Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

The actual sentence from the article is: "That does not mean that either the network or Mr. Leno has no risk in the move." And the sentence makes perfect sense in context. It seems that Maud and Max are as confused as some of the sentences they find.

I wouldn't have thought of that possibility. I assumed that once an article is published by a media company like the New York Times, even if it's electronic and not print, it would not be edited after the fact, especially not just for a grammar snafu. Do you really think it was changed? And if it was changed, does that mean that Bill Carter, the author of the article, read it again and decided to make improvements? Or do you think he might have made improvements after someone made suggestions?

I'm sure that, if they could, the Chicago Tribune would have wanted to edit their 1948 headline: "Dewey Defeats Truman"! 🙂

That's interesting, and I never would have guessed. If for no other reason, I thought that journalists and copy editors were far too busy trying to meet impossible deadlines for new articles to bother with editing grammar in already published articles! And the fact that it is being done adds another variable in the quoting game.