Jennifer Schuessler’s guide on the trip is Kory Stamper, one of Merriam-Websters new generation of social-media stars.
Category: words
‘The Final Word’ On The Oxford Comma, As Decreed By Columbia Journalism Review
“Newspaper style has long been to omit that final comma. But every stylebook that allows omission of the Oxford comma includes a caveat, often forgotten: Once the sentence moves beyond a simple series, that comma might be necessary for clarity.”
William O’Rourke Clarifies: What I Meant By “Fatal Lack Of Talent”
Let us be reasonable here. I am too old and have published too much to be thought ignorant enough not to be aware of the objections put forward by the miffed 13. But, I contend, writers who publish are always writing at the top of their form. No one writes down. It’s difficult, almost impossible. Writers cursed with too much “talent” are unable to stoop to conquer.
Why Do People Keep Wanting To Write Off The Novel As Dead?
“Any number of critics since Bergonzi have regurgitated the idea that the novel as we know it today persists in a kind of zombie state, stripped of whatever vital essence it once had (and this in spite of the fact that novels are being published and consumed in unprecedented numbers). But the argument for the novel’s demise has its own kind of ghoulish quality to it by now.”
There Have Been Many Literary Hoaxes, But Only One Led To A Duel With Pistols
Eric Grundhauser tells the story of “Cherubina de Gabriak” of St. Petersburg and the two great Russian Symbolist poets who fell in love with her, even though she didn’t exist.
Lessons On Male Insecurity (And Indigestion) From Walt Whitman’s Men’s-Health Column
Oh yes, he did. Starting in 1858, Whitman (under one of his man pseudonyms) wrote an advice column for the New York Atlas titled “Manly Health and Training.” Dan Piepenbring suggests that, behind Whitman’s vigorous exhortation, his advice betrayed more than a bit of insecurity about masculinity.
Alex Good: We’re In The Age Of The Intentional Non-Reader (What’s That About?)
“Many believe we live in a post-literate age, one in which, writer Douglas Glover concludes, “books have become irrelevant.” Others disagree, some vehemently. His point is not, however, one I want to enter into a debate over. I don’t want to beat up on the degraded tastes of the common reader, analyse the impact of the digital revolution on reading habits, or make an appeal for the government to do more to address stubbornly high rates of illiteracy. What I find of most concern and significance is the rise in aliteracy—the growth of a population that can read but simply doesn’t want to.”
What You Can Learn Data-Crunching Literature
“By the numbers, the best opening sentences to novels do tend to be short. Prolific author James Patterson averages 160 clichés per 100,000 words (that’s 115 more than the revered Jane Austen), and Vladimir Nabokov used the word mauve 44 times more often than the average writer in the past two centuries.”
Why Are There So Few Contemporary Novels About AIDS?
“Do today’s young writers, who live in a time when it is regarded more as a chronic condition than a death sentence, feel unqualified to approach the subject? Is it akin to the recent debates around cultural appropriation in writing, most recently stoked by Lionel Shriver: are writers uncomfortable with their right – or perceived lack thereof – to fictionalise experiences not their own?”
Academic Assails Crime Writers For Being “Untalented” (Let The Condemnation Commence)
“Michael [Collins] has too much talent to succeed as a crime writer,” wrote William O’Rourke. “He doesn’t possess the fatal lack of talent required. America really doesn’t possess enough of a literary culture anymore to maintain a writer like Michael.”