Time Travel
Sloppy writing wherever you encounter it is bad enough, but sloppy professional writing is shameful.
Here is the lead sentence from an Associated Press piece about a new production of an old opera which premiered last night:
It takes six tenors and one phenomenal soprano to perform Gioachino Rossini's "Armida," which helps explain why the Metropolitan Opera didn't get around to mounting this glorious work for 193 years.
Well, no. The reason the Metropolitan Opera didn't get around to staging the work in 1817 (which is to say 2010 - 193) is that the Met didn't exist then. It was established in 1880.
The writer, Mike Silverman, was just looking for an interesting lead, a hook, but it didn't work, as even the most cursory job of editing would have shown. There really is no excuse for that kind of clunkiness.
Here is the lead sentence from an Associated Press piece about a new production of an old opera which premiered last night:
It takes six tenors and one phenomenal soprano to perform Gioachino Rossini's "Armida," which helps explain why the Metropolitan Opera didn't get around to mounting this glorious work for 193 years.
Well, no. The reason the Metropolitan Opera didn't get around to staging the work in 1817 (which is to say 2010 - 193) is that the Met didn't exist then. It was established in 1880.
The writer, Mike Silverman, was just looking for an interesting lead, a hook, but it didn't work, as even the most cursory job of editing would have shown. There really is no excuse for that kind of clunkiness.
posted by pyramus | 12:51 PM
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