| On the day the Gambit with my article on Richard Buckner went to press, I received a smartass email from Michael Antrobus, the Gambit's News Editor. I had never corresponded with him before, never spoken to him... even at this point, a month later, I still wouldn't know who he was if he came up to me and slapped me w/ his UPI Stylebook. Well, anyway... The background is this... for a while last Spring, I would send my Gambit corrections to my friend Jessica Mesman (the Entertainment Editor) to point out how shoddy their proofreading was. I guess she passed this stuff on to others around the office. I guess Antrobus took was a bit rankled by the entire thing, b/c Jessica told me that he was searching long and hard to find an error in my article. Well, he thought he did, but was wrong. Before he realized this, however, he took the step of sending an email he would regret. Here's a transcript of our correspondence. Believe me, I'm much more proud of my quips below that I am of the Buckner article.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Buckner story Fred, I enjoyed your piece on Buckner and wanted to congratulate you on a job well done. I also wanted, in light of all the times you've helped me out by putting your red ink to Gambit articles, to give you a tip on the correct usage of the verbs "lie" and "lay." Lie means "to recline." Lay means "to set down." You'll be happy to learn that I made the correction before the article appeared in 25,000 issues with your name on it. Thanks, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: One more thing.... Fred, In regards to the earlier e-mail I sent, after reading your sentence construction a Smiles, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Pissing Contest... Hey Mike... Thanks for the kind words about the Buckner piece. Truth be told, I don't really think it's good. I wanted to make it more extreme. But oh well... At least it's better than anything Luther Gooch would have written. It wound up depressing me to even think about it, so I didn't make any changes. I don't know what kind of dig you're taking at me about "lay". According to my dictionary the verb lie meaning "to recline" is conjugated lie, lay, lain, lying. I was using the past tense, so... you know. You don't know me, but obviously you have me pegged as some grammar hardass or something. In fact, I enjoy regionalisms and often use the words "hoose," "behint" and "Melungeon" in tribute to my years in Appalachia. It's just that the Gambit sometimes takes my by surprise... like the piece on the Perkins Road Overpass... You wrote: Are you sure that the pieces "sits", Mike? P'haps this is supposed to be "black" or "white trash" English? If so.. the juxtaposition of that vernacular in a story about an essentially an all white business district must've thrown me off. Are you sure those pieces don't lie? Maybe I should read the Gambit more as a freewheelin' ramblin' diatribe on various "newsworthy" items... (In that case, I might ignore the countless errors I seem to find.) If this is what the Gambit is, the pacing of the articles is all wrong... it just doesn't move my eyes quickly enough. I'll tell you the truth, though... I drink a lot of Coke and I lived in NYC for a few years, thus: short attention span and the feeling that I'm constantly on crystal meth. Actually, I was hoping that you _would_ find a real grammar trainwreck so I could chime in that I was trying to embarrass my father (former LSU English Professor John Weaver... You know him from The Phone, right?) by having it published. I believe that my deep-seated loathing for Shakespeare is easily psychologically linked to my poor relationship (in childhood) with my father. Therefore... p'haps the same with my constant grammar abuses. As much as I seem to like the word "whatwith" these days... I just can't seem to find it in any dictionary. Oh well, I keep using it because it sounds good. And now I'm rambling. In short... thanks for the compliments, but here's my tip: check the facts before you dash off a vaguely insulting missive (or were you being funny? I don't know you, so that kinda humor didn't translate o'er the email.) Then, Mike, you won't have to write another fifteen minutes later admitting your mistaken-ness. And I didn't see the word "sorry" in there anywhere... Tak'er easy, PS. Oh yeah... I've never really helped you guys b/c I always correct the paper post-publishing. I have, however, offered to be proofreader... a job I might be able to do over the web and therefore keep while I'm constantly traveling. Let me know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Re: Pissing Contest... Fred, I was writing tongue-in-cheek, not to be bitter. You seem to relish in finding errors in Gambit. So when I thought I found one in your copy, I dashed off a sarcastic e-mail so you could experience the other end of the barb. The truth is, we discover virtually every mistake we've made before someone like you points it out. It's embarrassing. The problem is we are understaffed and must turn things around quickly. Sometimes we don't catch errors until after they're published. If our publisher would give us the budget for it, we would definitely consider hiring someone like you to help clean up the copy. But I didn't mean to come across as abrasive as you interpreted my e-mail. Sorry if my light-hearted dig seemed mean-spirited to you. I was just trying to have some fun. shits and grins, |