Today at The Black Table, editor Emily G runs down the many ways silly wittle writers (in the examples below, Mr. Almond & Mr. Klosterman) fuck up their acknowledgments pages:
Rule #1: Don’t Thank A Dead Person.
This one is fairly straightforward. Unless you personally knew, say, Spalding Gray (Chuck) or, more improbably, Abraham Lincoln (Steve), it is not appropriate to thank him. I don’t care if he inspired every single word on every single page. Thank him in your prayers, in the pages of your diary, in a post on your little-read blog. He does not care about being thanked in your acknowledgments, because he is dead, and to everyone else, it just looks like you are name-dropping a person who you can safely assume will not deny knowing you, and that’s just tacky.
Rule #2: Don’t Thank A Deity.