ADS Website Link to Vocabula Review

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I thank Grant for his prompt attention to this matter.

It was not my intent to advocate removing the link -- any journal that
publishes the work of Peter Trudgill can't be all bad! I just felt that the use of
the word "excellent" was inappropriate -- especially since VOCABULA review
seems to have picked it up as a kind of ADS endorsement of the publication. I feel
strongly that we should not be in the business of ENDORSING anything but our
own publications (unless the ADS Executive Committee so directs the webmeister
to do so).


In a message dated 6/19/03 8:17:50 AM, gbarrett at worldnewyork.org writes:


> Oy. I've been called out. And here I was hoping to stay out of this.
>
> I'm sure I looked at the Vocabula Review site for ten minutes three
> years ago, found it inoffensive, and whipped off a few lines to cover
> the link. I couldn't tell you why I even bothered with a review. I'm no
> Michiko Kakutani. I've looked at the VR site a few times since and have
> usually felt the articles I had access to stopped about ten thousand
> words short of explaining the true mission of their subtext. So, since
> I added the link, I have come to concur with the general opinion on the
> Vocabula Review.
>
> My policy on adding links to the ADS site has always been haphazard. I
> give them a cursory look, checking for the usual red flags of lunacy
> and hackwork, and failing to find them, I carefully neglect to add the
> link for months, or never do.
>
> I see in my email archives that an ADS member alerted me to the
> dubiousness of the VR link in February 2002, so I take full
> responsibility for the link's presence and for any untoward
> prescriptivism it might have engendered.
>
> The ADS site has been changed.
>
> Descriptively yours,
>
> Grant
>
>