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I find these grammatical constructions distractingly awkward
Filed under: Eustace Google Tagged: Andrew Sullivan, gay rights, grammar, Hendrik Hertzberg
Andrew Sullivan, "The End of Gay Culture," New Republic 10/24:
"No one bats an eye if two men walk down the street holding hands, or if a lesbian couple pecks each other on the cheek, or if a drag queen dressed as Cher careens down the main strip on a motor scooter."
Hendrik Hertzberg, "Quagmiers," New Yorker 10/17:
"Drudge had picked up the item from Time’s site, to which it had bubbled up from the Human Rights Campaign, the gay advocacy group."
Comments
My blog is awkward, awkward, awkward, I know. But I’m unpublished and I love it. I also love making corrections like these … How about …a lesbian couple enjoys a quick kisswhere it arrived by way of More, more emdashes, this is fun!
Your fixes are perfect! Clean, clear and crisp!
I like those too—“or a lesbian kisses her girlfriend on the cheek” would be even better. The verb “bubbled” should not apply to the web. I see what Hertzberg’s going for, I think—that the internet is a kind of thick boiling stew and sometimes a tiny lima bean of obscure information from the mush at the bottom makes it, via the Great Cook’s wooden spoon, to the mighty froth on top. But is that movement swimmy and meandering or is it more like Superman taking off, with direction and purpose? Or like the particley-wavey dash of light? Anyway, I think, on reflection, that it’s the “picked up”/”bubbled up” juxtaposition that’s so unsightly and confusing here. The rest of the piece is quite good.
This activity reminds me of my Grandpa. Who used to fix the editorial mistakes in the NY Times and rue the day that NY became a “one newspaper town” … Geez, now I’m all teary …
Urk. “which had gotten it from” would be my way of fixing the second one.