Why I Am Not a Cartoonist- May 28, 2008 Hey, I was 15. (I'm proud to see that I included the comma in "No, they didn't.")http://theslot.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-i-am-not-cartoonist.html An Anti-Child Law- May 19, 2008 Yahoo appears to be describing a pornography law as "anti-child." What the headline writer meant, of course, was "anti-child-pornography law." Be against hyphens if you like (I say "child-pornography law," you say "child pornography law"; potayto, potahto), but once you deign to use one, you have to agree to the terms of service. Hyphens join, and you need two hyphens to join three groups of letters. You can get away with health-care systems analyst as opposed to health-care-systems analyst...http://theslot.blogspot.com/2008/05/anti-child-law.html The Onion: Brilliant as Ever- May 19, 2008http://theslot.blogspot.com/2008/05/onion-brilliant-as-ever.html Hillary Clinton and the Dead Parrot- May 14, 2008 I love Monty Python. I love writing headlines for Dana Milbank columns. The twain met yesterday, and the options were too many and yet too few. I chose This Is an Ex-Candidate, but it wasn't my favorite Milbank headline. There were a number of runners-up. Did I choose correctly Do you have a better idea My other options:Preaching to the Choir InvisiblePining for the Rose GardenPining, or Passed On (Jacqueline's idea)Hello, Polly!White Americans and the Norwegian BlueThe Palindrome of 'Clinton'..http://theslot.blogspot.com/2008/05/hillary-clinton-and-dead-parrot.html What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking- May 5, 2008 One of the more arcane (but nearly universal) shibboleths of the copy-editing profession is the knowledge that that thing that everybody else calls a podium is actually a lectern.It's hard to argue with the pod-ped- root, but, as I keep saying, please use your brain and not the search-and-replace function. OK, fine, a politician doesn't stand behind a podium to make a speech, but he or she most certainly could take the podium. (Who's to say such a reference is necessarily to the thing the...http://theslot.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about.html |