Letters to the Editor
woodside
Published Letters: 32 Editor's Choice: 2
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Ah, but here you are...
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...making a living as a writer. All that confidence must have been good for something!
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Kevin Riley O'Keeffe
[Read the article: Wedding trashers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Uh...trollops? fecal matter? eschew? strumpetry?...are you a 65-year-old British dude from Sussex?
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I'm totally confused
[Read the article: No apologies, Katie Couric!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]by the many posters who say that Traister is "playing the gender card" and claiming that Katie Couric is failing because she's a woman in a sexist world. Traister isn't saying that at all. That's clear from the many comparisons she makes between Katie Couric and other *non-tanking* women broadcasters and journalists. She does claim that Katie's femininity stacks the deck against her being taken seriously, but it's easy to argue that's true for both men *and women. (How many girly men have you seen in the boardroom lately? Traister even makes this point, saying that you have to be a barrel-chested asshole to win in business. Again, how many girly barrel-chested assholes do you know?) She also questions whether Hagan would've made a big deal out of, for example, a male anchor's golf swing gesture, as he does out of Katie Couric's "Call me" gesture. But that's nowhere near claiming that sexism is to blame for Couric's failures.
It seems like those posters accusing Traister of crying sexism are playing the you're-playing-the-gender-card card, which is just as bad as playing the gender card.
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Questions for Slackie
[Read the article: Let us now praise editors]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]or anyone who can answer them.
I've just started to teach English and get into proofreading/copyediting, and I'm always coming across things that mystify me. I'm genuinely looking for some clarification, so please don't think I'm being snarky or smug.
Slackie wrote: "It's the difference between a cleanly, clearly communicated idea, and noise."
Is that last comma, between "idea" and "and," technically allowed to be there? Under what justification?
And: "Editing's an invisible art, and, sadly, appears to be going by the wayside..."
Since that's a compound predicate (IS an invisible art and APPEARS to be going...) and not a compound sentence, why is there a comma before the conjunction?
Thanks so much for your help.
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Thanks Miette and Slackie
[Read the article: Let us now praise editors]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for your help. As soon as I posted my message I thought, "Shit, there's probably something really obvious in the Chicago Manual about this, and I'm going to get a beatdown or be disdainfully ignored." But instead, I had the pleasure of reading two illuminating posts. Thanks again.
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New York Time's?
[Read the article: Roundup: Virtual wives, non-ironic feminism and more]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think you mean New York Times'...
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And what's up with the hyphen in "two-counts"?
[Read the article: Roundup: Virtual wives, non-ironic feminism and more]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If it's supposed to be there, would some punctuation goddess (or god) explain to me why?
Thanks.
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Dependent clause?
[Read the article: Roundup: Obama has no love for "Obama Girl"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Though the study's lead researcher cautions (so commendably) against drawing conclusions before the findings are backed up by other research."
That's not a complete sentence right? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks.
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My God people...
[Read the article: Psst! Have you heard...?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Everything over-the-top and un-nuanced about the piece is intentionally so. It's called tone.
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Apparently this happens frequently in high schools...
[Read the article: Taking off your bra for national security]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...in inner cities. Sad.
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Another messy woman...
[Read the article: Are our husbands really so helpless?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...to add to the chorus of voices saying that gender is pretty irrelevant. In most partnerships, one partner is bound to be neater than the other. Most dudes did not grow up listening to their dads complain about their moms, but plenty of women grew up hearing their moms complain about their dads. I'm guessing that's why we hear mostly women complaining about how messy their husbands are. It's a social habit.
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@deering
[Read the article: I can't stand losing my beauty as I age!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hmmm...I really don't think the LW "takes her insecurities out on other women." She talks about a "voice that has suddenly taken over her head," a voice she's clearly appalled by because she calls it "horrible." She also talks about her "internal critical monologue," *internal being the key word there-- she's not calling anybody out on the street like she's the aging police. She says she feels "miserable" about herself; she calls her "antipathy towards aging" "terrible." So I think that it is certainly mature and productive of her to address this new and unwelcome hypercritical voice in her head. Have you never had ugly, unkind thoughts you did not want to be having?
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@tommydsz
[Read the article: Is race dying? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Every kid in India and Asia (as if India isn't a part of Asia) idolizes Bill Gates? In the black community, they all want to be like Mike? Good thing you didn't generalize.
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a thought
[Read the article: Tom the Dancing Bug]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the point about slavery is not discrimination but the systematic dismantling of culture and family structure. Other horrifically treated, immigrant groups were able to use community and family support pretty immediately after they arrived to strengthen their position. Not so for African Americans, whose families, communities, and culture were systematically dismantled and for whom education was illegal for far too long. It is not hard to imagine the effects of that persisting until today.
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@AnnieOrchids
[Read the article: The baby I turned away]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Did you mean to say that staying in Guatemala or staying in an orphanage would be a worse fate than transnational adoption? Cos I'm sure staying in Guatemala with a loving family would be fine for a Guatemalan orphan.