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January 30, 2008
A "Dear Everyone" Addendum
Howly mowly - I don't think anything I've EVER written has garnered this much attention. And that includes each and every one of the press materials and radio spots for the Snuggle Fabric Softener "Unleash Your Inner Bear" nationwide karaoke contest of 2005. My Dad even called me this morning to vehemently discuss the anti-two spaces legislation bill. Some so-called private excerpts from the e-mail inbox:
"I read your blog and realized I'm a terrible writer. I always use % and write out every number. I'm printing your rules and posting them on my office wall. Oh, sh*t. Two spaces between my sentences in this email. I suck."
-and-
"I wholly subscribe to almost all of your comments in your most recent post. I know that punctuation is almost always within the quotation marks. I know you should always write the numbers one through nine. I know what i.e. and e.g. represent. I elect not to punctuate bulleted items, even if they are complete sentences (a period on the last bullet looks out of place and stupid). However, I will NEVER stop inserting two spaces after a period. "NEVER"!!! 100% of the time I will include 2 spaces! This is the way I have always done it and I need to actually hear the double-click at the end of a sentence. A brief joy, a small staccato clap for a job well done. I need it and will never let it go."
Dialogue from last night:
Matt - "If you can understand it, who gives a shit?"
Bree - "I give a shit. It's my job to give a shit." [Insert WEEP.]
Good times. And, by the by, just because I care about these things on a professional (or para-professional) level doesn't mean this blog won't be rife with grammatical errors, misspellings and redundancies. As I've always said, you can lead a horse to water - but that doesn't mean he'll know how to properly use a semi-colon in every instance.
Neigh.
Posted by Bree at January 30, 2008 12:44 PM
Comments
As much as I am loathe to disagree with your father on anything, aside from the finer points of child-rearing, I have to take your side on the two space thing. It's out. And I for one am tired of spending countless seconds each year reformatting manuscripts from authors insistent on said jurassic practice. The Chicago Manual and I will, however, have to respectfully dicker with you on the practice of not spelling out numbers over ten. It's a hundo. But you know, some of us can count-spell over ten and some can't, so I guess you can chalk it up to "style" so you don't get embarassed. I'm gonna go hide under my desk now.
Posted by: Cpt. Spicer at January 30, 2008 02:57 PM
You're dead meat, Spicer. Me and the whole AP crew and the goggle boys and fishegg and EVERYBODY are gonna kick your ass. You spell out fifty-five (I don't even know if that's supposed to be hyphenated and I'm not even gonna look 'cause it doesn't exist in my world and that's how I'm rolling)? Whaaa?
Chicago?! CHICAGO?!!! Is that what they're teaching in those fancy publishing institutes now? Is THAT what Mickey whispered in your ear during those late-night Parcheesi tourneys?
Posted by: Bree at January 30, 2008 03:08 PM
NY Times Style Guide: "In general, spell out the first nine cardinal and ordinal numbers in ordinary copy...use figures above nine."
AP: "Spell out whole numbers below 10, use figures for 10 and above."
Chicago can suck it.
Posted by: Bree at January 30, 2008 03:15 PM
tell me again how you get out of using a comma after misspellings?
"grammatical errors, misspellings and redundancies."
Posted by: Angela at January 30, 2008 06:48 PM
I don't use serial commas unless I'm separating clauses or any sort of complicated information. A list of nouns = uncomplicated information. I just think it looks cluttered.
Posted by: Bree at January 30, 2008 06:53 PM
I like serial commas. I also like the song Serial Killa by Snoop Dogg.
Posted by: Cpt. Spicer at January 31, 2008 09:05 AM
Matt's right and VERY cute.
Posted by: Cardigan at January 31, 2008 06:58 PM