7 ms·
Before my internet addiction distracted me from it, I made a sport of writing letters to newspapers, and my success rate for over a decade was about 8/10 publis
by motohagiography 6y ago
Before my internet addiction distracted me from it, I made a sport of writing letters to newspapers, and my success rate for over a decade was about 8/10 published to submitted. I had one or two in the Economist, with many more in the Financial Times, and others in lesser known papers. They're all in a drawer somewhere now as some very humble personal trophies.
However, my final one was edited so horrendously and offensively in print that the only charitable interpretation was that English was not the letters editor's first language. After a few emails back and forth, and the terse revelation from a very piqued editor that English was in fact her first language, she graciously corrected the online version. My advice to anyone who wants emulate the house style of The Economist is that they should read P.G. Wodehouse first.
I stopped writing letters after that because it signalled a shift in culture at the papers, where the people working for them didn't seem to have the same relationship to truth they once appeared to. The feeling of opening that salmon coloured paper to find your letter in it (with only modest surprise) and giving your morning coffee a smug celebratory sip is one of the things upvotes on the internet have not yet been able to replace.
- aj7 6y agoHeh, heh. As a physicist, I wrote the entire technical section on polarization for my small company’s optics catalog. It got “edited” by the personnel manager, a UT Austin English major who was not dumb. Almost had a coronary at age 36.
- zikzak 6y agoI had to run a job ad for a programmer so I took the template provided by HR, added my list of buzzwords and acronyms, and corrected the many factual, grammatical, and spelling errors in the original document. They ran my ad but the only part that varied from the template was my list if "tech skills". Unfortunately, this meant the job ad was "pre-covid" so it stated we do not work remotely, you must be local, etc. Sigh.
- drivers99 6y agoI wonder how many companies have optics catalogs. I needed a mirror with a reflective front surface (instead of inside or on the back where the light has to go through the glass on a normal mirror) to do what they did in Tim’s Vermeer (the simple mirror version, not the full lens version, although that would be cool if I can figure out the parts I need). Anyway, they (Edmunds) later sent me a full catalog with all kinds of laser stuff I don’t understand with detailed educational information about them and how to set up proper measurement systems and so on.
- mssundaram 6y agoEven in this short sample comment I enjoyed your writing. And I agree, that sounds much more satisfying than updoots
- mssundaram 6y agoI'm mightily confused by the downvotes for the compliment i wrote
- ycombinete 6y agoMy guess: it's the word "updoot" that people are downvoting. Discussion about the voting on comments is generally discouraged[0]: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- RotaryTelephone 6y agoNow THIS person writes.
- heresie-dabord 6y agoSir, I'm dismayed to learn that you have developed an addiction to the InterWebs. I would have expected the business model of said Webs (arrant nonsense + commcercial surveillance) to repel you as it repels any civilised mind. That said, I personally have learned nothing from the Economist either. Wodehousian style or not. I recommend Stephen Leacock. Yours etc...