Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
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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."
Who we?
Emdashes, founded December 2004 by Emily Gordon, is a place where keen
and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can
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This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.
A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.”
Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to our hearts.
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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 But I'm unpublished and I love it.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.