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The Hypocritcal Hate Response From: R A Miller To: nebulizer19@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 9:26 AM Dear 'Nebulizer': Thanks for your reply to our ad seeking writers. My colleagues and I gave it some consideration this morning, and I actually had to consult my copy of the Associated Press Stylebook to see if we were indeed as sloppy as you accuse. If you do likewise, you'll see that -- on pp. 88 -- 'free-lance' is hyphenated in all cases. On pp. 124, you'll note that 'long-term' is hyphenated when used as a modifier. (In case that's confusing, a modifier is a word that helps describe or qualify another word -- usually a noun or verb...) My version of the Stylebook has no entry for 'website,' nor does it have an entry for 'Holy Grail.' I checked dictionary.com (great site; you should check it out!) for the latter. 'Holy Grail' is a proper name and should be capitalized; however, 'grail' is a common noun (not capitalized) and 'holy' is a simple adjective (also not capitalized) -- so some people here have argued that maybe the ad writer was not referring to the specific religious object and instead referring to a more mundane vessel. If it makes you feel any better, I am siding with you in this regard and will be administering a nasty beating shortly. As for your more figurative complaint -- our assessment that you probably can't write for The Onion, Vanity Fair, or Esquire -- we're forced to respond with a question: Have you been published in any of the above? (If yes, please send proof of publication; we'll happily remove our Craigslist posting.) If not, you should probably consider the following: According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 41,000 writers and 104,000 editors employed by U.S. corporations (and potentially more than 1 million more writers who work on a free-lance basis). Combined, The Onion, Vanity Fair, and Esquire offer fewer than 200 opportunities to be published on a monthly basis -- and because, when we last checked, The Onion offers zero (0) opportunities for free-lancers, that number is probably closer to 50 opportunities. Given the disparity between the number of working writers and the number of opportunities to be published, we stand by our assumption that you probably can't write for those media outlets. Statistically speaking, it is unlikely your work will be accepted. If it makes your job search any more efficient, you can add another media outlet to the list of places you won't be published: ours. Anyone unable to decipher our wry disillusionment with big media and the hard economics of the publishing industry from our ad's opening line probably does not have the literary savvy to produce stories and commentary in which we'd we'd like to invest. (However, we do plan to post your correspondence to our Web site next month as part of our April Fool's issue. It looks quite topical.) Thanks for your interest, and have a great day.
Dipshit.
R A Miller
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