They tell you, and they are right, that it is not wholesome to write a bad review. That it is impossible to do so without sounding snotty. That you had better not even attempt it unless you can match the mastery of a Dorothy Parker (“The House Beautiful is the play lousy”). That you would spend your time, and the reader’s, more profitably by praising good work.
And yet, sometimes you are put in front of a target so gorgeous that every scruple falls before the temptation.
An early tipoff of misplaced enthusiasm in Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style (Touchstone/Simon and Schuster, 209 pages. $22.99) is Mark Garvey’s boast of the number of copies of The Elements of Style he owns, as if he harbored in the basement a cache of Gutenberg Bibles.
Later, he compares the Little Book (so called by its enthusiasts) in its simplicity, directness, and authority to the Decalogue and the Rule of St. Benedict. Still later, he compares gazing at the manuscript of the first edition to viewing Magna Carta in the British Museum.
In apparent disregard of Rule 9 (“Do not affect a breezy manner”) he writes that Harold Ross’s prospectus for The New Yorker “reads like a sort of literary bat signal that must surely have twiddled the antennae of E.B. White as he worked over his desk in the Frank Seaman agency.” And I think that Mr. White, if present, would sigh over Mr. Garvey’s preference for gauntlet over gantlet on three occasions.
In short, Mr. Garvey’s little book on the Little Book illustrates the terrible, terrible fate of the writer that Auden identified in his elegy on Yeats: “he became his admirers.”
It will profit me nothing to criticize the Little Book myself. Professor Geoffrey K. Pullum, like Jupiter Optimus Maximus, has been hurling thunderbolts at it from the summit of Olympus for years, to no discernible effect. *
But if you can nerve yourself against the gush, there is some interesting matter between these covers. The account of the writing of the book and its early reception is a plainly told piece of literary history, as are the respective accounts of the lives of William Strunk and E.B. White — who knew that Professor Strunk had a brief career as a Hollywood consultant?
There is also considerable advice on writing from the people Mr. Garvey consulted.
Some of them edge themselves discreetly away from worshipfulness: Will Blythe says: “Yes, but there’s still something really Waspy about that notion of style. ... And with many writers, the ideal of simplicity can sometimes be limiting.”
Keith Hjortshoj at Cornell says, “It’s a wonderful myth that applies not just to writing, but to all kinds of endeavors: that there’s a simple way to do this, and that amazingly talented, brilliant practitioners demonstrate that you can reduce it to a little compendium of rules or procedures. ... If I’m skeptical about the book, it’s because of the way it’s used—by teachers who think they can just assign this book to students and it will refine their prose. ...”
Adam Gopnik says, “One of my reasons for ambivalence is that there are many kinds of wonderful writing that don’t conform to the rules in The Elements of Style. Dr. Johnson’s writing is full of ten-cent words and very complicated Latinate constructions, and Dr. Johnson is a better writer than Strunk ever was—maybe even a better writer than White. Herman Melville doesn’t write that way. James Joyce doesn’t write that way. Wallace Stevens doesn’t write that way.”
One of the blurbs for Mr. Garvey’s book admires the author’s “infectious enthusiasm.” Gowns, gloves, and masks, everyone.
*Mr. Garvey presents Professor Pullum briefly as a bellicose academic without actually describing his arguments about the defects of the Little Book and its misguided adherents. He goes on to stack this particular deck by juxtaposing Professor Pullum with a couple of genuine academic zanies. For a serious look at the criticisms, you will need to consult the various Language Log entries on the subject.
DISCLAIMER FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION:
I received a review copy of Stylized from the publisher. In addition, if a reader of this blog should order a copy from Amazon.com by clicking on the link below, I will eventually receive a minuscule portion of the proceeds.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Drunk and Tight: A Sot's Guide to the Elements of Style
“Before I start to write,” said E.B.White, “I always treat myself to a nice dry Martini. Just one, to give me the courage to get started. After that, I'm on my own.”
As I read a book about White and The Elements of Style — of which much more anon — my mind turns to the principles of drink as they relate to the principles of writing and editing.
Rule 1: If you write when tight, you must edit when sober.
Rule 2: It is always five o’clock in the afternoon somewhere.
Rule 3: Do not approach the keyboard after the third bourbon.
Rule 4: Throw away that notebook at the bedside. Nothing written there will make any sense in the morning.
