quickies: saturday day live
Feeling better today than I did yesterday. That’s mostly because today’s a new day, and it will be free from workplace injustice and/or shenanigans. First question I’ll ask future potential employers: “At what level of shenanigans does your business operate in a typical week? Mmm hm. And around the holidays?”
I don’t generally like button-fly pants, but there are definitely some pluses.
Today is Jaxon’s birthday; we’re going to feed him some booze and make him tap dance. He probably won’t, though. Some birthday.
At the publication where I work, I think we use too many semicolons. Someone smart once said that people overuse the word “irony,” which is definitely true. That person said that usually what people mean is “coincidence” or “unlucky” and that real irony is harder to come by. I’m paraphrasing and maybe even embellishing, but I think I’ve pretty accurately represented what was said.
Anyway, semicolons are the same way: Where they’re actually needed, I think, is harder to come by than you would guess based on our usage. Will I say or do anything? No, because there are so many things that are more important. But I’ll still think about it, and I’ll notice it; I just won’t care. I used two semicolons in this blog post. I used them properly, though neither was necessary, and I’m not sure either did much for the meaning, readability, or quality of the post. See what I mean?
dave wrote:
I had a writing teacher once who stated that one could have a long and prosperous career in writing while never using one semicolon. What makes her qualified to say such a thing, you may ask. I can only say this: She showed the movie Blade Runner in class and then had us all write about it. Therefore, she is a genius. Anyway, I always defer to her advice, not because I’m on some kind of anti-semicolon crusade, but because I still really don’t know how the hell to properly use the damn things.
Posted on 18-Nov-07 at 10:41 am | Permalink