Benjamin Dreyer

@bcdreyer.bsky.social

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abstruse in the sense of recondite

author of the New York Times/IndieBound bestseller Dreyer's English and Stet! (the game!) • America's Copy Editor® • retired Random House copy chief • he/him/his

benjamindreyer.com

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At another site I was invited to join a group of devotees of the fine points of English grammar and usage that was, it turned out, entirely populated by people who knew nothing about either and were only too happy to, with unmatched confidence, make that clear in post after post. I exited.

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Mean time, we thank you for your well-took labour.

This is why I always have to watch Yankee Doodle Dandy.

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New York Times editor: I bet that young man would bring a fresh new perspective to the editorial page!

This is the tradcath weirdo whom the @nytimes.com is publishing to tell you not to vote. You should not listen to him. Instead, you should shove his ass into a locker and burn the entire campus containing said locker to the ground. (The campus is Hillsdale)

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Wow, real banana republic stuff. I'm glad our presidents can launder money and associate criminally without worrying about this kind of thing.

Reports: Brazil police have indicted Jair Bolsonaro for money laundering and criminal association

I wonder whether there's been an interesting uptick in Times cancellations these last couple of weeks, or if it's just me and five of my shitlib friends and all the better people had already done it.

I confess that I was irritatedly self-registering how my having canceled my Times subscription is screwing up my habitual research methods (yes, I know how libraries work, you needn't explain them), but OTOH I don't have to read today's "Why I Don't Vote" guest piece.

sorry apparently it's schlagenpunchenkisser

what's that German word shmackenpunchenkisser

❤️

Just started reading @bcdreyer.bsky.social’s “Dreyer’s English” and it is a delight. I’m looking forward to implementing his suggestions in my writing and editing (of myself and others). benjamindreyer.com

Benjamin Dreyerbenjamindreyer.com Benjamin Dreyer, managing editor and copy chief of Random House, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Dreyer's English.

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Opinion | Why I No Longer Subscribe to the New York Times

ah what a helpful op-ed to toss into the mix new york times www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/o...

Opinion | Why I Don’t Votewww.nytimes.com If casting a ballot is merely expressive, then the same is true of not casting one.

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People are painfully tedious on here. "I've never heard of this, explain." Go use the Internet yourself while it still works

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History will recall that the New York Times, that bastion of "the liberal media," on July 4, 2024 chose to give prime space on their op-ed page to a theocratic absolutist who argued that people shouldn't vote, even though he himself has voted in the last 2 elections (but nowhere is that mentioned).

When I first saw this I thought "no, that can't possibly be true." But alas, the Times did indeed choose today of all days to publish a right winger's recycled piece about how they don't vote, failing to mention that the author basically thinks absolutist theocracies are cool.

Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, and Frank Sinatra in rehearsal for the TV musical version of Our Town!

Also confessing that I do not ever view myself as the sharpest tack in the junk drawer, and/but I literally* do not understand what the Times's g.d. problem is. *And when I haul out the "literally," you know I'm serious.

I bet if I told you that Maya Angelou was nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play for appearing as Elizabeth Keckley opposite Geraldine Page as Mary Todd Lincoln in Look Away, which closed on its opening night, you'd say I was making it up.

Back in the early 1970s, when it seemed you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a play about Mary Todd Lincoln, Eva Marie Saint did her bit in The Lincoln Mask, opposite Fred Gwynne.

It was her second and last appearance on Broadway. Her first had been in 1953's The Trip to Bountiful, adapted from the television play, opposite Lillian Gish.

Back in the early 1970s, when it seemed you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a play about Mary Todd Lincoln, Eva Marie Saint did her bit in The Lincoln Mask, opposite Fred Gwynne.

God bless her, the great Eva Marie Saint is 100 years old today. ❤️

A fun thing about these substacky pieces is that when I make a mistake I can fix it, either quietly or not so quietly. In this case: not so quietly.

The Day After Tomorrowopen.substack.com [a promise kept]

God bless her, the great Eva Marie Saint is 100 years old today. ❤️

Finally caught up with The Last Voyage (eh, it's fine: Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone are not necessarily my idea of a great time) and am trying to figure out who the portentous narrator who sounds like John McGiver is. Maybe it's John McGiver.

Currently listening to: Leoš Janáček's Lašské Tance 🎶 Lašské tance, last chance, for love! 🎶

Got ya covered.

Stawwnch Charawcter

today's random theater photos: Julia Marlowe in Clyde Fitch's play Barbara Frietchie (1899)

Happy Fourth!

It's time for the Feats of Strength!

Breaking news: President Biden and his senior team said they accepted the grim ultimatum they’ve been hearing from almost all quarters of the Democratic Party — to demonstrate his fitness for office or face a significant effort to force him to step aside.

Biden and aides concede he needs to quickly demonstrate his fitness for officewww.washingtonpost.com Critics have been shaken by his relative inaction to directly address the panic ignited by his halting debate performance last Thursday.

I just saw this rule posted by an FB group administrator and it made me laugh. "Don’t behave in a way that will make me make more rules. I’m lazy and this is already tedious."

You want to do something useful with AI? Replace Tommy Noonan in A Star Is Born with Monty Clift.

I think that this is revolting, and I think that everyone involved ought to be ashamed of themselves.

AI Firm ElevenLabs Sets Audio Reader Pact With Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Laurence Olivier Estatesvariety.com The estates of Judy Garland, James Dean and more have set an AI audio deal with ElevenLabs for its Reader App that converts digital text to voiceover.

Though that's not even the best line in Arcadia, which is unquestionably: Mr. Chater, you are a welcome guest at Sidley Park, but while you are one, The Castle of Otranto was written by whomsoever I say it was, otherwise what is the point of being a guest or having one?

"We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march." Happy birthday and long life to the master!

I think that this is revolting, and I think that everyone involved ought to be ashamed of themselves.