Rule 5: Wine with spouse, beer with fellow writers, sherry with clergy, gin with editors, whisky with publishers. Bourbon solus.
Rule 6: The publisher always pays for the drinks.
Rule 7: Omit needless ice.
As I read a book about White and The Elements of Style — of which much more anon — my mind turns to the principles of drink as they relate to the principles of writing and editing.
Rule 1: If you write when tight, you must edit when sober.
Rule 2: It is always five o’clock in the afternoon somewhere.
Rule 3: Do not approach the keyboard after the third bourbon.
Rule 4: Throw away that notebook at the bedside. Nothing written there will make any sense in the morning.
Rule 5: Wine with spouse, beer with fellow writers, sherry with clergy, gin with editors, whisky with publishers. Bourbon solus.
Rule 6: The publisher always pays for the drinks.
Rule 7: Omit needless ice.
I'd like to thank the Academy ...
It was announced yesterday in The Baltimore Sun’s first Mobbies awards that You Don’t Say won first place in the Misfits (miscellaneous) category.
There was no opportunity (or desire) for me to speak last night as I accepted the handsome certificate and tchotchkes, so I will express gratitude here.
Profound thanks to Pam Robinson of Words at Work, who, upon hearing of my departure from The Sun in April, rushed to set up this site so that You Don’t Say could continue with the briefest of interruptions.
But my profoundest thanks must go to the readers of this blog, whose comments and corrections and disagreements and praise have sustained me through a frustrating period of unemployment. Writing for you has brightened my days, and I am touched that so many of you find something of interest or amusement here.
The Prince of Misfits salutes you.
There was no opportunity (or desire) for me to speak last night as I accepted the handsome certificate and tchotchkes, so I will express gratitude here.
Profound thanks to Pam Robinson of Words at Work, who, upon hearing of my departure from The Sun in April, rushed to set up this site so that You Don’t Say could continue with the briefest of interruptions.
But my profoundest thanks must go to the readers of this blog, whose comments and corrections and disagreements and praise have sustained me through a frustrating period of unemployment. Writing for you has brightened my days, and I am touched that so many of you find something of interest or amusement here.
The Prince of Misfits salutes you.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Edit twice, publish once
Back when I used to be somebody, spreading fear and terror while winning glory and wealth as the head of a newspaper copy desk, I harangued people about the importance of editing. They didn’t listen then, either.
But if you need persuasion, consider this example.
Today the Web site Inside Higher Ed reports the embarrassing developments with the sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, which is used by professionals and students as the guidebook for their papers. The corrections that have come out since the first printing include “four pages of ‘nonsignificant typographical errors’ and five pages correcting errors in content and problems with sample papers” (emphasis added).
The APA is bringing out a corrected second printing of the manual but is making buyers of the defective first printing pay for the corrected version, which looks churlish.
Addressing the error-riddled edition, Mary Lynn Skutley, editorial director for APA books, explained that the manual was “very complicated to put together.” Indeed. So are newspapers, and magazines, and Web sites, and other books. Complicated, and liable to contain errors.
That is why you might want to engage a competent copy editor for your project before publication, and allow him or her the time and resources to get the job done right the first time.
But if you need persuasion, consider this example.
Today the Web site Inside Higher Ed reports the embarrassing developments with the sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, which is used by professionals and students as the guidebook for their papers. The corrections that have come out since the first printing include “four pages of ‘nonsignificant typographical errors’ and five pages correcting errors in content and problems with sample papers” (emphasis added).
The APA is bringing out a corrected second printing of the manual but is making buyers of the defective first printing pay for the corrected version, which looks churlish.
Addressing the error-riddled edition, Mary Lynn Skutley, editorial director for APA books, explained that the manual was “very complicated to put together.” Indeed. So are newspapers, and magazines, and Web sites, and other books. Complicated, and liable to contain errors.
That is why you might want to engage a competent copy editor for your project before publication, and allow him or her the time and resources to get the job done right the first time.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
A sweet moment
On Friday evening, I was driving my son home for the weekend from his cooking job. As we listened to the radio, a sports commentary came on the air. After a minute or two of this palaver, J.P. muttered:
“I hate sports.”
A warm glow suffusing my body, I realized that my duty as a parent had been discharged.
“I hate sports.”
A warm glow suffusing my body, I realized that my duty as a parent had been discharged.
