Because the commenting function at this blog is not friendly to readers, it's instructive when something comes through, and a reader has been fit to remark on my post "You could write shorter":
"As a wise man once said, 'Copy editors must be destroyed.' You are the archenemy of good writing. You traffic in articles, not stories. Be gone soon, please."
Often thought, but seldom so succinctly expressed.
It has been no secret during my thirty-five years on the desk that I am insufficiently reverent of the majesty of some reporters' prose stylings. And at Loyola over the past twenty I have labored to instill that irreverence in my students, whose eyes grow round with disbelief as I present them with text after sub-par text by professional journalists that someone had deemed publishable.
Six years ago this month, when I was discharged from The Sun along with sixty other newsroom employees, one Robert Knilands expressed sentiments similar to those of the gentleman above:
"Good riddance, John. As I've said for a couple of years, you weren't much more than a caricature. You were the image of a fossil who needed to be swept out of the newsroom."
And yet, I was not destroyed. In fact, they took me back a year later.
The Archenemy survives.
The Archenemy continues.
The Archenemy will be on the desk again tonight.
BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAH!