W. C. Fields advised actors never to work with children or animals. Let's add this to the warning list: Magazines should never discuss style and grammar. But we broke this rule in the October '95 Open Folder, and the letters poured in. Many of them complained about Alberto Tabone, who said English was a derivative of Latin. "English is not a Latin language -- it's Germanic, despite the attempts of intellectuals to stuff it into a Latin form," wrote Pete Ottman. Our joke about "Svstem VII" and "Vindovs XCV" forced Christopher Gunty to point out that "Romans did not replace Ys and Ws with Vs in chiseling letters into granite -- only Us." Latin may be a dead language, but it's sure not a dead topic.
The prominent place that Open Folder occupies might suggest it's the first place eager readers turn to. But reader Rick Vogel suggests that you can't read an issue of MacUser right out of the mailbox: "First, you must prepare it for reading. Grasp the magazine firmly, fan all the pages, and allow all the inserted cards to fall into the garbage. Repeat several times. Then flip through the magazine until you find heavy objects. Rip them out. Finally, open the front and back covers and tear off the foldout pages." You've got it wrong, Rick -- you're supposed to save all those cards and collect and trade 'em with your friends. I'll give you three New Republic subscription cards for an Entertainment Weekly . . . .
A trading card of its very own might be all some magazines aspire to, but MacUser's fame goes way beyond that, mostly thanks to the fanatic devotion that makes Mac users . . . shall we say, unique? Witness A. Lee Bennett, Jr.: "If you point your Web browser to http://www.oo.com/~bennett/, you'll be able to see how I tell the world about my favorite computer magazine." On that page, you'll find a photo of the license plate that adorns Lee's truck: "MAC-USER." Now that's what we call a devoted reader. Top that, Sports Illustrated!
