Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Which is more unforgivable ?

The most unforgivable sin for any real writer is NOT SELLING!

Or in the case of Ross Seyfried and Wolfe Publishing it might be pissing off everyone else that worked at the magazine. He may have sold at the stands but apparantly not in the office.

After MD's departure I'm thinking that getting along with some of the decision makers at Wolfe might be harder than you'd think!.............................................DJ

Nice use of the comma splice, but you missed one after "wage"...

An old, established, and successful fishing writer advised me at the start of my "career" in that field that the main thing was to write, whether for a national publication or a weekly "shopper" newspaper. I have found in over 30 years of following that advice that the idea is most important for a freelancer, having a gift for expressing that idea runs close behind. Editors are a necessary evil, and those who recognize a writer who needs little or no editing are rare and valuable. Those who edit, "because they can", should be used for target practice. I don't find that much in the way of new ideas or honest reporting in the gun magazines, and they are as bad or worse than boating magazines in pandering to their advertisers. No one who still holds Jack O'Connor in the highest regard is misguided, as we will never see another writer like him in these times, in this field. I often wonder what he would have thought of the outdoor TV shows and the swing to so much "tactical" equipment and "black rifles?

Modern American English tends to eliminate commas in places where they were formerly used. But never was it OK to use a comma between two adjectives describing the same noun.

The best grammar source I found was a fifth-grade English book from about 1960, which I bought at a yard sale. (Learned the correct usage of "that" and "which," btw.) The basics were there and easy to understand. I finally found out what a prepisition was.

I don't like to write much, and don't like to copy edit at all. I only do it when I have to, and then my attention span is very short. I see errors in magazine articles, but if I had to read for them, I'd quickly lose interest.

Speaking of Wolfe Pubishing, what's the deal in March's "Rifle" magazine. Article on the 8 x 57 Mauser was titled "8 x 57 MM Magnum." Did I miss something? Didn't read the whole article, but in the parts I did read, I saw no reference to "Magnum."

There's an 8 x 60 S Magnum. It had me confused.

You aren't the only one Gene, there have been several who have posted that same confusion. My guess is that both the author and the editor would like to take that one back.

As a college English instructor, I would like to dispute this statement. Spellcheck is a great first line of defense when editing, but it doesn't take care of misspellings in which the way a writer misspelled the word is actually a word, just not the word the writer meant to use. Examples of words that get misused in this way are: accept and except; there, their and they're; to, too and two; lose and loose; dessert and desert. There are many more, but you get the idea. I can sniff out a paper that has only been spellchecked in less than a page. I encourage my students to never depend on a machine to do the work they should be doing.

Years ago there was a study by a prominent business school about what traits did very successful corporate CEOs have in common.

The researchers' original expectations were that there would be many such traits.

But to the researchers' dismay they found very little in common among successful CEOs.

Some were Ivy League graduates. Some were high school drop outs. Some worked very long hours seven days a week. Some were out of the office sharply at 5. Some were fanatical exercisers. Some were greatly overweight. Some were avid readers. Others hadn't touched a book in years.

The researchers found only one common trait among the extremely successful CEOs. They were all fanatical spellers. They could spot a single misspelled word in a full page in a fraction of a second. And they were all greatly irritated by the misspelled words.

Some would take the misspelled words as a sign of lack of pride in workmanship. Others as a sign of disrespect by the writer for the reader.

Someone with greater insight into the human mind than I have will have to decipher this and its value.


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JB,

Of course it's important to use good grammar, and to punctuate correctly. I wasn't dissing that in my posting above, merely stating that there's absolutely NO way that I'll be running a spell check on your writing.
The single thing that has you stand out among others is that your aliveness comes through your writing like a freight train on a downhill slope. And, you are VERY good at using the tools of the English language.

Don

JB's writing style certainly separates him from almost all of the other writers. But in addition to his style, his writing is consistently substantive. He bases his opinions on facts, and first hand experience. And then his ability to accurately both interpret and then explain those fact is superb.

He has a lot in common with the best teacher we ever had. And like that teacher, he does not appreciate having to explain it again to someone who is not paying attention.

We're fortunate to have him at the Fire.

Steve

i love that but took a good hit to the head because of it.....thought it would be funny to format it and turn it in as a cutline along with a couple stories i wrote so that it appeared legit and i handed it to our proofreader on press day.....apparently she was having a bad day cause she stood up from her desk and threw a book at me when i wasnt looking.....

If anyone thinks I am going to correct spelling or go to any great lengths posting, they are just wrong, I don't like you guys enough to to be PC and let you grade my papers!!

BTW thats a joke for all you dumb a$$es that take all this posting seriously...

Yeah, and has anyone else noticed, it is more often than not difficult to answer his posts because what he has to say is so definitive that nothing is left to add, subtract, contradict etc.
He is, in my opinion, THAT good.
Ingwe

Let's include Jim Zumbo's (Dumbo) gaff about banning AR's since there is no legitimate place for them in hunting.