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Them's fighin' words


Steve

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The ones the editor takes out, that is.

 

In a letter to his editor, Times writer Giles Coren rants about the omission of just one word: "a".

 

And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, sh**test of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not f**king rocket science. It's f**king pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. F**k. f**k, f**k, f**k.

 

And the reply.

 

Sub-editing is a noble profession. It is also a thankless one - particularly when your writers call you a "useless c**t".

 

-Steve

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This is a General Topic?

 

Okay, fine. Obviously Giles got a little hot under the collar. So much so it seems he turned off his Spell Checker. But people do tend to be informal and ungrammatical in their e-mails, so let's let the obvious irony of his rant on editing being in desperate need of editing pass.

 

I'd would also like to point out that Mia implied Giles called someone (Mia?) a "useless c*nt". In the article I read he called her an "illiterate c*nt." Not a world of difference but some. Then again, she might have been referring to some other e-mail.

 

True, the editor was in error and Giles may believe that his reputation has been damaged as a consequence. Perhaps he saw his angry public response as a way of restoring his reputation with the public. But I don't know. He might have just been lashing out and, perhaps, doing himself even more damage in the process. Of course, they do say no publicity is bad publicity, as long as they spell your name right.

 

However, on the whole, I (Thoth The Occasional Picker Of Nits) must come down on the side of the editors here. If true damage has been done to this writer than let it be settled in a court of law. (Juries tend to be friendly and generous to writers.) But Giles overreacted.

 

In summary (editing mine):

"Giles Coren is a sanctimonious little tw*t who needs to get over himself" could be quite costly in T-shirt lettering.

- Mia.

-Thoth.

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