The one place I'd say you might need to explain a bit more is that you mention Neilson boxes without explaining what they are. Just something along the lines of "Neilson selects a supposedly representative sample of families and gives them boxes that hook up to their TVs to keep track of what they watch. This information is then used to estimate how many people in the general population watched the show." Or something like that.

I thought about that too, and then I decided an intelligent reader would be able to infer from the words "boxes" and "diaries" and the whole nature of Nielsen as Allyson has described it, that the boxes do in fact monitor the viewing habits, and they probably record their viewing habits in diaries. Although it might be good to have a line or two about the representative sample and how it spans demographics and all that, since demographics have been an important part of the essay so far.

I honestly felt the demographic span was implicitly there, in the language she has in place.

Adding it certainly wouldn't damage the piece, but I honestly don't think it's needed, either.

Very nice piece, Allyson! You did a great job incorporating the notes while still keeping it distinctively yours--not the easiest thing to do.

Thanks, Robin! It's so ultra-important to me to get my pointiness across. Great Write has been a good place to get big helpings of real non-egostrokey thoughts. Except when I yell, "please stroke my ego, I'm falling apart."

Wording question:

"a highborn heiress"

"an highborn heiress"

or avoid the which article issue altogether with something like "a well-bred heiress"? Except that "well-bred" could just mean "polite and Raised Right" when what I'm going for is "has a fancy pedigree."

A gently-bred heiress? (unless it's Portia, in which case NSM with the gentle)

An heiress of unexceptional birth?

A well-born heiress?

An excellently connected heiress?

Doesn't "heiress" have the connotation of high-born anyway, socially speaking? Unless you're wanting to differentiate between those heiresses of unfortunate fathers who had the gaucherie to be clever in business and such.

It's Anna, and I think "gently bred" would work. I'm editing that one-page setup for the First Kiss contest and am trying to pare a few lines from the existing version so I can talk a little more about Jack.

Unless you're wanting to differentiate between those heiresses of unfortunate fathers who had the gaucherie to be clever in business and such.

The heiress in question is both--her father was a self-made man who got himself made baronet for "(financial) services to the Crown," but her mother was the daughter of an impecunious earl. I'm just trying to use both a wealth word and a pedigree word, because my goal is to tell just how high up the social spectrum she is.

t English geek

The article is determined by the sound of the subsequent word rather than the first letter. If it is a consonent sound, it's "a". A vowel sound gets "an". "Heiress" starts with a consonent, but it is actually a vowel sound, so it is correct to us "an heiress", but "highborn" starts with a consonent sound, so it's "a highborn". So..."a highborn heiress" would be correct.

t /English geek