unnecessary, irrelevant and vile
Ah, proofreading. The process wherein one engages with a professional nitpicker who is engaged, about 80% of the time, in eradicating infelicities and inconsistencies from one's writing. The other 20% of the time they are engaged in enforcing arbitrary and unnecessary visions of "correctness" upon one's deathless prose. I have prevailed in the which/that issue, but this editor is proving wretchedly firm on the subject of the Oxford comma.
I loathe the Oxford comma with a loathing that is deep, passionate and possibly unreasoning. I do not, personally, take a deep breath before saying "and" in a simple list; to insist on the comma in these circumstances gives the sentence, in my view, a bad case of the comedy hiccups. The otherwise nice editor insists that the serial comma is invariable in American non-journalistic prose, but she's wrong - ten minutes with Google suggests that the serial comma is predominantly used in American non-journalistic prose, but there's a lot of debate, disagreement and axe-wielding.
I don't like false absolutes. False absolutes bring me out in a rash. So does the serial comma. Piffle. Memo to self: next time, find English publisher.
I am spending the weekend more or less peacably editing page proofs, which is a relief: I've been out making with the mad socialising on Wednesday night (game, intense and trying role-playing times), Thursday night (book club, booze, much giggling), Friday night (end-of-month dinner, Harbour House, springbok in port and chocolate sauce, recommended!) and tonight (jo&stv, trip planning). Together with the stresses of the last two weeks of work, it is not entirely suprising that I'm a bit buggered. I should have been having dinner with my sister last night, but I bunked and lay on the sofa watching Farscape instead. The episode with John Crichton's internal dilemmas represented as cartoons? genius! Also, a new addition to the distinguished and growing list of Episodes Where They Clearly Gave The Farscape Writers Lots Of Drugs. I then slept until 9.30 this morning, which may have done something towards restoring levels of the Milk of Human Kindness, currently a bit low from insufficient hermitaging. I like socialising, just not perpetually.
Since embedding is apparently where my brain's at right now: Vampire Weekend, "Oxford Comma". Rather fun one-shot video, even if the band's a bit naff.
I loathe the Oxford comma with a loathing that is deep, passionate and possibly unreasoning. I do not, personally, take a deep breath before saying "and" in a simple list; to insist on the comma in these circumstances gives the sentence, in my view, a bad case of the comedy hiccups. The otherwise nice editor insists that the serial comma is invariable in American non-journalistic prose, but she's wrong - ten minutes with Google suggests that the serial comma is predominantly used in American non-journalistic prose, but there's a lot of debate, disagreement and axe-wielding.
I don't like false absolutes. False absolutes bring me out in a rash. So does the serial comma. Piffle. Memo to self: next time, find English publisher.
I am spending the weekend more or less peacably editing page proofs, which is a relief: I've been out making with the mad socialising on Wednesday night (game, intense and trying role-playing times), Thursday night (book club, booze, much giggling), Friday night (end-of-month dinner, Harbour House, springbok in port and chocolate sauce, recommended!) and tonight (jo&stv, trip planning). Together with the stresses of the last two weeks of work, it is not entirely suprising that I'm a bit buggered. I should have been having dinner with my sister last night, but I bunked and lay on the sofa watching Farscape instead. The episode with John Crichton's internal dilemmas represented as cartoons? genius! Also, a new addition to the distinguished and growing list of Episodes Where They Clearly Gave The Farscape Writers Lots Of Drugs. I then slept until 9.30 this morning, which may have done something towards restoring levels of the Milk of Human Kindness, currently a bit low from insufficient hermitaging. I like socialising, just not perpetually.
Since embedding is apparently where my brain's at right now: Vampire Weekend, "Oxford Comma". Rather fun one-shot video, even if the band's a bit naff.
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