Condescending to readers

Christopher Hitchens shares some thoughts on editors in an interview with Stop Smiling Magazine.

I used the word "Promethean" and the [magazine editors] said, "Take that out because people won't know what Promethean means." I said, "Maybe they won't. I'll cut it out if you give me another synonym for it. You give the words that would stand in for it and I'll change it." "There doesn't seem to be one," they said. "No, there isn't, is there?" You either know what "Promethean" means or you don't. If you do, it saves you about 50 words. And if you don't, then you can look it up! So I said, "No. I'm going to keep it, because it's an important word and it's actually not condescending to Americans in the least. You have to condescend far more by finding the 50-word substitute. No, I won't change it. Fuck you. And I don't mean to publish in your magazine, either, for that matter."

I'm reading this review, and I happen to remember -- I forget what the review was of -- but they mentioned Tolstoy. This sentence said, "This is reminiscent of the 19th Century Russian novelist Count Leo Tolstoy." Now, clearly, the author [of the review] had not written this. But someone had thought, "Not all our readers know who Tolstoy is. We better tell them." This is ridiculous! If you don't know who he is, that doesn't tell you any more than what you don't know.

(Link via Bookslut)