Monday, December 15, 2003

'A pain in the colon' Continuing struggles in the PC (punctuation correctness) wars, in today's Wall Street Journal: "... Lynne Truss, a 48-year-old longtime literary editor, did an entire BBC radio series on punctuation last year. And when she mentioned in a newspaper article that she was writing the book that ultimately became "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," she received about 1,000 e-mails and letters from readers pointing out their own punctuation pet peeves. Many of them landed in the book. Those 1,000 correspondents were offered a discounted, signed edition, and a staggering 70% of them went for it. Otherwise, the book's reputation spread largely by word of mouth, though it did make use of some marketing gimmicks, including a T-shirt that on the front says, "A woman, without her man, is nothing," and on the back says, "A woman: without her, man is nothing." ..."   Full story here (subscription required). 3:23:23 PM    comment []

If a tree falls ... It was windy here early this morning, with a storm front coming through between 2 and 3 o'clock. Lying in bed listening to the blow, I suddenly realized the gusts were probably strong enough to knock over the three little Norfolk pines I have on the front porch. I went out there in the rain to find that one had been blown off a wide railing, broken, and probably fatally injured. More later on the trees. 12:03:28 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dan Brekke.