PLAYING BO PEEP WITH THE COPY EDITOR • My own writing has been criticized—quite fairly, I admit—for being long-winded and using over-complex sentence construction. At the polar extreme, Jeff Albertson spawned a host of imitators when he wore a T-shirt declaiming, "Worst Episode Ever." My starched-collar grammar checker tartly comments, "This may be a sentence fragment." The Albertson catchphrase is often written and punctuated in the form of "Worst. Whatever. Ever." because of the way Albertson delivers such comments when voiced by Frank Azaria. My grammar checker remains silent on this development. I settled down with English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the first sentence of the second paragraph brought my reading to a screeching halt: Like most young men at that time, I was much indebted to the men of Edinburgh and of the Edinburgh Review, — to Jeffrey, Mackintosh, Hallam, and to Scott, Playfair and De Quincey; and my narrow and des...
Comments