From a brief biography of a university president, on the president’s page at his university’s website:
He is a proud father of daughter X, son-in-law Y, two granddaughters, and daughter, Z all residing in Michigan.Michigan, really? I would think that this family must reside in the darker regions of ancient Greek mythmaking.
This president doesn’t deserve any help in fixing this sentence, and he’d probably fire anyone who tried. But it wouldn’t be difficult to improve things. Cut the son-in-law; cut “all residing in Michigan” (the president’s school is in Kansas, and besides, who cares?); name everyone or no one. He has two daughters and two granddaughters. And he’s fired many faculty members.
Thanks to the reader who brought life at Emporia State back to my awareness, but who might not want to be associated with this snarky post.
Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)
[This post is no. 109 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]
comments: 2
Lol, not Michigan—Mount Olympus, yes!
Cronos and Rhea are brother and sister, as you know,
and their daughter and son Hera & Zeus marry one another, so that’s a start on a match,
if the president were being compared to Uranus (ouch!).
It’s like that CW song,” I Am My Own Grandad”
I think the comparison is apt.
Look — the original recording of that song is at YouTube.
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