Letters to the Editor
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Copy editors on Xmas break?
Hi,
The story is fun, although what struck me about it (maybe it's that MA in Popular Culture again) was that Noxon's Wonderday celebration didn't seem very different from the usual secular Xmas. A fantasy creature comes in the darkest days of the year; in preparation, the family decorates the house with botanical debris and hangs nether garments by the fireplace, where the creature fills them with gifts. OK, "pants", as David Letterman will tell you, is a better comic key-word than "stockings" but the progression from shoes to stockings to pants, sartorially, is not all that far. No wonder the kids can sing all the same Xmas songs as everybody else. If Mrs. Noxon really wants to get rid of Xmas she's going to have to do a lot better than that! But I bet a fun time is had by all, the tale is told amusingly, and, you know, the holidays are hard enough. If this works for the Noxons, well, mazal tov to them.
My complaint is that it looks like Salon's copy editors took a snow day. Chickens have wattles, not waddles; it's tikkun olam not alum; and Cedars-Sinai, not Cedar's. And the joke about "the holiday whose name shall not be mentioned" would be just a little funnier if it got the Voldemort reference right. This is the kind of stuff your editing staff usually takes care of. What happened?