88 Comments
User's avatar
Aaron's avatar

The first thing that sticks out to me is "wordly" instead of "worldly"

nina's avatar

But what a concept! Pretty sure I've engaged in many wordly peregrinations.

Doug Wyatt's avatar

I wondered: worldly or wordy?

David J. Sharp's avatar

“[W]ordly peregrinations” — too talkative falcons?

Tom Levenson's avatar

I can see a few, but as I'm not a copy editor I got stopped by the very first but of look-at-me bombast: "his worldly peregrinations culminating..." (Come to think of it, I guess that fragment contains both copy-and-line-editable sins.)

David J. Sharp's avatar

Plus the ultimate sin of self-congratulation …

Benjamin Dreyer's avatar

As someone once said: In matters of taste, there is none.

Margaret Owens's avatar

"helped we" should be "helped us" -- How about: "helped us, long term residents, to start"

Lisa's avatar

Should the first-person plural pronoun be “us longtime residents” not “we longtime residents”?

Ron Irving's avatar

That "we" is too painful. Just stops me dead.

Selden's avatar

Shouldn't it be: "he quickly helped US longtime residents"? I can't imagine "he helped we" is correct?

Benjamin Dreyer's avatar

That’s ’cause it ain’t.

🙏🏻

David J. Sharp's avatar

A typo no doubt—he was referring to us leprechauns.

Paul's avatar

“Us” instead of “we.” And a flagrant series comma violation!

Benjamin Dreyer's avatar

Times is gonna Times.

Kian Razi's avatar

"When his worldly peregrinations finally brought him to Los Angeles, he forced us, longtime residents, to see our own city anew, transforming the everyday pools, palms, sprinklers, facades, and sky into that legendary light." I hope my wordly intervention helps we literary connoisseurs!

David J. Sharp's avatar

Now let us enjoy a pleasant flute of Mansplain!

Mary Nichols's avatar

When his world travels finally ended in Los Angeles, he taught us longtime Angelinos to see anew our city of pools, palms, sprinklers, and building facades, and its sky and its lights.

docmommaVA's avatar

We happy few....

Quentin Hardy's avatar

For extra credit, I'm knocking "quickly" off the page.

David J. Sharp's avatar

And not a moment too soon!

Quentin Hardy's avatar

What's the point of creating those groundbreaking swimming pool paintings if you're not moving fast?

David J. Sharp's avatar

Oh, I don’t know … if it’s swimming pools, I prefer a crawl.

Molly's avatar

It's such a morass, but I'd (if I had to) culminate my peregrinations where, not when.

Of course they aren't wordly peregrinations, so what do I know.

Joyce Miller's avatar

I would replace that “when” with “where”

dale pesmen's avatar

Then his worldly peregrinations culminated in his arrival in Los Angeles, where he helped us longtime residents start seeing again, as if for the first time, the pools, the palms, the sprinklers, the building facades, the sky — and that light!

Sandra Smith's avatar

I rewrote the passage almost exactly as you did! I had a feeling that this writer would refuse to yield the word "peregrinations."

Renee Perry's avatar

When I become tyrant of the planet, my first act will be bringing back the copy editors.

Hockney had a great run and was working to close to the end. I didn't understand his work until I saw that iPad show in SF years ago.

Bruce Sellers (Georgia, USA)'s avatar

I wonder if this was written by a real live human-type person? Would AI even be capable of such convolutions??

Benjamin Dreyer's avatar

I would argue that only a a real live human-type person would be capable of such convolutions.

A bot would have tried less hard and not tripped over its own fingers so badly.

Bruce Sellers (Georgia, USA)'s avatar

That's pretty much the conclusion I drew as well.

Amy Margolis's avatar

Heartening.

Holly Starbright's avatar

What sticks out to me most is that this seems to be an incomplete sentence. His worldly whatevers, when he helped US to start seeing again all that stuff . . . did what?

Beth Pearson's avatar

Exactly.