Re: Countchars

[Wolfgang Bechstein bechstein@xxxxxxxx]

Patricia M Godfrey  wrote:

> An article on James Bothwell read, in the
> original, "His morals were scandalous, even for Scotland." The subject
> editor (who had an Irish surname) wrote, "What does this imply about
> Scotland?" And the managing editor (name of Allen) added a decisive,
> "Avoid offending the Scots!" "Even for Scotland" was then deleted.

Avoid offending the Scots, indeed, but never mind about offending the
reader's intelligence. And thus, as so often happens during multi-tiered
editing, is a witty apercu turned into bloodless bland prose.

Wolfgang Bechstein
bechstein@xxxxxxxx