Stunningly unnecessary use of “State”
The following passage appeared in a book review published in The New York Times this week.
"...when she was 26, hiking alone on the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washingon State."
Now I ask you. Is there any chance in the world that a reader really needed that tacked-on "State" to understand that the trail didn't wind up in the District of Columbia?
Let me be bold enough to suggest that the sentence would have been quite clear without the "State." In just about every situation I can think of, going north from California through Oregon does not lead you to Washington, D.C.
Of course, this insanity has been going on for a long time. And sometimes the wounds are self-inflicted.
