I can't believe people are (ostensibly) paid well for this kind of writing. It meanders around and takes the longest path possible to what is essentially a paragraph or two of actual information.
I agree that there is some allowance for creative expression, but go back and re-read the first paragraph of that article. Does it add anything at all to the story?
In my mind it doesn't. With so many other things in life vying for my time I'm loathe to read and digest such fluff. It reminds me of what I used to do in school to boost my word count on papers. I'm sure professional writers labor under similar circumstances at times.
Do they routinely add those goofy umlauts, too? In the English I was taught in school, we don't have such a character.
Each requires the coöperation... even others coördinating a response
Perhaps I'm over-sensitive, but this seems rather elitist.
Now, combine this with the citation of "A same-sex couple and their three-year-old son..., certainly, belonged together." Why mention their genders? Either the writer has an unhealthy fixation on other people's sexual preferences, or, worse, thinks that the fact that they're gay entitles them to special consideration. Not good either way.
Contrary to popular belief, the English language has no official single governing body.
Nor did I claim that it did; linguistics is a descriptive science, not a prescriptive one. It describes the way people use the language. I've never seen English with umlauts, outside of a few heavy metal bands [1]. The link you provided would seem to agree with me, showing the non-accented spelling outnumbering this one by some 500:1.
I thought the "meandering" was actually a lucid explanation of the difficulty in choosing a suitable order of names in what is a highly sensitive ___location.
Anyway, I thought you chose an overly verbose way of saying "tl;dr".
To clarify on what others have replied to you about it being how The New Yorker does it: a piece like this is a feature, not news. Nobody reads the magazine (or their website) to get the quick facts, they read it because of the high quality writing and editorialising.
Don't downvote people because you disagree with them, dagnammit.
His is a valid position, he explains his reason for holding it even. Please disagree, but recognise that his view is worthwhile and well presented given the context.