More ready, fire, aim
Paul Carr posts at TechCrunch about the hazards of rushing to publication with unverified information. A key passage:
I offered some lessons that professional blogs might want to carry over from old media. Stop allowing bloggers to post their own stories without passing them first through an editor. Don’t publish a story accusing a company of malpractice without first giving them a chance to deny it. That kind of thing.
The entire post, “WITN?: Yahoo didn’t sentence 200,000 Iranians to death, and other misadventures in online journalism,” is worth your time and attention.
Thank you, @GregMitch and @yelvington, for the alerting tweet.
I offered some lessons that professional blogs might want to carry over from old media. Stop allowing bloggers to post their own stories without passing them first through an editor. Don’t publish a story accusing a company of malpractice without first giving them a chance to deny it. That kind of thing.
The entire post, “WITN?: Yahoo didn’t sentence 200,000 Iranians to death, and other misadventures in online journalism,” is worth your time and attention.
Thank you, @GregMitch and @yelvington, for the alerting tweet.
Any grownups out there?
One of the cannier readers of the post “Papers, please” noticed that I took no position on measures to deal with illegal immigration. That is because — this is not a political blog, remember? — my point was that the complexity of the issue deserves serious journalistic attention. Now that illegal immigrants, like the “guest workers” who do the dirty jobs for Western Europe, are established in the economy, disentangling them will be neither simple nor easy.
Similarly, the post quoting the Socialist Party platform of 1912 was not a proposal to turn America socialist, but rather a reminder that (a) the United States has been operating as a mixed economy for more than seventy years* and (b) brandishing labels is not discourse. Shouting “Socialist!” (like the shouts of “Fascist!” by my fellow undergraduates forty years ago) is the adult version of playground name-calling.
Naturally, I have been labeled a sappy liberal by readers who weren’t paying attention.
As it happens, I am a Democrat — it’s a matter of public record. But Alexander Ackley, who was in my expository writing class at Syracuse and who is now an editor of The Reactionary, has kept in touch for thirty years, even though we deplore each other’s politics. When I worked for Lowell and Jean Denton at The Flemingsburg Gazette, Jean was a fervent — some would have said rabid — supporter of Richard Nixon, and I wore an “Impeach with honor” button. We not only respected each other; we held each other in affection.
It should be a mark of a civil society that people can disagree without demeaning one another. We should be able to disagree with argument, with humor, with passion, and we should be able to do so without insult. We should be able to give complex and difficult issues the serious attention they deserve.
I started this blog to write about language in a particular way: to explore how a reasonable and informed prescriptivism could show people how to write clearly, precisely, and even elegantly for publication without resorting to peeves and prejudices. As it expanded, I included subjects to which I thought my fellow journalists could bring a similar clarity and precision.
It has been disturbing this year to see so many of my fellow editors drummed out of the business, to the detriment of the factual accuracy and clarity of the publications that sacked us. It has been discouraging to witness the resort to empty sloganeering and name-calling on both the right and the left. It has been dispiriting to see journalistic coverage of serious issues zero in unerringly on the trivial, and to see so little evidence of public willingness to give close attention to any issue more serious than the breakup of the Jon and Kate Gosselin marriage.
But we soldier on. And you, dear readers, civil, sophisticated, and discerning audience that you are, make good company. Keep in touch.
*I wonder if it occurred to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, when he said earlier this year that Franklin Roosevelt’s policies were a failure, that running against the New Deal has never been sound strategy for Republicans.
Similarly, the post quoting the Socialist Party platform of 1912 was not a proposal to turn America socialist, but rather a reminder that (a) the United States has been operating as a mixed economy for more than seventy years* and (b) brandishing labels is not discourse. Shouting “Socialist!” (like the shouts of “Fascist!” by my fellow undergraduates forty years ago) is the adult version of playground name-calling.
Naturally, I have been labeled a sappy liberal by readers who weren’t paying attention.
As it happens, I am a Democrat — it’s a matter of public record. But Alexander Ackley, who was in my expository writing class at Syracuse and who is now an editor of The Reactionary, has kept in touch for thirty years, even though we deplore each other’s politics. When I worked for Lowell and Jean Denton at The Flemingsburg Gazette, Jean was a fervent — some would have said rabid — supporter of Richard Nixon, and I wore an “Impeach with honor” button. We not only respected each other; we held each other in affection.
