I have a habit when taking quick notes of writing in all caps. This is partially because such notes are often for the benefit of others, and no one likes wrestling with handwriting, and partially because I’ve somehow convinced myself it’s faster. So but anyway, I got into the habit of doing this with my diary, and even now that I’ve realised it’s kind of weird I can’t quite convince myself to stop – it’ll ruin the consistency, you can’t run counter to house style, and plus if for some reason anyone else happens to look through it it’ll look like I’m admitting I was wrong. So caps it is. But ok, that’s all very well when it’s something sedate and sensible like OXEGEN or ANNIE’S LAUNCH or whatever, but then you get stuff like HONKIVERSARY or SOME CLASS OF YOKE IN LAN and soon you’re looking like some deranged concierge who doesn’t know how to quit, stringing syllables together and shouting them at the sky, hoping it sounds like enough like a real itinerary to fool the manager into leaving you be. So on balance, I should probably look into the lowercase, is I guess my point here.
Which of these looks right to you:
I have to go; somewhere there is a crime happening.
or
I have to go: somewhere there is a crime happening.
To me, the semicolon seems like “I have to go. Tangentially, somewhere there is a crime happening,” whereas the colon is much more authoritative: “I have to go AND HERE IS WHY”. You could of course make them two independent clauses, but let’s not lose all decorum here.
I don’t know if Robocop even cares about grammar. It seems like he should. I mean, the Terminator can get away with being all curt and barky because it doesn’t ever have much it needs to communicate, but Robocop is an officer of the law. You know? He can’t afford to be ambiguous.
Does it annoy anyone else when people say “a couple” when they really mean “a few”? I mean, it doesn’t annoy me as such, but “a couple” very obviously means “two” and why would you use it otherwise, because that’s asking for trouble.
Anyway. The first link is one I got off this post on reddit. Executive summary: American mortgage broker becomes homeless, has laptop, maintains some kind of social life/support network by talking to people on the internet. He’s now set up a blog at Lillyweather Lane whereon he’s documenting his continuing adventures. I will point out that he is both smart people and good writers and well worth reading.
Link the second is to a main dudette of mine who has finally done the honourable thing and started a blog. She’s from Belfast, everyone. She has a funny accent. It adds at least three layers of excellent to her already jolly good material.
And just because I’m not about to be pushed around by no pedant, here’s a third link I happened to have open. I don’t care whose toes I step on.
I happened across this on Wikipedia:
Going commando, the act of not wearing undergarments in popular culture
That’s pretty specific. What if you don’t wear underwear at, say, an opera? Is there a different name for that? I suggest something along the lines of “going commandeau”.
Via reddit: Wikihistory by Desmond Warzel, a very good flash piece about fictional science.
Please finally note that, after some arse-aroundery, we have decided that from now on Ill Repute will update twice weekly: Eli’s post on Monday, George’s on Thursday. Do have a read.
Edit: Make that George on Monday, Eli on Thursday. Arses are still mildly rotating.
Four days late on this one, but languagehat has a great post on the origin of the term “pettifogger”. Most interesting is the following quote from the OED:
In German fugger, fucker, focker (see Grimm) has had the senses ‘monopolist, engrosser’, ‘usurer’, ‘man of great wealth’, ‘great merchant’, and, in certain dialects (doubtless originally through ironical use), ‘huckster, pedlar.’
That is marvellous. It’s well worth reading the full post.
Continuing on a similar tack, some fortuitous Wikistumbling has led me to my new favourite sentence: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.” There’s also “James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher,” but that ain’t nothing but cheap trickery.
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