Reading:
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About at about
One thing I enjoy when thinking about the English language is the unwillingness of pedants simply to say “I enjoy and apply arbitrary rules” and to insist on inventing justifications for rules that are of course arbitrary. But Davey, I hear you cry, are not all rules of grammar somewhat arbitrary? Well yes, possibly —…
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The bang and the clatter
The bang and the clatter. The rattle and the wheeze. Bang, clatter. Rattle, wheeze. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. He is a man. He is a man who is smacking that cheap, plastic keyboard. He is a man of thirty-seven, thirty-eight years – I’ve never asked, never cared to ask – who shows the keyboard who…
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Shot
Someone shot a bullet at my head this morning. I wasn’t as frightened by it as I would have thought I would be before it happened. I wasn’t frightened by it at all. Whoever fired the shot used one of those silencers, they must have done, because I didn’t hear firing, just the whistle of…
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Fu Manchu and the Golden Phoenix
Some years ago, long before he became Fu Manchu, Fu learned the secret of extending life. He stole it – although he claimed it was fair exchange – from a sect of monks whose commune he swept and cleaned for seven years. The monks, peculiarly for their sort, did not sweep and clean their own…
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A short note on too
Perhaps you were taught in school that you should comma off the adverb “too”? So for you a sentence such as this is correct: I, too, will go there. Or even this: I will go there, too. Both are strictly incorrect but this is a solecism so often taught to children that many people don’t…
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Semicolonic irrigation
A question often posed by writers is “When should I use semicolons?” The short answer is, Never. Semicolons are most commonly used, wrongly, to introduce lists, definitions and explanations, where the writer should have used a colon. For example: There are two exceptions to the rule never to use a semicolon: one you must use…