It should be a mark of a civil society that people can disagree without demeaning one another. We should be able to disagree with argument, with humor, with passion, and we should be able to do so without insult. We should be able to give complex and difficult issues the serious attention they deserve.
I started this blog to write about language in a particular way: to explore how a reasonable and informed prescriptivism could show people how to write clearly, precisely, and even elegantly for publication without resorting to peeves and prejudices. As it expanded, I included subjects to which I thought my fellow journalists could bring a similar clarity and precision.
It has been disturbing this year to see so many of my fellow editors drummed out of the business, to the detriment of the factual accuracy and clarity of the publications that sacked us. It has been discouraging to witness the resort to empty sloganeering and name-calling on both the right and the left. It has been dispiriting to see journalistic coverage of serious issues zero in unerringly on the trivial, and to see so little evidence of public willingness to give close attention to any issue more serious than the breakup of the Jon and Kate Gosselin marriage.
But we soldier on. And you, dear readers, civil, sophisticated, and discerning audience that you are, make good company. Keep in touch.
*I wonder if it occurred to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, when he said earlier this year that Franklin Roosevelt’s policies were a failure, that running against the New Deal has never been sound strategy for Republicans.
Friday, October 9, 2009
The rusty iron core
Alex S. Jones, bless his heart, is a newspaperman through and through,* and it is from the perspective of a newspaperman that he views the recent disturbing developments in journalism and explores where it is headed in Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy (Oxford University Press, 234 pages, $24.95).
Mr. Jones offers seven chapters on how we got here, two on where we appear to be headed. If you are not familiar with the development of American journalism (and you would join some journalists in that unfamiliarity), the chapters on the development of First Amendment law and media ethics will be instructive.
But his main concern is the fate of what he calls (with mildly irritating repetition) the “iron core” of journalism: the information that is crucial in a democratic society if the citizenry is to make informed decisions. It is what he calls “accountability news,” because it holds “government and those with power” accountable for their actions. It is not opinion or advocacy, but factual, reported, verified information, journalism subject to “the discipline of verification.”
It is also objective journalism, in this sense: “a genuine effort to be an honest broker ... playing it straight without favoring one side when the facts are in dispute.” It also means “not trying to create the illusion of fairness by letting advocates pretend in your journalism that there is a debate about the facts when the weight of truth is clear.”
This kind of ethical accountability journalism, which developed over the past century and a half, is, he sees, imperiled: “In the old model of near media monopolies, the American population was privy to what was essentially the same news. In the future, high-quality news will be mostly consumed by elites, with headlines and articles tailored to the short attention spans of people who get their news on the Web.” Or, again, “a well-informed class at the top and a broad populace awash in opinion, spin and propaganda.” (I told you he was an old-line newspaperman.)
(Actually, in a telling remark, he speculates that hard news, accountability news, serious journalism never attracted more than about fifteen percent of newspapers’ readership. Most people, it seems, have always been more interested in celebrities, comics, crosswords, and coupons.)
The past is gone and will not be recovered. Unfortunately, the future is blurry. Mr. Jones looks at some of the possibilities for the survival of serious, accountability journalism, and he finds it chancy.
Citizen journalism, he thinks, will be too scattered and spotty, without the resources to conduct sustained reporting and to resist pressure from the powerful through threats of withholding advertising or filing expensive lawsuits.
It is far from clear that local electronic news startups can make enough money from advertising to replace newspapers.
Ownership by a nonprofit (Hey, we’ve got the nonprofit thing down, one wag at Overheard in the Newsroom said) is similarly chancy: “Founders can change their minds, lose their money, get mad, get bored, or simply want to do something different.”
Breaking up corporate chains of journalism and restoring local ownership sounds attractive to him, but, as we saw from the Binghams and others, local ownership can be at the mercy of changing local personalities.
Mr. Jones’s “nightmare scenario”: “bankrupt newspapers, news by press release that is thinly disguised advocacy, scattered an ineffective bands of former journalists and sincere amateurs whose work is left in obscurity, and a small cadre of high-priced newsletters that serve as an intelligence service for the rich and powerful.”
We are already more than halfway there.
*Mr. Jones got the inside story of the tensions and misunderstandings within the Bingham family that led to the sale of the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times to Gannett in 1986. Writing with Susan E. Tifft, he produced a notable book on the subject, The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty. The couple also wrote The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. Both books merit your attention.
