Latest Articles by Sarah Canice Funke
I love blurring use/mention distinctions. Such as in the following exchange:
SF: ...with formidable finasse.
SB: ah. that is a big word.
SF: that is only four letters long. not very big at all.
SB: I know. I thought it was.
SF: it is a big word for you. you haven't progressed past it.
SB: yep. well I can pick up the meaning of it. but after that it's hard.
SF: it's a little more complicated. because it's a combination of words.
SB: yeah. I know
There are days when words strike me as too funny to use.
"I have always had a deep and abiding love for the English language, from early on in life. I've always loved the flirtatious tango of consonants and vowels,the sturdy dependability of nouns and the capricious whimsy of verbs, the strutting pageantry of the adjective, and the flitting evanescence of the adverb, all kept safe and orderly by those reliable little policemen, punctuation marks." -- Dennis Miller
Mr. Howard alerted me to Grammar Girl. I dream of a secret identity, an alter ego who spends her nights rescuing beleaguered apostrophes and misplaced modifiers. Championing the cause of oppressed hyphens everywhere, I dash to the [parentheses-or-brackets?] mobile whenever I hear an improperly punctuated cry of distress.
As Rosencrantz (or was it Guildenstern?) said: Words. They're all we've got to go on.
