[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Aug 30 2005, 12:33 PM\'][quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Aug 29 2005, 10:35 PM\'][quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Aug 29 2005, 10:22 PM\']That's right. Doug hates it when people refer to themselves in the third person (sorry, Doug just couldn't resist the opportunity for the lame joke).
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At least you're being consistent. We have at least one individual here who, back in the ATGS days, managed to refer to himself in both the first person and the third person in the same sentence.[/quote]
To this day I can remember an old TV Guide letter to the editor wondering why Cleveland Amory, their resident critic, always referred to himself in the plural. ("We thought...") The letter writer wondered if there was more than one Cleveland Amory.
Amory's response: No, there's only one. Ours truly.
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For you young'uns out there who aren't steeped in journalism lore, Matt is referring to what we like to call the "editorial we". Whenever editorials are written from the viewpoint of the paper, the plural possessive is always used, such as in this excerpt from a recent (okay, it's from today's paper) New York Times editorial:
Obviously, it will take time to completely analyze all of the federal system failures, and no one imagines that the city and state were perfectly prepared for the disaster. But we certainly hope that the president was not taking responsibility for a government that he doesn't really think was responsible.
I always used to love Cleveland Amory's reviews - he was a crotchety old bastard, he was - and the gentleman who succeeded him (whose name I can't recall) was pretty good too.
