![]() ![]() ![]() Changes on the list might reflect changes in counting procedure, rather than changes in the market. Rather, they reflect editorial decisions about how and what to count. The Blatty case draws attention to a fundamental truth about bestseller lists, one that often gets forgotten amid the drama of their weekly publication: they are not a neutral window into what the public is really reading. The court ruled in favor of the New York Times. The Times countered with what might sound like a surprising admission: the bestseller list is not mathematically objective it is editorial content, which is protected by the First Amendment. According to Blatty’s lawyers, Legion had sold enough copies to warrant a spot on the list, so its absence was due to negligence or fraud, for which Blatty was entitled to compensation. 1 His lawsuit alleged that the Times had incorrectly excluded his latest novel, Legion (a sequel to The Exorcist), from its bestseller list-the coveted ranking that purports to show the books that have sold the most copies that week in the United States. In 1983, William Blatty-author of The Exorcist-sued the New York Times. Thus, to show intonation, instead of “Do you want coffee or tea?”, one can write “Do you want coffee? or tea?” (In that example, “or” is not capitalized because it clearly does not begin a sentence.) I was told that “data” is the plural of “datum,” and I decided to believe it, so I write (and say) things like “The data show…” and not “The data shows…”)Īs Jordan Pruet explains at, “bestsellers” are not, as one might think, the books most frequently purchased. ![]() For example, I read long ago, probably in Fowler, that “?” and “!” are marks of intonation, and thus do not necessarily end a sentence (as does, for example, “.”). The question here seems closely related to the previous post, another example of “What do we know? and how do we know it?”Īside: Some things we know because (a) someone told us and (b) we decided to believe it - and language usage is very much like that. ![]()
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