Tuesday, September 21, 2010

More about Eleanor Gould Packard...

After reading "Grammarian, Copy Editor, Magazine Legend" by Janny Scott, I thought I would do more research on Eleanor Gould Packard.

Wow, what an amazingly gifted, focused, and dedicated, woman.

E.B White gives Eleanor credit for her for her contributions to the second edition of "The Elements of Style." (The first edition was written by William Strunk Jr.) In her obituary, which she contributed to before her death, her boss called her "indispensable."

"“My list of pet language peeves,” she once told The Key Reporter, the Phi Beta Kappa newsletter, “would certainly include writers’ use of indirection (i.e., slipping new information into a narrative as if the reader already knew it); confusion between restrictive and non-restrictive phrases and clauses (‘that’ goes with restrictive clauses, and, ordinarily, ‘which’ with nonrestrictive); careless repetition; and singular subjects with plural verbs and vice versa.” She was a fiend for problems of sequence and logic. In her presence, modifiers dared not dangle. She could find a solecism in a Stop sign.""

I stand in awe of such talent.

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