In January of 1947, renowned novelist Raymond Chandler wrote a letter to the editor of The Atlantic Monthly, Edward Weeks, primarily with regard to the title of a piece he had written for the magazine which was ultimately published the next year, titled, “Oscar Night in Hollywood.” It is the latter half of this letter, however—a wonderfully lyrical message to be passed on by Weeks to the publication’s proofreader—which has since become the one of Chandler’s most famous quotes. Indeed, Edward Weeks did pass on the message, to a copy editor named Margaret Mutch. She then wrote a letter to Chandler, to which Chandler responded with the delightful poem also shown here.

(This letter, along with 124 other fascinating pieces of correspondence, can be found in the bestselling book, Letters of Note. For more info, visit the Books of Note website.)

6005 Camino de la Costa

La, Jolla, California

Jan. 18th, 1947

Dear Mr. Weeks:

I’m afraid you’ve thrown me for a loss. I thought “Juju Worship in Hollywood” was a perfectly good title. I don’t see why it has to be linked up with crime and mystery. But you’re the Boss. When I wrote about writers this did not occur to you. I’ve thought of various titles such as Bank Night in Hollywood, Sutter’s Last Stand, The Golden Peepshow, All it Needs is Elephants, The Hot Shop Handicap, Where Vaudeville Went it Died, and rot like that. But nothing that smacks you in the kisser. By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have. I think your proofreader is kindly attempting to steady me on my feet, but much as I appreciate the solicitude, I am really able to steer a fairly clear course, provided I get both sidewalks and the street between.

If I think of anything, I’ll wire you.

Kindest Regards,

(Signed)

—————————————-

Lines to a Lady With an Unsplit Infinitive

Miss Margaret Mutch she raised her crutch

With a wild Bostonian cry.

“Though you went to Yale, your grammar is frail,”

She snarled as she jabbed his eye.

“Though you went to Princeton I never winced on

Such a horrible relative clause!

Though you went to Harvard no decent larva’d

Accept your syntactical flaws.

Taught not to drool at a Public School

(With a capital P and S)

You are drooling still with your shall and will

You’re a very disgusting mess!”

She jabbed his eye with a savage cry.

She laughed at his anguished shrieks.

O’er the Common he fled with a hole in his head.

To heal it took Weeks and Weeks.

“O dear Miss Mutch, don’t raise your crutch

To splinter my new glass eye!

There ain’t no school that can teach a fool

The whom of the me and the I.

There ain’t no grammar that equals a hammer

To nail down a cut-rate wit.

And the verb ‘to be’ as employed by me

Is often and lightly split.

A lot of my style (so-called) is vile

For I learned to write in a bar.

The marriage of thought to words was wrought

With many a strong sidecar.

A lot of my stuff is extremely rough,

For I had no maiden aunts.

O dear Miss Mutch, leave go your clutch

On Noah Webster’s pants!

The grammarian will, when the poet lies still,

Instruct him in how to sing.

The rules are clean: they are right, I ween,

But where do they make the thing?

In the waxy gloam of a Funeral Home

Where the gray morticians bow?

Is it written best on a palimpsest,

Or carved on a whaleboat’s prow?

Is it neatly joined with needlepoint

To the chair that was Grandma’s pride?

Or smeared in blood on the shattered wood

Where the angry rebel died?

O dear Miss Mutch, put down your crutch,

and leave us to crack a bottle.

A guy like I weren’t meant to die

On the grave of Aristotle.

O leave us dance on the dead romance

Of the small but clear footnote.

The infinitive with my fresh-honed shiv

I will split from heel to throat.

Roll on, roll on, thou semicolon,

ye commas crisp and brown.

The apostrophe will stretch like toffee

When we nail the full stop down.

Oh, hand in hand with the ampersand

We’ll tread a measure brisk.

We’ll stroll all night by the delicate light

Of a well placed asterisk.

As gay as a lark in the fragrant dark

We’ll hoist and down the tipple.

With laughter light we’ll greet the plight

Of a hanging participle!”

She stared him down with an icy frown.

His accidence she shivered.

His face was white with sudden fright,

And his syntax lily-livered.

“O dear Miss Mutch, leave down your crutch!”

He cried in thoughtless terror.

Short shrift she gave. Above his grave:

HERE LIES A PRINTER’S ERROR.