That's Birmingham...at least on the end of town I'm staying in. Lots of hills thick with trees. A downtown that Buffalo puts to shame. Huge numbers of empty retail buildings and those big, blank, hideous parking lots in front of stores that make you walk as much as a quarter mile to get inside. And mosquitoes. Ah...the South. How I've never missed it.
My plane ride was the bumpiest I've had in some time, but I got a seat between me and the aisle-guy on the Baltimore-Birmingham leg, so I worked on my red pen version of LD and got it done. Now I just need to input the changes.
I brought a copy of a crime anthology with me to read, full of crime writers from Northern Ireland. Should be interesting...and I can see how they write about life in the NI.
Now to focus on something that shocked me -- just how archaic my grammar is. I bought a copy of Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" and after reading the just first few pages, I can see where the approach to American grammar has changed. I was taught to NEVER put a comma before "and" when it's used as a conjunction -- as in "Tom, Dick and Harry." BUT...it's now acceptable practice to do it like this -- "Tom, Dick, and Harry." Which does not even begin to look right to me.
Another one -- when words like Charles and Burns become possessive; I was taught to just add an apostrophe at the end, like this -- Charles' and Burns'. Strunk and White says you still add an "S" after them...but NOT if there are two "S's" already at the end of the word, like with a phrase such as "for righteousness' sake."
Damn, and I thought I was so good and up to date. Guess it's never to late to learn a new method, is it?
But they STILL do not look right, to me.
My plane ride was the bumpiest I've had in some time, but I got a seat between me and the aisle-guy on the Baltimore-Birmingham leg, so I worked on my red pen version of LD and got it done. Now I just need to input the changes.
I brought a copy of a crime anthology with me to read, full of crime writers from Northern Ireland. Should be interesting...and I can see how they write about life in the NI.
Now to focus on something that shocked me -- just how archaic my grammar is. I bought a copy of Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" and after reading the just first few pages, I can see where the approach to American grammar has changed. I was taught to NEVER put a comma before "and" when it's used as a conjunction -- as in "Tom, Dick and Harry." BUT...it's now acceptable practice to do it like this -- "Tom, Dick, and Harry." Which does not even begin to look right to me.
Another one -- when words like Charles and Burns become possessive; I was taught to just add an apostrophe at the end, like this -- Charles' and Burns'. Strunk and White says you still add an "S" after them...but NOT if there are two "S's" already at the end of the word, like with a phrase such as "for righteousness' sake."
Damn, and I thought I was so good and up to date. Guess it's never to late to learn a new method, is it?
But they STILL do not look right, to me.
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