Posted by
Ed Lilly on Saturday, July 26, 2008 5:07:19 PM
Granted, it's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine, but the following sentences
from an email reportedly sent by the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Meredith Artley, really set my teeth on edge:
I should have first not encouraged posting on this topic, but if any of
you feel that you have a post you really to write, to please discuss it
with Tony and myself first since we must always tread carefully on
unverified stories.
First, we're apparently missing the word "want" between "really" and "to write." All right, it's an email. [
Thanks to cakinli for the catch.] It happens when you don't proofread.
Second, the word "to" following "to write," either needs to be removed, or the thought should be more fully expressed by writing something along the lines of, "we ask you to please discuss..." Again, we'll give Ms. Artley the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to email haste / sloppiness.
But "discuss it with Tony and myself..."? Would you tell another person to "discuss it with myself" if you wanted them to discuss it with you? How can you get to a position as the executive editor of a newspaper as large as the
L.A. Times and still make this kind of mistake, even casually? I have seen this same awful usage in several books recently as well, so perhaps there is a great shortage of competent editors throughout the publishing world.
Well, maybe it was just an isolated incident. No. The first sentence of the very next paragraph of Ms. Artley's email is as follows:
Russ, myself, Tony and all the editors you work with trust you guys to
engage us in open and frank dialogue on just about anything that’s on
your mind, and we’ll do the same.
So, myself trust you guys to engage in open and frank dialogue? Is that really what you would say or write? It can not be that difficult to figure out which word you should use in different contexts. Maybe an enterprising writing instructor in the L.A. area can offer to give the folks at the
Times a few refresher courses.