DISQUS

Andrew S. · 1 year ago

Excellent. There's a whole lot here we're not being told.

pauldenby73 · 1 year ago

Now this is what Wendy Painting would defend as scholarship.

First, let's start with sentence structure. Wendy's misuse of the comma - ignoring a comma where it should be inserted and inserting a comma where it has no place - betrays a lack of sophistication that would get the paper of a 11th grade English student a number of red marks.

The following sentence:

"The source, who because of privacy concerns, will, within this article, be referred to simply as 'D.'"

is, in the world of smart people, better written as the following:

"Within this article, out of privacy concerns, the source will be simply referred to as 'D.'"

As another example of mangled sentence structure, the following sentence:

"Nichols, in 2006, stated that that in November 1992 McVeigh told him he had been recruited by the Army for an undercover mission."

would be better served with the following:

"In 2006, Nichols stated that, in November 1992, McVeigh told him that he had been recruited by the Army for an undercover mission."

The first sentence above is easily seen as that written by a high school junior, while the second sentence is easily seen as the result of correction.

As you can see, the lack of understanding of sentence structure extends beyond a few misplaced commas. Among the numerous examples in the article, consider the following:

"Mahon, it seems, who admitted to knowing McVeigh, was never questioned."

In correcting that sentence, an educated high school senior would likely render the following:

"It seems that Mahon, who admitted to knowing McVeigh, was never questioned."

Also, the writer clearly doesn't understand the rules of capitalization. She refers to concepts such as "Federal investigation," "Federal government" and "Anti-Terrorism bill." In fact, she can't seem to understand her own made-up rules of capitalization. Thus: "Skinhead" and "skinheads"; "Militia" and "militias."

But I'm just scratching the surface here. One might think that this text could be used as a model of study in bad English for high school sophomores, but I think that that would be insulting to such sophomores. As an example of the sort of thing that comes out of an unbalanced mind, consider the following:

"The fact that Strassmeir appeared in the U.S in the summer of 1989 in intriguing given that this was the same time that McVeigh returned from Germany after being involved in a “Change Up Program” the with German military, during his “active” duty in the military."

The problem with that sentence is that, even if I'm kind to the author and allow for certain mistakes, the sentence nonetheless makes no sense.

I recommend that the author engage in a remedial English program.

As to the substance of the article, I think it's striking that an imaginary friend named "D." (or is it "D"?) shows up, and that the author tells us that we're so manipulated that we live in fear of body odor. Enough said there.

Andrew S. · 1 year ago

Does it make you feel better doing this to other people? Maybe you could accomplish something with your life if you built people up instead of tearing them down. Whatever you have to do to justify your existence I guess.