Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Is this a typo or do I not know English?

Because I've submitted to hundreds of writing journals, I get constant email reminders to submit to them again. I ignore most, but for some reason, I opened up one from the Cincinnati Review yesterday. I did this even though I've submitted there four times, never been accepted, and they accepted a story that sounded kind of dumb written by Jane Villanueva in Jane the Virgin.  Here's what the banner said:



I believe this is a typo, and they meant "bring us your finest literature." The only time I've ever heard "literatures" as a plural was in a comparative sense, e.g. "The literatures of Spain and Portugal are not as similar as one would think." But here, it seems to be using it to mean "multiple pieces of literature." In this sense, when I write two books, I don't just produce literature, I produce two literatures.

My spell check doesn't even like that word. Am I crazy here, or is the reason Cincinnati Review never accepted me because I'm too dumb to even know the possible uses of the word I'm supposed to be producing? My Googling seems to support me, but maybe insiders in the profession are starting to use the word in a new way?

3 comments:

  1. I'd say 50% probability for typo, 50% for "ooh, let's be artsy!" the way designers start talking about "a straightleg pant" to make it seem less like, well, just pants. Maybe they defend it by considering poetry and prose to be, not just different genres, but different literatures.

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    Replies
    1. I hadn't considered artistic affectation, but I guess that is possible.

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  2. It's sound very post-modern. Submit a short story and submit ad copy.

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