Unsafe at any speed
Cynthia Crossen’s “Book Lover” column in The Wall Street Journal reminds in an invaluable metaphor that “without strong editors, writers are like cars with accelerators but no brakes.”
Thank you, Editrix, for the citation.
About John McIntyre
John McIntyre, mild-mannered editor for a great metropolitan newspaper, has fussed over writers’ work, to sporadic expressions of gratitude, for thirty years. He is The Sun’s night content production manager and former head of its copy desk. He also teaches editing at Loyola University Maryland. A former president of the American Copy Editors Society, a native of Kentucky, a graduate of Michigan State and Syracuse, and a moderate prescriptivist, he writes about language, journalism, and arbitrarily chosen topics. If you are inspired by a spirit of contradiction, comment on the posts or write to him at john.mcintyre@baltsun.com.
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Comments
I respectfully submit that this post needs an editor... Missing words?
Cynthia Crossen’s “Book Lover” column in The Wall Street Journal reminds in an invaluable metaphor that “without strong editors, writers are like cars with accelerators but no brakes.”
Posted by: Anonymous | November 20, 2008 4:43 PM
Cynthia Crossen’s “Book Lover” column in The Wall Street Journal reminds in an invaluable metaphor that “without strong editors, writers are like cars with accelerators but no brakes.”
That's a perfectly acceptable sentence as far as I'm concerned. "Reminds" doesn't require an additional complement.
Posted by: Bill Walderman | November 21, 2008 8:38 AM
No missing words. Just the missing intonation of the spoken words that sets off "in an invaluable metaphor" from the rest. Commas, sometimes, can help.
Posted by: Retired in Elkridge | November 21, 2008 9:17 AM
A friend recently reminded me that editors prefer to be writers' brakes, not their accelerators. Much easier to rein in than spur on.
Bloggers tend to operate sans editors out of necessity or penury.
Amateur critics (no offense to amateurs) suffer more than all: when they err, they make fools of themselves thrice, by erring, by presuming to criticize, by doing so without pay.
Aaaahahahahahahaha
Posted by: jl | November 22, 2008 8:54 AM
JL - penury? What happened to shallow thoughts? You're gonna need a hall pass to get back to D@L.
Posted by: Bourbon Girl | November 23, 2008 11:00 PM