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Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009And him won a Pulitzer prize!
In “The Fifties,” David Halberstam wrote, “He suspected that the Republican candidate would be not Robert A. Taft, but Dwight Eisenhower, whom he thought might make a good president.” “Whom”?! How can we put any credence in the historical analysis of a person who doesn’t even understand the plain, simple logic of English grammar? >In The Fifties, David Halberstam wrote, He suspected that the >Republican candidate would be not Robert A. Taft, but Dwight [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >person who doesnt even understand the plain, simple logic of English >grammar? You can always judge his historical analysis separately from his use of "whom". He could still be a good historian, even if his breath smells, he wears odd socks, and he doesn't listen to everything his wife says to him. Don't throw out the baby with the dishwater, as they say.  SignatureJames > On Sun, 17 May 2009 12:35:40 -0700 (PDT), waupec...@yahoo.com > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > -- > James But this is a matter both of writing and of English. You could write a historical analysis of surpassing magnificence, but if you wrote it in pidgin I doubt if you would win a Pulitzer prize. >> On Sun, 17 May 2009 12:35:40 -0700 (PDT), waupec...@yahoo.com >> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >historical analysis of surpassing magnificence, but if you wrote it in >pidgin I doubt if you would win a Pulitzer prize. There are infinitely many stages between the extremes of writing pidgin English and writing totally faultless English. I suspect that Halberstam, depsite your criticism, comes closer to the latter extreme than to the former. Shouldn't it be Pulitzer Prize, by the way? SignatureJames >>> On Sun, 17 May 2009 12:35:40 -0700 (PDT), waupec...@yahoo.com >>> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > >Shouldn't it be Pulitzer Prize, by the way? Shouldn't it be "despite", by the way? SignatureJames >In \223The Fifties,\224 David Halberstam wrote, \223He suspected that the >Republican candidate would be not Robert A. Taft, but Dwight [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >person who doesn\222t even understand the plain, simple logic of English >grammar? How can we put any credence in the literary criticism of a person who doesn't even understand the plain, simple logic of ASCII text? To answer the question slightly more seriously: I rather doubt that the historical analysis was done by Halberstam's copyeditor. -GAWollman SignatureGarrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are wollman@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness |
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