I always feel smarter after reading one of your missives. Thanks for that! I've not been feeling too bright lately, what with current events and all, and I'm tired of saying "How in the world could THAT happen?" when it just did.
Oh, thank you, Leah! I like to try to make people feel amused or feel smarter, and if I can manage both at one time, well, that makes me feel smarter. (And amused.)
I always smile when I see your notification in my inbox.
Now I'm off to try to hunt for the Mapp and Lucia you mentioned. I love all those actors, but I have never seen them together on the screen at the same time. What a treat indeed!
And I just realized that the newly added footnote #2, which you hadn’t yet seen when you asked me the question about ellipses, answered the question about ellipses that you were asking.
I swore that I had read, in a textbook in junior high, that quotation marks were to "set off a quotation" or, batten down the hatches, a "novel idea." I surely must have dreamt that, but aren't you impressed that I would dream about these things at such a tender age?
I mean, one might use quotation marks, particularly in the old days, when one was wielding a nonstandard or newly coined term, as when really old books refer to “a new kind of music called ‘jazz.’” So maybe that’s the “novel idea” you’re recalling?
The only thing she preys on is unwatched food. (In truth, at that moment Little Miss Jaws was vivisecting one of her first toys, a stuffed duck thing.)
Why do I suspect you'll need to repost this on a regular basis? (Sigh.)
And now I think I might need an E.F. Benson fix.
That series (which I have watched in its entirety surely dozens of times) and those novels have given me such joy over the decades.
Also, I’m hoping that the ongoing lesson here will be that people who use A.I. will, sooner or later, get exactly what they have coming to them.
Forty years of Benson for me!
And as far as people using A.I. getting exactly what they have coming to them? From your mouth to God's ear.
When AI wrote, “David Sharp is perfect” … it actually meant, “He so pretty!” I apologize for the emphasis.
I always feel smarter after reading one of your missives. Thanks for that! I've not been feeling too bright lately, what with current events and all, and I'm tired of saying "How in the world could THAT happen?" when it just did.
Oh, thank you, Leah! I like to try to make people feel amused or feel smarter, and if I can manage both at one time, well, that makes me feel smarter. (And amused.)
I always smile when I see your notification in my inbox.
Now I'm off to try to hunt for the Mapp and Lucia you mentioned. I love all those actors, but I have never seen them together on the screen at the same time. What a treat indeed!
It’s up at BritBox, I do believe.
Yes it is! Bye!
Footnote #3 🙌
(Are we talking about original footnote #3 or current footnote #3? I just added a footnote, now #2, post-publication.)
In either case: 🙏🏻
The one about “…you’ll ask.”
While I’m here i’ll ask, did I do the ellipses correctly?
Ah, yes, that’s now number 4.
You might simply have done:
“The one about ‘you’ll ask.’”
But perhaps in this case, to truly emphasize that the quoted bit is the concluding part of a short remark, the ellipses kind of work.
And as always, the intersection of “what’s technically correct” and “what’s really working here, or not” is an interesting intersection.
Within reason.
And I just realized that the newly added footnote #2, which you hadn’t yet seen when you asked me the question about ellipses, answered the question about ellipses that you were asking.
Which is ironic or something.
BREAKING: I’ve now added yet another footnote, a new footnote #1, so everything just shifted again.
I swore that I had read, in a textbook in junior high, that quotation marks were to "set off a quotation" or, batten down the hatches, a "novel idea." I surely must have dreamt that, but aren't you impressed that I would dream about these things at such a tender age?
I mean, one might use quotation marks, particularly in the old days, when one was wielding a nonstandard or newly coined term, as when really old books refer to “a new kind of music called ‘jazz.’” So maybe that’s the “novel idea” you’re recalling?
I am concerned about Sallie's face being blurred out in the photograph. Is she perhaps in the Epstein files?
The only thing she preys on is unwatched food. (In truth, at that moment Little Miss Jaws was vivisecting one of her first toys, a stuffed duck thing.)