An irrelevant personal note: In 1986, restless at the badly managed Cincinnati Enquirer, I was casting about for employment elsewhere. The Courier-Journal expressed interest, and I went down to Louisville for interviews and a tryout on the copy desk. It happened that the morning of that tryout was also the morning that Barry Bingham handed over the keys to Al Neuharth. On to Baltimore.
DISCLAIMER FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION:
I received a review copy of Losing the News from the publisher. In addition, if a reader of this blog should order a copy from Amazon.com by clicking on the link below, I will eventually receive a minuscule portion of the proceeds.
Mr. Jones offers seven chapters on how we got here, two on where we appear to be headed. If you are not familiar with the development of American journalism (and you would join some journalists in that unfamiliarity), the chapters on the development of First Amendment law and media ethics will be instructive.
But his main concern is the fate of what he calls (with mildly irritating repetition) the “iron core” of journalism: the information that is crucial in a democratic society if the citizenry is to make informed decisions. It is what he calls “accountability news,” because it holds “government and those with power” accountable for their actions. It is not opinion or advocacy, but factual, reported, verified information, journalism subject to “the discipline of verification.”
It is also objective journalism, in this sense: “a genuine effort to be an honest broker ... playing it straight without favoring one side when the facts are in dispute.” It also means “not trying to create the illusion of fairness by letting advocates pretend in your journalism that there is a debate about the facts when the weight of truth is clear.”
This kind of ethical accountability journalism, which developed over the past century and a half, is, he sees, imperiled: “In the old model of near media monopolies, the American population was privy to what was essentially the same news. In the future, high-quality news will be mostly consumed by elites, with headlines and articles tailored to the short attention spans of people who get their news on the Web.” Or, again, “a well-informed class at the top and a broad populace awash in opinion, spin and propaganda.” (I told you he was an old-line newspaperman.)
(Actually, in a telling remark, he speculates that hard news, accountability news, serious journalism never attracted more than about fifteen percent of newspapers’ readership. Most people, it seems, have always been more interested in celebrities, comics, crosswords, and coupons.)
The past is gone and will not be recovered. Unfortunately, the future is blurry. Mr. Jones looks at some of the possibilities for the survival of serious, accountability journalism, and he finds it chancy.
Citizen journalism, he thinks, will be too scattered and spotty, without the resources to conduct sustained reporting and to resist pressure from the powerful through threats of withholding advertising or filing expensive lawsuits.
It is far from clear that local electronic news startups can make enough money from advertising to replace newspapers.
Ownership by a nonprofit (Hey, we’ve got the nonprofit thing down, one wag at Overheard in the Newsroom said) is similarly chancy: “Founders can change their minds, lose their money, get mad, get bored, or simply want to do something different.”
Breaking up corporate chains of journalism and restoring local ownership sounds attractive to him, but, as we saw from the Binghams and others, local ownership can be at the mercy of changing local personalities.
Mr. Jones’s “nightmare scenario”: “bankrupt newspapers, news by press release that is thinly disguised advocacy, scattered an ineffective bands of former journalists and sincere amateurs whose work is left in obscurity, and a small cadre of high-priced newsletters that serve as an intelligence service for the rich and powerful.”
We are already more than halfway there.
*Mr. Jones got the inside story of the tensions and misunderstandings within the Bingham family that led to the sale of the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times to Gannett in 1986. Writing with Susan E. Tifft, he produced a notable book on the subject, The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty. The couple also wrote The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. Both books merit your attention.
An irrelevant personal note: In 1986, restless at the badly managed Cincinnati Enquirer, I was casting about for employment elsewhere. The Courier-Journal expressed interest, and I went down to Louisville for interviews and a tryout on the copy desk. It happened that the morning of that tryout was also the morning that Barry Bingham handed over the keys to Al Neuharth. On to Baltimore.
DISCLAIMER FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION:
I received a review copy of Losing the News from the publisher. In addition, if a reader of this blog should order a copy from Amazon.com by clicking on the link below, I will eventually receive a minuscule portion of the proceeds.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
No Nazis need apply
A gentleman in London named James Nicholls has given a backhanded endorsement to You Don’t Say at his blog:
For those of you who feel the need to express your superior knowledge of English grammar, this is the place for you to stroke your ego and the ego of the similarly anal. As for me I read trangressive fiction and can’t be bothered with the whole affair, safe in the knowledge that message is more important than presentation.
A couple of things seem apparent.
