Writers of the world, vaguely unite!
In the New Yorker piece "The Lunchroom Rebellion," Burkhard Bilger
writes of "a Hobart mixer with a vaguely menacing air, like the hooded
mother beast in 'Aliens.'"
That is not a vague menace! That is a specific menace! Bilger used
"vaguely" either to slow the sentence's pace (unneeded), to highlight or
imply his characterization is ingenuous (unlikely), or out of sloppy
editing (unseemly). It's the third needless "vague" I've seen in print
this week -- a vaguely worrying trend.
Comments
- vague
- random
- I would argue
- meta
- rife
Tartine is great.