GRAMMAR GIRL

Cindy Crawford’s even features certainly don’t automatically betoken a paucity of intellect (“Lights! Camera! Cheekbones!,” by Mimi Avins, Sept.3). But she undermines her assertion to that effect by using incorrect grammar, a flaw I warn my college English students to avoid.

Crawford protests the dumb idea that “if someone is beautiful they must be stupid”; the correct version, of course, would be “she must be stupid.” Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, since this dreadful error is fast becoming the norm--but perhaps she shouldn’t have dropped out of Northwestern her freshman year after all.

DIANA YORK BLAINE

Visiting Professor of English

University of Redlands

*

While I enjoyed Avins’ cover story about model Cindy Crawford’s chances of making the transition to becoming a successful actress, I must question one name missing from Susan King’s sidebar (“A Portfolio of Model Actresses”).

Where was any mention of Paulina Porizkova? She certainly was a top model of the ‘80s. After a promising debut in the 1987 movie “Anna,” however, she bombed terribly in her big-screen break two years later, starring with Tom Selleck in “Her Alibi.” Yet she certainly deserved mention as an example that not every pretty face becomes a bankable actress.

I’m sure Cindy will fare better.

PETER MEADE

Del Mar