"full of win"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jun 1, 2009, at 10:58 AM, Mark Mandel wrote:

> So there's no hope of arguing "Well, if you know it all, why are you
> asking me, a specialist, to write about it?". They speak the language,
> so they know all about it. A common fallacy. (Sigh.)
>
> mam

Grant is too nice for his own good.

> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Grant Barrett <gbarrett at worldnewyork.org
> > wrote:
>> Yes, this is something I had an entry for when I wrote the NYT 2008
>> buzzwords list. Alas, the editors cut it, though I was able to
>> shoehorn a bit of the notion into the item Arnold quoted.
>>
>> Every year I'm caught in the old trap: if they haven't heard of
>> something on my list, then they think it can't be genuine. If they
>> have heard of it, then they think it's old hat. Then they suggest I
>> include words or lexical items that they themselves noticed in the
>> week before the piece is edited because those items feel both new and
>> genuine to them.
>>
>> I sometimes prevail and am able to persuade them to leave items in
>> (or
>> out) but they are the New York Times and I am an outsider of low
>> status so they win most of the time.
>>

every so often journalists will complain to me that they went to some
trouble to get a story (especially a story on science, language, or
social/cultural matters) right, only to have an editor re-write it to
fit their beliefs or opinions.

arnold

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