*gasp* NO!

it can't be true. it really can't. or at least, i can't believe it could be true, but...

is that a leprechaun riding my wish‐granting unicorn's back?

the new yorker, august 29, page 36, paragraph 2, line 17:

The liberal guests fall into a few subcategories: "center left" opinion journalists (Hewitt considers himself "center right"), such as Peter Beinart, the editor of The New Republic; "'way left" bloggers, such as Matthew Yglesias, who calls himself "A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community," and who also writes for The American Prospect; and, more rarely, people with supposedly non-ideological jobs with mainstream news outlets.

i guess if i'm willing to accept their "coöperate"s, then i ought to accept their insistence on italicizing semicolons immediately following other italicized text, as they've done above, instead of keeping them consistent with the main font. i ought to, i know—but it's harder to do than you think. never mind that, that's just me being neurotic and obsessive; what i really want to draw your attention to is that apostrophe before the word "way" in "way left." isn't it odd? doesn't it seem utterly out of place and unfounded and, well, wrong? what is it up to, anyhow? is "way" short for something in this context? is there a history to the slang that i'm unaware of that makes that punctuation appropriate? i'm really asking, because if not and it's just a bizarro error, then i'm going to run out into the rainy leaf-strewn street and do me some jigging.

i will OWN YOU, finder! i will rule you with my iron, blue-pencil-wielding fist!

unless i'm completely mistaken, in which case i will continue to sit here quietly and proofread soap opera plot summaries on a volunteer basis.

update, 10/15/05: the "'way" appears to be deliberate, as it's written again in the same manner toward the end of the article, so i'm not doing any jigging; i am, however, hopping up and down on one foot with a fiercely defiant look on my face, because i can't think of any reason to include that apostrophe aside from a belligerent and snobbish refusal to accept mainstream slang, even when its usage is confirmed in reputable dictionaries. all i can think of is that "way," in this adverbial sense, is assumed to be a shortening of "far away." in that case the apostrophe may have been called for at some point in the distant past, but i vehemently reject it now, on evolutionary grounds. i think this is probably the first time i've ever said this, but, for pete's sake, new yorker, get over yourself.