One is that Mr. Nicholls appears to have been so engrossed in his self-described pursuit of “sex, drugs and, if at all possible, an early night” that he may not yet have encountered the critical commonplace that content and form cannot be so easily separated. Another likelihood is that he has not read enough posts here to understand that I am not of the tribe of grammar Nazis — rigid, unthinking, nagging prescriptivists — but am rather a moderate, indulgent, reasonable prescriptivist and all-around fine fellow.
(Perhaps, too, it is time to stop flinging about that word Nazi in a casual manner that trivializes what it represents.)
Adam Pagnucco, writing at Maryland Politics Watch, does not call me a Nazi, merely suggesting that I am a whore.
He dismisses the bloggers participating in The Sun’s Mobbies competition as saps and suckers, abjectly begging for an empty distinction. Among the “trollops, street-walkers, flesh-flashers or tramps” in this competition he spies — well — me. He quotes this passage from my blog post about the competition: “Embarrassing as it is to engage in self-promotion, I am soliciting your support… Should you not care to participate in this poll, offering me a job would be an acceptable alternative.”
Someday, I hope, Mr. Pagnucco will allow me to stand him to a pint and endeavor to describe to him what irony is.
In the meantime, those of you who wish to endorse You Don’t Say in this largely meaningless competition can make use of the link at the upper-right corner of this page. Voting continues today and ends tomorrow. You can vote once each day for this blog in the Misfits category and in the overall best-blog category.
On a somewhat more positive note, the Online Schools Web site has included You Don’t Say among the “100 Best Blogs for Your Liberal Arts Education.”* You’ll also find our friends Pam Robinson and Andy Bechtel listed there. I commend those hundred blogs to your attention.
*That’s not liberal in the wicked people-who-look-at-dirty-pictures, government-death-panel, gays-are-human-too, you-have-to-pay-taxes-if-you-want-services sense, but in the largely archaic favoring-the-increase-of-knowledge sense, which, to some people, is nearly as wicked.
For those of you who feel the need to express your superior knowledge of English grammar, this is the place for you to stroke your ego and the ego of the similarly anal. As for me I read trangressive fiction and can’t be bothered with the whole affair, safe in the knowledge that message is more important than presentation.
A couple of things seem apparent.
One is that Mr. Nicholls appears to have been so engrossed in his self-described pursuit of “sex, drugs and, if at all possible, an early night” that he may not yet have encountered the critical commonplace that content and form cannot be so easily separated. Another likelihood is that he has not read enough posts here to understand that I am not of the tribe of grammar Nazis — rigid, unthinking, nagging prescriptivists — but am rather a moderate, indulgent, reasonable prescriptivist and all-around fine fellow.
(Perhaps, too, it is time to stop flinging about that word Nazi in a casual manner that trivializes what it represents.)
Adam Pagnucco, writing at Maryland Politics Watch, does not call me a Nazi, merely suggesting that I am a whore.
He dismisses the bloggers participating in The Sun’s Mobbies competition as saps and suckers, abjectly begging for an empty distinction. Among the “trollops, street-walkers, flesh-flashers or tramps” in this competition he spies — well — me. He quotes this passage from my blog post about the competition: “Embarrassing as it is to engage in self-promotion, I am soliciting your support… Should you not care to participate in this poll, offering me a job would be an acceptable alternative.”
Someday, I hope, Mr. Pagnucco will allow me to stand him to a pint and endeavor to describe to him what irony is.
In the meantime, those of you who wish to endorse You Don’t Say in this largely meaningless competition can make use of the link at the upper-right corner of this page. Voting continues today and ends tomorrow. You can vote once each day for this blog in the Misfits category and in the overall best-blog category.
On a somewhat more positive note, the Online Schools Web site has included You Don’t Say among the “100 Best Blogs for Your Liberal Arts Education.”* You’ll also find our friends Pam Robinson and Andy Bechtel listed there. I commend those hundred blogs to your attention.
*That’s not liberal in the wicked people-who-look-at-dirty-pictures, government-death-panel, gays-are-human-too, you-have-to-pay-taxes-if-you-want-services sense, but in the largely archaic favoring-the-increase-of-knowledge sense, which, to some people, is nearly as wicked.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
You may fire when ready
From an advertisement for an opening for an editor at a Christian publishing concern:
Knowledge of cannon law, Church history, & world history req'd.
Knowledge of cannon law, Church history, & world history req'd.
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