Another small sampling of sparkling prose from recent editions.
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Arts, 5/16:
Kirk and Spock, in Their Roughhousing Days
In some of his television work - notably “Felicity†and “Aliasâ€; most famously “Lost†- Mr. Abrams has shown both sensitivity to character and an inventive approach to storytelling. As a movie director, though, an opposite set of instincts too often takes hold, as he clings ever more anxiously to the conventions of the revenge-driven action genre. Hardly one to boldly go anywhere, he prefers to cautiously follow and skillfully pander.
A telling and tone-perfect twist on the famous “Star Trek†line, in a review by A.O. Scott.
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Science, 6/27:
Scientists Unlock Mystery in Evolution of Pitchers
No one knows whether Homo erectus, the early ancestor of both the Yankees and the Red Sox, threw the split-finger fastball.
But he could have, according to a group of scientists who offer new evidence that the classic overhand throw used by baseball players at all positions, and by snowball, rock and tomato hurlers of all ages, is an evolutionary adaptation dependent on several changes in anatomy. They first appeared, the researchers say, around 1.8 million years ago, when humans were most likely beginning to hunt big game and needed to throw sharp objects hard and fast.
[Caption] Mariano Rivera of the Yankees is a celebrated closer, but Homo erectus wasn't bad in his day.
Jim Gorman's account of a key evolutionary adaptation - humans' ability to throw - was full of delightful touches. And the caption writer also rose to the challenge with a delightful embellishment.
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Metro, 5/6:
Poetry of the Streets, Written by Those Who Know Them Best
He read quickly at times, stumbling on occasion. But for the weightiest section, his delivery was calibrated perfectly, like an avenue's worth of traffic lights, turning green in succession.
“Dignity, always dignity. Some men are not their best behind the wheel of a car,†he said.
He idled for a moment.
“Wish to feel the heartbeat of the big, bad city?†Mr. Goldman asked. “You are doing the right job.â€
In a feature about cabby-poets, Matt Flegenheimer included some perfect images of his own.
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Business Day, 6/20:
Optimistic Fed Outlines an End to Its Stimulus
The impact on the economy will take longer to judge. The Fed's goal is to pull back as the economy gains strength so its departure is barely felt, like a parent who lets go of a bike at the moment a child is ready to ride. But the Fed has removed its hands too soon several times in recent years. On the other side of the equation, the central bank, at some point, runs the risk of pushing too hard for too long, which can also cause crashes.
With images like this one, Binyamin Appelbaum does the seemingly impossible: writing engagingly about Fed policy.
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Business Day, 6/28:
Fed Officials Try to Ease Concern of Stimulus End
The economy is the victim of a little misunderstanding, Federal Reserve officials said on Thursday, telling investors who have sent borrowing costs soaring that they are misguided in believing the Fed's stimulus campaign is about to wane.
And a few days later, Appelbaum did it again.
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Foreign, 5/8:
Bodies Pour In as Nigeria Hunts for Islamists
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - A fresh load of battered corpses arrived, 29 of them in a routine delivery by the Nigerian military to the hospital morgue here.
Unexpectedly, three bodies started moving.
“They were not properly shot,†recalled a security official here. “I had to call the J.T.F.†- the military's joint task force - “and they gunned them down.â€
Nothing “bright†about this ghastly scene, but Adam Nossiter's terse opening to this grim tale is unforgettable.
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In a Word
This week's grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
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He volunteered to teach me (just as valiant beaus before him have tried), but the way I see it, no adult should have to supplicate herself to such a trust exercise. It's humiliating.
Presumably we meant “subject,†not “supplicate,†which means implore or plead.
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Even English - named the seventh most useless major last year by Newsweek - may not be in such bad shape, Mr. Silver says, or at least not any worse shape then before.
A common but irksome typo. Make it than, not then.
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A steamier domestic drama plays out in “A Muse,†by the South Korean director Jung Ji-woo, about the triangle that develops among a famous poet, his young protégé and the high schoolgirl who installs herself as the poet's housemaid and companion.
Just a missing space, but it changes the meaning rather drastically.
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After a couple of days in Surry County, I found myself no less closer to unraveling the riddle that is the sonker.
