Extract from review of surprising new bestseller on punctuation in today's NYTimes.
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves" has been sold with great fanfare to the United States, where it will be published by Gotham Books in April. Suddenly, people who once treated Ms. Truss like a nitpicking fussbudget are taking her seriously.
Complete review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/books/05GRAM.html
Is this deja vu all over again?
Seems I remember complaining that if she were such a fussbudget the title would be Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.
If a book on punctuation can become a best seller, why not a book on "disfluencies"?
Here's a revealing tidbit:
drinking alcohol reduces umsIf true, it's probably because you can't hear the ums in the slurs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/arts/03TANK.html
You "um" to give yourself time to think. You don't think as much when you're drunk.
You don't think as much when you're drunk.
People who listen to drunks don't think much of them either.
Meanwhile, an aside: I wonder what our Oz friends think of the title? I learned the punchline not as part of a panda joke, but as part of a wombat joke. I'm afraid decorum prevents me from elaborating.
What is the world coming to?
The NYTimes review of a book about punctuation is the "most emailed" story in the past 24 hours, beating out "Rover Unfurls ... Exploring Mars", a relative ho-hum at #16.
Commas or cosmos? The people choose commas.
Are there any signs of intelligent life in this selection?
I wouldn't put too much stock in "how much a thing is e-mailed." I didn't e-mail anyone about Spirit because I figured they will hear about it, and surf Space.com if they're really interested.
Personally, I'm buying some 3-d glasses so I can see the panorama properly.
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be
Reminds me of a quote I once read, I think from Dante.
The sense of it goes like this:
People live in despair with their eyes fixed on the ground while the stars wheel in the heavens above them.
Anyone have the actual quote?
Re: "drunks don't think as much"
P.S. Are drunks thinking less, or just thinking less about what they are thinking?
[in vino est veritas]
in japan, corporate drinking parties are possible, because the japanese believe you can't believe any thing a drunk might say.. so any social faux pas (at a big social occation) is glossed over, (he was drunk) and is forgotten.
curious isn't it?
Oh, is that why, Helen? I have heard that the Japanese drink a lot, but never guessed this might be the reason. Thank you.
The Japanese are rather conscious of the quantiy of alcohol they imbibe; this is not just a socio-cultural thing, it is also hard-wired into their DNA. A significant percentage of East Asian races have a variant of an enzyme called. alcohol dehydrogenase, which is crucial in the metabolism of alcohol. This alteration in metabolism results in elevated levels of acetaldehyde, which causes the uncomfortable flushing and other such reactions of excessive alcohol ingestion.
Thank you (again), maahey. Er--did you mean that the Japanese are more, or less, susceptible to the effects of alcohol than, say, Caucasians? I ask because my info. on how much they drink came from a Caucasian who lived there for years.
Despite the droll background in the NYT article, it's a dull little book by a dull little journalist, IMNAAHO.
More susceptible Jackie. They as a race can't hold down their alcohol as much as say, a Caucasian can. That is because the enzyme doesn't do a good job of breaking down teh alcohol and so they experience the unpleasant effects of the 'high' state much before others do. I was made to understand that because they are aware of this, they drink less in social groupings. I don't know how it is in reality. Their Sake always seemed rather potent to me...[scratching head e]