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Discussion Groups / English Usage / February 2009Seward's Folly
Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): "Decisions about land acquisitions bring out critics with Seward’s Folly-style arguments." What do you think about lower-case on "folly"? Do I need quotation marks around "Seward's Folly"? Can I just chuck this out the window?! Could I turn it around: Decisions about land acquisitions bring out critics with arguments in the style of Seward's Folly (or "with arguments resembling Seward's Folly"). >Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best >hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >critics with arguments in the style of Seward's Folly (or "with >arguments resembling Seward's Folly"). That's the kind of construction where you often see an en-dash rather than a hyphen (if that helps). James Melissa Lind: > Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy... I can see why! > "Decisions about land acquisitions bring out critics with Seward's > Folly-style arguments." Much as I prefer to hyphenate these things, with this one I think I'd go with quotation marks: ...critics with "Seward's folly" style arguments. or perhaps just ...critics with "Seward's folly" arguments. > Could I turn it around: Decisions about land acquisitions bring out > critics with arguments in the style of Seward's Folly (or "with > arguments resembling Seward's Folly"). This is worse: it sounds as though you think "Seward's folly" was a style of argument. What the original phrase really means is "arguments claiming wrongly that the money is being spent wastefully with no hope of recouping its value, just as some people said about the US decision to buy Alaska (from Russia in 1867), which they called 'Seward's folly'".  SignatureMark Brader | "I have on occasion manufactured technical terms that Toronto | have made it into common use in the literature. msb@vex.net | But not many, and I'm licensed." --John Lawler My text in this article is in the public domain. Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): "Decisions about land acquisitions bring out critics with Seward’s Folly-style arguments." What do you think about lower-case on "folly"? Do I need quotation marks around "Seward's Folly"? I'd go with "Seward’s Folly"-style argument Omitting the hyphen would leave me wondering what a "style argument" was. Omitting the inverted commas would leave me wondering what a "Seward's Folly-style" was. Adrian > Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best > hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > What do you think about lower-case on "folly"? Do I need quotation > marks around "Seward's Folly"? Can I just chuck this out the window?! An editor should chuck out this whole sentence. It is so clogged with nouns as to interrupt fluent reading. Seward's Folly is a phrase from US national polemics of the 1860s. People opposed to US government negotiations to buy Alaska from the government of Russia ridiculed them as useless and expensive. I.e. your source sentence means "People opposed to buying undeveloped land criticize it as wasteful." The reference to Seward's Folly is solely ornamental and redundant. SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) >> Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best >> hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >opposed to buying undeveloped land criticize it as wasteful." >The reference to Seward's Folly is solely ornamental and redundant. Can a copy editor do that? It would seem to me that Melissa can recast, but not drop or add references. No matter how much she might dislike what the author writes, her brief is only to change what the author writes into understandable form. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida >>> Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best >>> hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > dislike what the author writes, her brief is only to change what the > author writes into understandable form. I'm sure that's right: in any case, our author may have a good reason for reminding the reader that there is precedent. But the real problem arises from that lazy use of "style". I agree with whoever suggested " 'Seward's Folly' arguments." Or a rewrite which actually mentions the Alaska purchase explicitly. SignatureMike. > Can a copy editor do that? It would seem to me that Melissa can > recast, but not drop or add references. No matter how much she might > dislike what the author writes, her brief is only to change what the > author writes into understandable form. > > -- Yes, you are right. I can only make minimal changes. I'm going with "Seward's Folly" arguments. But, I agree it is merely ornamental and, I believe, distracting. Melissa > Someone else wrote: >> Can a copy editor do that? It would seem to me that Melissa can >> recast, but not drop or add references. No matter how much she might [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > "Seward's Folly" arguments. But, I agree it is merely ornamental and, > I believe, distracting. I'm just catching up a bit on the threads I've missed lately, and I noticed that in two of your posts, you do not give the name of who's post you're replying to. (See what I've inserted above.) Is it a default, or it is deliberate? Whichever, the who-said-what information is commonly used in this newsgroup, and it's absense is noted. Just wondering, SignatureMaria Conlon > > Someone else wrote: > >> Can a copy editor do that? It would seem to me that Melissa can [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > -- > Maria Conlon Not deliberate at all! My apologies. Did I do it correctly this time? Still learning, Melissa >>> Someone else wrote: >>>> Can a copy editor do that? It would seem to me that Melissa can >>>> recast, but not drop or add references. No matter how much she [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >> > Not deliberate at all! My apologies. Did I do it correctly this time? Yes. (I tend to clean the attributions up a bit, but I'm rather over-fussy.) And thanks. SignatureMaria Conlon >> > Someone else wrote: >> >> Can a copy editor do that? It would seem to me that Melissa can [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] >Still learning, >Melissa Yes. The bit you quoted without attribution was something I wrote. Since I said "it seems to me", the knowledgeable reader will want to know who "me" is because they weight the response by the reputation of the responder. You may have put a knowledgeable reader in the awkward position of having to actually determine if what was said actually agrees with what they would say and denying them the "Oh, it's only Tony" quick dismissal. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida >Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best >hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): > >"Decisions about land acquisitions bring out critics with Sewards >Folly-style arguments." I'd change that to "critics over" or, as you suggest later, I'd turn it around, which is probably better. >What do you think about lower-case on "folly"? As far as I know, he made only one major folly, so I'd capitalize it. >Do I need quotation >marks around "Seward's Folly"? I wouldn't say so. Capitalizing it is enough.. >Can I just chuck this out the window?! If you like, but for personal reasons I wish you'd write "throw" or "toss" it out the window. :-) >Could I turn it around: Decisions about land acquisitions bring out >critics with arguments in the style of Seward's Folly (or "with >arguments resembling Seward's Folly"). SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland >>Ahhhhhh...this book is driving me a little crazy...how to best >>hyphenate the following (taken from the text as the author has it): [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] >>critics with arguments in the style of Seward's Folly (or "with >>arguments resembling Seward's Folly"). That last alternative seems to say that Seward' Folly, i.e., Alaska, is an argument rather than a piece of geography. Signature************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@cox.net) ************* * Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow * * My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps * |
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