Your Dog Is Fat Adorable!

"Was That Phat?"

Late last night, I was reading columinist Liz Smith over at wowOwow about Peggy Siegal and her upcoming piece on the Oscars. Ms. Smith said, "I like even better her complaint as a writer who has to put up with being over-edited. Siegal sniffed at Avenue’s hand on her manuscript: “Why, they wouldn’t let me describe Barbra Streisand’s little Maltese dog as "fat?" I had to change it to ‘"adorable.’”

I wrote back, "If Ms. Siegal described the dog as "fat," I am assuming that was her first impression, or overall impression, "That dog is FAT!" ::scribbling in notebook:::

So she gives her piece to her editor and it’s fat "Adorable!" If the dog is fat, could we say the dog is "portly," "rotund," "chunky," "solid?"

What is really at stake here? That a reader will see the word "fat," and jump to the mindset, "Barbra is fat!" "Zut!"

"Barbra is fat!" "Wait a minute. Siegal put an extra "a" in Barbra. Strike that, tooz." Isn't that what this is about? That means Kirstie Alley is fat... adorable? "Marie Osmond is a lot less adorable than she used to be?" "Wyonna Judd wants to be a lot less adorable?"

"Adorable!" STET

-30- *

*And for those not in the know, STET was (and maybe still is) editor language for "leave it alone - as is,"

while -30- began in the Civil War at the end of messages to mean "this is the end of the message." This practice shifted over to newspapers to mean -30- "this is the end of the piece."