Some Unlucky Copyeditor's Going to Get Can'd For This

Deborah Solomon uses Simon Winchester as the foil for her questionable interviewing charms in this week's NYT Magaine, but an unfortunate transposition ruins her best shot at a wisecrack:

"You Brits are so anxious about advancing your station in life that it's amazing you get can out of bed in the morning." (italics mine)

This, however, was not my favorite Solomon bit; that would be the turn-on-a-dime transition: "One problem I have with geology is that it reduces existence to rocks. Do you believe in God?" As I've mentioned before, Solomon's verbal tactics are perhaps not quite as annoying when you realize she's trying to be playful; at least one interview subject says she's actually pretty nice. But this week's installment won't be making it into her greatest hits portfolio, except perhaps on the strength of Winchester's snappy answers, i.e., defining bad geologists as "the ones who don't find the copper deposits they are sent to find."