Pseud's Corner

Via Prospect's blog, here's Matin Amis:

"…my principal objection to the numbers [”9/11″] is that they are numbers. The solecism, that is to say, is not grammatical but moral-aesthetic—an offence against decorum; and decorum means “seemliness”, which comes from soemr, “fitting”, and soema, “to honour”. 9/11, 7/7: who or what decided that particular acts of slaughter, particular whirlwinds of plasma and body parts, in which a random sample of the innocent is killed, maimed or otherwise crippled in body and mind, deserve a numerical shorthand? Whom does this “honour”? What makes this “fitting”? So far as I am aware, no one has offered the only imaginable rationale: that these numerals, after all, are Arabic."

To which, I think, one must say, Oh Shut Up...

Comments

[ben]

What did logic, common decency and the English language ever do to Mr. Amis that he would treat them so?

[Robert Geilfuss]

I really like Amis (I'm reading Money right now, and like some of his essays), but this is truly pedantry missing the point.