177: Joy to the Worlds

[thefourthvine]

Thank you for the joy! Both the specific joy - the virtual gifts and compliments and wonderful things from today - and the general joy, because all of you are wonderful all year round.

This is my (other - first one here) attempt to spread joy, and I'm doing it by recommending things that make me happy. (AUs that make me happy, actually. Because

Comments

[darthfox]

Okay, I've only read the first rec and haven't actually followed any of the links yet (and will have to take my contacts out before I do, because I was wrong to think I could hold off taking them out until I go to bed, urgh), but can I just say, OMFG I think I adore you for your serial-comma esteem. People just don't understand, do they? Aiea. (In short: I do judge, but I judge quite favorably.)

(I hardly ever get to use this icon.)

[fanofall]

The serial comma is the only kind of comma. All other commas are wrong and bad.

[thefourthvine]

There are indeed some sad people who have not seen the serial comma light. (And, tragically, they appear to have been naming movies in - whenever it was that Bell, Book and Candle came out, which I don't actually know. Hmmmm.) I try to remember that they are more to be pitied than censured.

I admire you greatly for having a comma-related icon. It makes me deeply happy, partly because it reminds me of one of my favorite memories of college. I was taking an English class that required a paper a week, and one day the professor just lost it as she was returning our papers. We got a whole rant on comma use, including a bit that is still quoted in this household today: "People, you don't just say, 'Oh, I've written seven words. I'd better stick in a comma!' There are RULES for a REASON." And so on. It was fabulous. Also, it really made it clear to me why I was getting good grades from her - obviously I was reaping the rewards of due comma diligence.

[darthfox]

That's totally the kind of professor I would be. (See also resonant8's fic in which Snape marks a student essay with the comment, "Even the fatuity of your premise does not excuse the shoddiness of your research.") I've said more than once that teenagers ought to have to write an acceptable sonnet (or, at the very least, define one) before they are permitted to write free verse; and, oh, oh, I once stopped class and went off on a brief (two-minute) tangent on Latin plurals in -era/-ora when a student tried to speak of more than one corpus and said "multiple cor...pi?"

[thefourthvine]

That's totally the kind of professor I would be.

Then you need to become a professor. Immediately. She was AWESOME.

I've said more than once that teenagers ought to have to write an acceptable sonnet (or, at the very least, define one) before they are permitted to write free verse

*blinks*

I had to write a sonnet (and roughly 20 other poetry forms) before I got to write free (or, for that matter, blank) verse. I thought it was that way for everyone. (Of course, my poetry was still terrible after that, but at least I knew from meter and rhyme schemes, by god.)

[darthfox]

Yeah, but I don't mean in class -- I mean in the world. There ought to be a law reading "No person shall perpetrate free verse under any circumstances until he or she can identify, or better yet demonstrate, the conventions that he or she is flouting. (Tangent: not 'flaunting'; look it up, thanks.)"

Blank verse is for optional extra credit. My real beef is with the kids who think you can turn prose into verse by just throwing in hard returns all higgledy-piggledy.

[thefourthvine]

In my seventh grade poetry unit, which was also the one where I had to write a billion different poetry forms, the teacher introduced one poet with, "I always wonder if I shouldn't leave this one out, but he's an important figure. But kids, don't try this at home." And then we read e. e. cummings. (Which was good, because I was such a hideous little pedant that I would never have read him otherwise; I remember picking up a book of his poetry when I was, oh, about seven, and being totally infuriated by it. There were rules! That he was breaking!)

And, yes, I totally agree with you on the law. I took a poetry class in college. It was...um. Do I really need to go into the tragic details?