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NEWS: NTUSA Re-Writes Challenged by Columnist

Unfortunately this kind of practice is relatively common. Common enough that some staff at ANN questioned why we bothered reporting on it, "Everyone knows that the major magazines often dilute reviews, why bother writing about it, its not news" is a rough paraphrase of what I was told.

Actually, he said "fails considerably", which means that it's not a total loss, thus validating the argument that it's at least satisfactory if not excellent.

I don't read it that way, nor would anyone I've ever met read it that way. "Fails considerably" to me means "Fails. A lot."

And I've only ever heard tremendous used the way you're using it when it refers to a living thing. When it's used to describe a story or anything like that, it's pretty much always meant to be read in a positive light. I see absolutely no reason to change "too much" into "tremendous" unless you're trying to put a positive spin on it.

And reading the two articles, it seems quite obvious to me that he did not like the book, while the rewritter apparently thought it not bad. Which doesn't really say much for it if you're completely rewritting someone's review to mean the opposite of what it originally said, and the best you can come up with is "just OK".

deathbringer wrote:

I don't read it that way, nor would anyone I've ever met read it that way. "Fails considerably" to me means "Fails. A lot."

And "Fails A lot" does not mean total failure that is not worth a look either. If it's a total failure, he would have just come and said "fails totaly". "Fails considerably" just means that it didn't deliver up to his expectations, but is not a total loss.

And I've only ever heard tremendous used the way you're using it when it refers to a living thing. When it's used to describe a story or anything like that, it's pretty much always meant to be read in a positive light. I see absolutely no reason to change "too much" into "tremendous" unless you're trying to put a positive spin on it.

Just because you read a positive spin on something does not mean it's there. The first definition of tremendous is "Extremely large in amount, extent, or degree; enormous." If I tell you I had a tremendous story to tell you, you may think I mean a great story, but that doesn't mean that's what I'm telling you.

And reading the two articles, it seems quite obvious to me that he did not like the book, while the rewritter apparently thought it not bad. Which doesn't really say much for it if you're completely rewritting someone's review to mean the opposite of what it originally said, and the best you can come up with is "just OK".

It's not obvious to me that the rewrite is that different then original. It IS different, but both of them say the same thing to me. It's interesting that you think the rewrite did a bad job of putting a positive spin on it when the best they could come up is "just ok." Maybe it's because they weren't really trying to? Ok, at best, means satisfactory and at worst means mediocre.

It is obvious to the original writer of the article, and to me, and to quite a few other people obviously, otherwise there wouldn't be as many people that sympathize with him. And it was apparently obvious to the people at Newtype what he meant, otherwise there wouldn't have been a reason to do to his article what they did to it.