John Clayton's Blog

Of all the reminiscences of Studs Terkel, my favorite is Mike Lenahan's Chicago Reader piece that gets the great interviewer talking about the technique of quoting somebody.

You want that language. I wouldn’t change goin’ to going, or ain’t to aren’t. But “confluence,” if you make it clear, without embarrassing the person, that it is “influence,” or “coincidence”—I think I would change it in many cases. For clarity. He meant “coincidence,” I would make it coincidence.

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Labels: technique