Tuesday, June 06, 2006

My letter to The New Yorker

This is a letter I emailed yesterday to The New Yorker. Which just goes to show what goes on in the idle
mind of a freelance Enchilada.


Dear Mr. Remnick:

I love The New Yorker. My life is not complete without it. But here's my beef: almost every time that words
in Spanish appear in The New Yorker, they are
misspelled. This drives me crazy. I am a native Spanish
speaker and I can forgive such lapses in other
publications, but not in your esteemed magazine.
This
past week it was "narcotraficantes", spelled with two efs. Recently, two opening exclamation points
and a
comma were missing in Martin Amis' story about Mohammed Atta. The absence of this comma
changed the
meaning of the sentence from "Come on, get up" to "let's go up". Not the same thing.
These errors break my heart. Somehow, I have a feeling that they do not happen in French, so why do they
happen in Spanish?

So I hereby volunteer, in all seriousness, to spell check for you any time there are words in Spanish
in
the magazine. I feel I will be providing an invaluable service, both for the sake of the magazine's
excellence as well as for the many Spanish speakers
like me, who love The New Yorker and go bonkers
every
time this happens (it feels like a slap in the face). I will be delighted to speak to your factcheckers.

I take this opportunity to tell you that you are doing a fantastic job and that the magazine is brilliant.

Respectfully,

(Despite my copious ass-kissing, I haven't heard from him yet).



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