Humor: August 2003 Archives
By popular demand, I am going to enlighten you plebeian plebs on the new-fangled way to use punctuation. I started doing it myself during junior high school, and although my teachers couldn't appreciate my brilliance I'm glad to see that it's actually catching on in some hip engineering circles. Behold!
Which of the following is correct?
1. I took my girl out to see "Oklahoma!"
2. I took my girl out to see "Oklahoma!".
If you said (1), you're living in the 90s! Maybe you didn't notice, but this is the future baby, and in the future we don't count punctuation that's part of a quote as part of the sentence that contains that quote!
This next example should help solidify the matter.
1. Did you see last night's episode of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"
2. Did you see last night's episode of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"?
Sentence (1) is for losers. You're not a loser are you?
"Hey wait," you ask. "What about dialogue?" Easy as cake. As long as the whole sentence is contained in quotes, you're fine. Don't be ignorant.
What about names that start with small letters, like French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin? Only commies have names that start with small letters. Here in future America, we capitalize what we want, when we want. De Villepin? He can take it up with the UN.
In the future, we also remove extraneous periods from acronyms. Get used to it.
Update 050425:
Eugene Volokh writes about quotation marks more than 18 months later.
Much like He-Man and Skeletor, Frank J and Glenn R are locked in an eternal battle, the conclusion of which will determine the fate of the entire blogosphere. However, also like He-Man and Skeletor, it's not exactly clear that these two fellows actually operate within a very large universe. I mean, they each had a half-dozen buddies and spent most of their time fighting over a musty looking, run-down castle. The Sorceress was pretty hot, though. (Actually, not so much.)
Anyway, the point is that although Glenn R is vastly more powerful than Frank J, they're both Prince Adam to the real media He-Mans. They're squabbling brats fighting over the last gulp of puppy, while the adults are feasting on delectable monkey-marrow stew.
I've gotten emails from both sides soliciting my allegiance, but like the wily Swiss I'm going to have to stay neutral for the time being. Then, when the moment is right, I'll stab them each in the back, neatly severing their spinal cords and seizing control of the blogoverse for myself -- also like the Swiss.
Update:
Let's keep that last part a secret for now. [Don't worry, no one's reading this nonsense anyway -- Ed.]
Now, we've had our share of boring vice presidents, but at least we don't live in Liberia. "President" Taylor is promising (again, again, again) to step down, and is offering to turn control of the country to... Vice President Blah. If Vice President Blah expects to actually get that promotion, he needs to learn a lesson from American politics and keep the current president from hogging so much of the limelight -- and maybe even convince him to resign over the debacle he's made of the government.
