Tuesday, March 27, 2001

BOREDBOREDBOREBDOREDBORED
repeat until dead or until 6 P.M.
(note: if not dead, repeat at 9 A.M. the following morning)

Monday, March 26, 2001

It was a good Oscar night. I'm pretty happy with all the awards. One thing I noticed though, and this is just a grammar pet peeve of mine: "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas." Now, the Associated Press style says that possessives of proper names take just an apostrophe, not an apostrophe plus 's' -- this contradicts the Chicago Manual of Style, which says all proper names, just like any other singular word ending in 's,' takes an apostrophe plus 's.' I hate the way two major style books have such petty distinctions. More importantly, try pronouncing the title of that movie -- most likely, you'll add the missing 's' and pronounce it "Dr. Seuss's." Well, I do. I don't know what you'll do. I can accept that English words contain letters you don't pronounce, but I really don't like any grammatical rule that forces readers to pronounce letters that don't exist in the word. Kinda undermines the point of writing -- if pronunciation becomes arbitrary and independent of a set of solid rules, reading requires that much more interpretation on the reader's part, when the purpose of grammar is to simplify and clarify reading, not to make it more obtuse. Stupid AP style. Chicago good. AP stinky.