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Marcel's avatar

"Its members and supporters swore themselves to subtly."

"and bitterly fought the deep pocket Democratic political machine of Tammany Hall."

A couple examples from the first handful of paragraphs. First is obviously supposed to be "secrecy", second I have no idea if "deep pocket" was intended or something else is missing. I really enjoy the subject matter, but your posts would be significantly improved with even cursory editing. Every few paragraphs there's something that causes the reader to have to stop and figure out what you meant. Apologies for the critique, but the last few posts have had more than a few of these.

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Justin Ling's avatar

On the first: Swearing yourself to secrecy means actually keeping your lips shut. Swearing yourself to subtly means doing a wink-and-a-nod "I know nothing." It's a play on words. Too clever by half? You're probably right.

Tammany Hall was an elites' club that was the main fundraising arm of the Democratic Party. Hence the deep-pockets (Deep-pocketed?) Anyway, I normally add hyperlinks for this sort of thing — as a way of saying "hey, I'm not going to stop and unpack this, if you're curious: This is what I mean." I neglected to do a lot of that hyperlinking here, which I shouldn't skip on.

Everyone needs an editor, myself especially! I know it's slightly annoying to read rough(er) copy, but that's the price we're paying for a fucked up media industry.

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Erwin Dreessen's avatar

Justin, as always, I greatly appreciate the results of your investigations. Their depth is phenomenal. However, I share Marcel's annoyance with the multitude of errors (wrong word, wrong spelling, etc.) in every dispatch. Yes, you need a copy-editor! I believe I've offered my services before (at no charge). Contact me if you're interested.

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Justin Ling's avatar

I may yet take you up on that in the future! Don't take it personally that I haven't: I am trying to keep up the quality/in-depthed-ness of this newsletter while also juggling other gigs. This is journalism these days! It means that I'm often working on them *right* up to the point where they go out. I've heard the feedback, though, and have tried to squeeze in a few extra round of edits each time.

I appreciate it's annoying! I'll redouble efforts to edit more aggressively.

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Roy Brander's avatar

This is either extended kidding about a typo, or everybody missed it. I was going to let it go.

Subtly == adverb for how you do something.

Subtlety == noun for an attitude that you can swear yourself to.

Now that we've cleared away the important issues, back to saving the world.

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Justin Ling's avatar

Oh for heaven's sake, I'm an idiot. Thank you for clearing that up. Apologies to the others for not picking up on it.

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Roy Brander's avatar

Actually, I hate to break the flow with that quibbling; if communication was accomplished, despite a typo, then picking on it is just 'nyah, I'm smart'. I struggle every day with the desire to save "whom", but I can see the battle is lost, and keep my peace.

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Justin Ling's avatar

I entirely understand why it irks people. A bungled phrase can really disrupt someone's reading flow!

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