Filed Replies, Vol. 11
From T. Okafor, Columbus:
I submitted a photo of my aunt's sectional sofa three weeks ago and haven't heard back. It is a very large sofa. How long does the review process take?
The sofa is grey.
Your submission entered the queue on or around July 15th, placing it behind approximately 340 items including a disputed grain silo, two separate and unrelated cheese wheels, and whatever Teddy has done to the Saturn V brief this week. Grey is not a criterion. Size, silhouette, and substantiality of form are the criteria, governed by Amendment 1991-08, which Teddy helped draft, which is part of why the Saturn V brief is now in the condition it is in. A sectional sofa is, in principle, eligible for review. Whether this sofa meets the threshold is a separate matter. Your patience is noted to the submissions desk.
From P. Finch, Albuquerque:
Is a mountain technically in scope? Mountains are very large and also very wide at the base. I feel like a mountain is exactly what this publication is about.
A mountain is a geological formation and therefore falls under Section IV of the Style Guide, which addresses non-manufactured, non-cultivated, non-selectively-bred subjects. Section IV exists because in 1989 a reader submitted the Tibetan Plateau. The answer to your question is no. The Atlantic Giant Decision of 2009 extended eligibility to cultivated and selectively bred subjects under Section II.4, not to continental tectonics. I have communicated my feelings about this line of reasoning to Constance Pribyl since approximately 2019. She has parked them. Filed a reminder to the submissions desk that "very wide at the base" is not, by itself, a methodology under any version of the Style Guide we have published.
From D. Holloway, Providence:
The coffee machine in your office has been broken since March according to your last three columns. Has it been fixed yet?
Since March of this year, correct. Though I should note for accuracy that the machine first exhibited symptoms in late February, which I documented and sent to Constance on February 28th as a precautionary advisory. That correspondence received a reply that began "Hi Bart!" and described the matter as something to "revisit in Q3." This is the same language used in 2018, 2020, and both times in 2022. Q3 of 2026 begins in seven weeks. I am cautiously nothing. Grievance No. 47 is in the Personnel File and contains the full correspondence chain, including the February 28th advisory, which I have had laminated and placed on the credenza.
From A. Tremaine, Edinburgh:
Given the current trade dispute between the United States and several of its historical allies, do you have any thoughts?
A tariff schedule is a classification document. It assigns categories, applies criteria, and determines what crosses a threshold and what does not. I have been doing exactly this since 1991, and I can tell you that the primary failure mode in tariff administration is the same as the primary failure mode in this catalogue: someone submitted something without reading the Style Guide first, someone else accepted it without applying the Silhouette Test, and now we are all living with a 1996 Buick entry that should never have cleared the desk. The correct response to a classification dispute is not a press conference. It is a methodology memo. We published one in November 1999 (/about/documents/methodology-memo-1999/) and I would make it available to the relevant trade representatives at cost.
From R. Szymanski, Detroit:
I heard that Spider Hennessy filed a dispatch last month from Budapest but the expense report was postmarked from Oslo. Which one was it?
Both, presumably, or neither, or something else entirely. Spider's arrangement with this publication predates my tenure and is, to my knowledge, undocumented in any format I have been able to locate in seventeen years. His expense reports are submitted on time, which is more than I can say for Margie, whose last three have arrived in a combination of Swiss francs, Qatari riyals, and what I believe was a personal check from the Margaret IV. Spider's dispatches are accurate. His postmarks are a separate jurisdiction. Filed this inquiry to the records desk with a note that the Standing Order on External Bodies was last revised in 2024 and still contains no provision that would help me answer this question.