The thing is what on earth was the sub-editor supposed to do? Even if he knew what the Yiddish and gay meanings of "nosh" what were the chances the intended audience did?

What was he supposed to do? Leave it, of course. As I said in my post, the subs' job should be to correct mistakes, not style. And why should it matter whether the readers understand every nuance of the writing? I constantly read bits of language that are new or unfamiliar to me, but that doesn't imply some error on the editors' part. If you take out everything that some people might not get, you end up with Dick & Jane. It's the writer's job to communicate with the audience. A writer who's no good at that won't get work.

Plus, he's absolutely right about the rhythm.

I am with you about the indefinite article. My problem with that sentence -- and it may be from reading it out of context -- is the comma after "other."

To me, seeing it in the blog, it looks as though "smiling" and "wondering" are parallel gerunds, making the comma unnecessary.

However, if it is "I" who is wondering, then the sentence could be revised to make that fact clearer.

Or are the boys and girls both smiling and wondering?

> "smiling" and "wondering" are parallel gerunds, making the comma unnecessary.

There's a difference between unnecessary and wrong.