A strange, unintended double negative. Make it “no closer.â€
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Just after 3 p.m. Friday, the three-judge panel issued a one-sentence ruling lifting the stay on a district judge's injunction to not enforce the ban on same-sex marriages.
The back-and-forth-and-back description of the ruling made this very difficult to understand.
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Busking being serious business in Midtown, long-simmering tensions between the box man and one of his rivals erupted into violence on Friday night, when the box man was said to have stabbed a competing panhandler, Wayne Semancik, five times in the head and chest with a pen.
[Caption] Wayne Semancik, a busker, was stabbed five times with a pen that left puncture wounds on his face, scalp and chest. A sign he carries asks for “spare change for pot, pizza and beer.â€
“Busk†means to perform in a public place for money. While these Times Square regulars have a shtick of sorts, several readers argued that “begging†or “panhandling†was a more accurate description.
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“This global collection of grass-roots volunteers makes for a collectively brilliant creation, but it can also lead to online hysteria and ‘edit wars' over minutia like how to categorize hummus.â€
Here, as in most uses, we wanted the plural: “minutiae.â€
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Even while becoming a Teen Beat sensation in the late '80s playing the angst-y narc on “21 Jump Street†on television, it was Mr. Depp's extracurricular reputation - for unsolicited hotel room renovation and for breaking the hearts of doe-eyed gamins - that made him a poster boy for delinquency.
This cumbersome sentence is made worse by the dangler at the beginning. Make it “Even while he was a Teen Beat sensation†or “while he was becoming.â€
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It did not take long, but then it rarely does after uber-upsets.
These pseudo-German coinages are worn out and best avoided; in any case, über takes an umlaut.
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Some critics say it has grown too easy, with a pass rate of about 90 percent last year; others contend that it now serves as little more than an exceptionally inefficient way to weed out the least-proficient students.
No need for a hyphen.
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With the city's annual budget already passed, Mr. Bloomberg has lost a major tool of persuasion in his negotiations with council members. But the popular and wealthy mayor still has a sizable arsenal at his disposal, starting with the promise of his future political support, not to mention the traditional carrots and sticks that any City Hall can wield.
“Tool,†“arsenal†and “carrots and sticks†are a lot of different metaphors to wield in one passage.
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By contrast, everyone knew where half of the Moscow press corps was: halfway to Havana, on one of the few regular Russian flights that does not serve alcohol.
Recorded announcement: The subject in the relative clause is “that,†which is plural to agree with its antecedent, “flights.†So make it “few regular Russian flights that do not serve alcohol.â€
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But the underlying issue here is the marriage of mutual dependency and inevitable misery that Rodriguez and the Yankees are locked into, till the death of his $275 million contract (after the 2017 season) do they part.
Playing on this trope is a pretty shopworn device by now. But if we must do it, remember, the expression is “till death do US part†- “us†is the direct object, not the subject. So in this example we needed “do THEM part.â€
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Following a much-publicized three-week trial, he found that same-sex marriage caused no harm whatsoever to the state or society but substantial harm to same-sex couples by depriving them of their rights to equal protection and due process.
The thought is garbled here. Presumably we meant that a ban on same-sex marriage caused substantial harm to those couples.
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China expected an important annual meeting between the United States and China, known as the Security and Economic Dialogue, to proceed as scheduled for July in Washington, Ms. Hua said.
“Expects,†not “expected.†With the attribution “Ms. Hua said†at the end, it does not require changing the other verb tenses.
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In January, House Democrats - with a minority of House Republicans - passed a Senate-White House compromise to avert massive tax increases and sudden across-the-board spending cuts, after House Republicans sunk the speaker's more conservative version of the legislation.
Sank, not sunk.
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Abigail Fisher, who sued the University of Texas over it's affirmative action policy, appeared with Edward Blum of the Project on Fair Representation, at a news conference on Monday after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in her case.
Oh, how this slip annoys readers. It was quickly fixed: “its,†not “it's.â€
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Because the president had already authorized the federal government to cover 75 percent of the state's costs for debris removal and emergency response, the governor's request amounted to a relatively small amount - roughly $17 million in uninsured and underinsured damages to public buildings, equipment and utilities.
“Damages†are awarded by a court in a lawsuit; “damage†is the word for injury, harm or destruction, no matter how widespread.
