Off Blog Post - Letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal
7th March 2008
Quoting the immortal Howard Beal, “I’m made as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” The WSJ represents a standard of writing quality that is unexceeded today, yet is plagued with one particular idiomatic earnestness that turns me purple. From today’s Journal, let me observe from a story about John McCain and Barack Obama:
“He could stop playing politics with the Federal Election Commission in a way that could hamper John McCain’s campaign against, well, Mr. Obama.”
I have no idea which bright writer first drank from that “well” (perhaps it goes back to F. Scott Fitzgerald?), but it has become cliché and rivals “at the end of the day . . .” in the Pantheon of past-their-prime grammatical metaphors (or should I say, “memes?”). I came of age in the 1960s and can still watch film of hippies doing that zombie dance, but if I find yet another “well” in a WSJ story I’ll be forced to have another vodka, not gin, martini or else visit a competitor.
I propose that the editors of the Journal employ a dreaded, familiar, but potentially effective device to curtail this practice. Impose a 500 word penalty on any writer who uses YA”W”. The YA”W” Tariff would restore the standards of excellence, imagination, and, well, greatness, we’ve all grown to associate with the Journal.
Truly,
Steve Booth-Butterfield
Morgantown, WV