Carrie Golus

Dear Diary …

  • In which my son revises Strunk and White

    My son’s college writing teacher assigned the class to write the longest, most convoluted version of the classic Strunk and White advice, “Omit needless words,” as possible. His magnum opus: “Despite what one often hears from the many so-called experts on the matter, it is imperative that, according to Strunk and White’s famous, popular, and…

  • Against whatever

    I have a weak spot for anything headlined “Against [whatever].” I cannot resist. A cranky, contrarian opinion against something the rest of us agree is just fine? Bring it. Please. I was under the impression this genre began with Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation, “the mother of all contemporary click-bait intellectual polemics,” as a 2014 New…

  • When I say no, it’s no.

    Classicist Emily Wilson is “the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English,” according to this 2017 New York Times Magazine article. (The first woman to publish a translation in English, would be my guess.) Her translation is really, really different, and apparently if you know anything about Greek (I don’t), it sounds like Greek,…

  • The Unabomber’s copy of Strunk and White

    Earlier this month, when I was off work recuperating from surgery and still in an anesthesia-induced haze (I’m fine, thanks for asking), I found myself reading the September 2009 issue of College English. As you do. I had stumbled onto the article, “The Fighting Style: Reading the Unabomber’s Strunk and White,” by Catherine Prendergast, an…