Dear dimwit on the phone

Or if it's a three-octave fart.

 

A long time ago, we had a reader who used to take certain pages of the paper and red-ink every typo or misspelling and send it in to the editor, who would periodically post them on the bulletin board.

One time, he red-flagged the word Canadiens in a column I wrote about the Montreal NHL franchise, with a little snarky comment about sports writers not being able to spell.

When it got posted up on the board, I took it in to the editor and explained that Canadiens – Canadians in French – was the proper spelling for the Montreal NHL franchise. That was the last time any of that guy's clips got put up.

 

It's Maple Leaves.

 

I might have mentioned this back pages ago...if not.

Last stop I was at in Indiana had a bitchy old, dried-up tuna pussycat on 80 or 90 something that would hand write all of us reporters a weekly rundown of what we did wrong. She was a copy editor for a book-making company and so she thought she was God's gift to editing copy. Problem was, she edited for fiction, we edited for fact and AP style. Not always the same.
She one time wrote to our managing editor that she needed to go back to the college she got her degree back and demand a refund. Just horrible stuff like that all the time.
We later find out she wrote a book, we got a copy of it, found all the errors in it and mailed it to her. That was a few years ago. I hope she is dead now.

 

Post of the Year.

 

yeah...that's pretty awesome...nice work. Would have loved to see her reaction.

 

Had a similar situation in college which I wrote a story using the Canadiens franchise and my professor thought I misspelled the word.

 

When I was in junior high, I wrote something about going to a game at the L.A. Coliseum. Old-guy teacher red-inked it and wrote Colosseum.

 

You hope she's dead?

Seriously.

That's a little harsh no matter what she did.

 

If you think I'm serious...then so be it.

 

That kid who hit a single and got carried in a few at-bats later, just go ahead and credit him with a home run because, you know, the end result was the same.

 

You said it, so I can only think you meant it.