Good Grief!

A kind reader makes an interesting point about singular proper possessives–there’s an exception for ancient names! Sure enough, Strunk and White confirm:
Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in -es and -is, the possessive Jesus’, and such forms as for conscience’ sake, for righteousness’ sake. But such forms as Achilles’ heel, Moses’ laws, […]

The debate continues on whether or not it is acceptable to use they as a singular pronoun. The latest round began when Will Baude of Crescat Sententia disagreed with his professor’s claim that such grammatical hanky panky is never acceptable. His post got quite a response–read his update to see the links.
My […]

Was I right to be distraught over my plural possessive gaffe? MLA (Modern Language Association) says I’m wrong to say Rees’ comics instead of Rees’s comics. But what about other style manuals?

Chicago Manual of Style: according to the website FAQ, I’ve got some leeway here:
Q. When indicating possession of a word that […]

Throughout the Filing Technique post, I refer to David Rees’ comic strips. After noticing that Amazon.com uses David Rees’s, I consulted the trusty MLA Handbook (fifth edition–I know, I’m behind). On page 62, item (e) in section 2.2.7. Apostrophes is pretty clear:
To form the possessive of any singular proper noun, add an apostrophe […]

Since seeing David Rees’ Rees’s presentation at the 2003 Philadelphia 215 Festival, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable. Get Your War On gets all the press, but the Filing Technique strips are near and dear to my cubicle-hardened heart. After all, who hasn’t been shut down […]

Last month I wrote about a woman who got Donovan McNabb’s old cell phone number. Here’s the story of a woman (in her own words) who got the old number of Chris Rock. She received calls from Adam Sandler, Spike Lee, and Ken Burns (she’d never heard of Ken Burns–after taking his call, […]

He just got a polyphonic Hey Ya ringtone. I look forward to hearing it 50 times a day.

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There’s been some questions about my Philadelphia subway post. I was really trying to highlight a) a site that displays side-by-side maps of world subway networks and b) Philadelphia’s less-than-adequate subway system. In case anyone is still confused, I updated my contribution to the world subway map:

UPDATE 4/4/2004: For all of you Googlers […]

Since the week was full of office annoyances, causing me to make snarky remarks about other peoples’ jobs, this week’s top 5 is devoted to odd occupations:

NASA’s master sniffer:
[George Aldrich] is NASA’s nasalnaut, the man colleagues call the Most Smella Fella. He has performed a record 771 official smelling missions. [snip] Spacecraft are notoriously […]

Sure, the subways of the world map that’s been making the rounds is pretty cool, but what about this?

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