One of the occupational hazards that teachers and editors face is a special kind of vertiginous nausea. It is caused by certain forms of verbal muddle. The predominant sensations are exasperation and a feeling of helplessness: exasperation at having to wade through writing that approximates gibberish, helplessness at the prospect of untangling the nonsense. There is a third feeling—difficult to define—which experts describe as a sort of oscillation between wonder (at the stupidity on display) and irritation (ditto).

We had occasion to reflect on this phenomenon recently when an item from the Los Angeles Times Book Review for August 3 crossed our desk. It was written by the poetess and professional feminist Adrienne Rich. As an editor’s note prefacing the piece explains, the Book Review asked Rich to write about why she refused the National Medal for the Arts, which had been offered to her by ...

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