ATLAS FLUBBED

A Brief Critique of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

by Ken V. Krawchuk

PART ONE — ERRORS OF GRAMMAR

1. Two choices...

Context: (1034.23) [Galt speaking] "Such is your morality of sacrifice and such are the twin ideals it offers: to refashion the life of your body in the image of a human stockyards, and the life of your spirit in the image of a dump."

Discussion: The number of the indefinite article and its noun should be properly aligned. However, since this error is not in the softback edition, it is likely a typesetting error.

Alternative: ...in the image of a human stockyard...

2. Giving ground...

Context: (317.5) Among the stories, there was one so preposterously out of character that Dagny believed it to be true: nothing in Mulligan's nature could have given anyone ground to invent it.

Discussion: The noun, in this context, can only be plural, much as with scissors or pants. This is not likely a typesetting error, as it exists in both the hardback and softback editions.

Alternative: ...nothing in Mulligan's nature could have given anyone grounds to invent it.

3. Oh, is they?

Context: (19.15) [Dagny] took a crumpled piece of notepaper from her pocket and tossed it to Eddie. "There's the figures and terms."

Discussion: The number of the verb and its object should be properly aligned. It's not likely that this is a typesetting error, as it exists in both editions.

Alternative: There are the figures and terms.

4. I say tomato...

Context: (824.39) Dr. Stadler saw a woman being escorted down the steps from the back row, her head bent, a handkerchief pressed to her mouth: she was sick at her stomach.

Discussion: The idiom is virtually never used as presented, and an Internet search reveals that the preposition at is only used one half of one percent of the time; the rest use to instead.

Alternative: ...she was sick to her stomach.

5. The long and short of it...

Context: (909.9) The wires had been worn by more rains and years than they had been intended to carry; one of them had kept sagging, through the hours of that morning, under the fragile load of raindrops; then its one last drop had grown on the wire's curve and had hung like a crystal bead, gathering the weight of many seconds; the bead and the wire had given up together and, as soundless as the fall of tears, the wire had broken and fallen with the fall of the bead.

Discussion: Among its 88 words, this run-on sentence boasts no fewer than three semicolons, an excessive number, and perhaps a world record. While the grammatical argument could be made that the sentence is of one thought, the same can be said for any properlyconstructed paragraph.

[Editor's note: This sentence comprises the larger part of this Editor's favorite paragraph in the entire book.]

Alternative: The wires had been worn by more rains and years than they had been intended to carry. One of them had kept sagging, through the hours of that morning, under the fragile load of raindrops; then its one last drop had grown on the wire's curve and had hung like a crystal bead, gathering the weight of many seconds. The bead and the wire had given up together and, as soundless as the fall of tears, the wire had broken and fallen with the fall of the bead.

6. Count on it...

Context: (747.11) "We had no rules of any kind," said Galt, "except one. When a man took our oath, it meant a single commitment: not to work in his own profession, not to give to the world the benefit of his mind."

Discussion: Not to work is a single commitment. Not to give benefits is another, giving a total of two commitments, or at least a two-part, single commitment.

Alternative: "We had no rules of any kind," said Galt, "except that when a man took our oath, it meant a commitment not to work in his own profession, not to give to the world the benefit of his mind."

Atlas Flubbed

Introduction
> Part 1: Errors of Grammar
Part 2: Errors of Calculation
Part 3: Errors of Logic
Part 4: Errors of Philosophy
Appendix: Finding quotes in other editions

Atlas Flubbed in PDF pamphlet format


ATLAS  SNUBBED
An Unsanctioned
Pastiche Parody


Where no one is asking,
"Who is John Galt?"

Because now...
They know.