The New York Times

[Jonathan Lighter]

Editors love to tinker (n.b., euphemism) with other people's writing. Since they get paid for it, they do it even more.  What may have happened is that the editor thought the piece needed a transition or a continuity prompt at those points.  Then either the author (presumably) or somebody else objected to the notion of "surprise" involved. Murphy's Law then swung into action to make sure the added words were not deleted from the published copy.

That's my most charitable hypothesis.

And now, off to tinker (n.b., euphemism) with Wikipedia.

JL

"Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mark A. Mandel"
Subject: Re: The New York Times
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Duane Campbell quotes:
>>>>>

"Editors' Note

The Op-Ed page in some copies of Wednesday's newspaper carried an incorrect
version of the below article about military recruitment. The article also
briefly appeared on NYTimes.com before it was removed. The writer, an Army
reserve officer, did not say, "Imagine my surprise the other day when I
received orders to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., next Sunday," nor did he
characterize his recent call-up to active duty as the precursor to a
"surprise tour of Iraq." That language was added by an editor and was to
have been removed before the article was published. [...]"


Aside from some curiosity about why a NYT editor would add text to a guest
editorial with the intent of removing it before publication
<<<<<

I am rather more than curious, shading in the direction of furious, about an
editor adding text, especially text like that, to a guest editorial!

-- Mark A. Mandel


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