They may not be improving it particularily, but they (newpapers) can't kill it. It's indestructible. But surprisingly enough, what appears in the daily press is not written without some degree of skill. "There is a general trend toward normalization of inflections and inflected forms. When I was a small boy the past tense of 'dive' was 'dove'. Nobody would say 'dove' today, it has become 'dived'. "I like to think of dictionaries as 'time-stop photography'. Language is changing all the time. We are not conscious of it just as we are not conscious of the growth of a flower. But if you take this time lapsed photography at regular intervals you can see the changes. Every one of those 'pictures' show the changes, the patterns that occur within a language. "We are living through a period of enormous and distant growth. There are periods of exploration that occur in which new expressions, terms and words must be developed. We are in a period of exploration See `G-U-R-A-L-N-I-W, page 6