The Watchtower of Destruction: The Ferrett's Journal - Ten Questions You Probably Didn't Care About!
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01:20 am
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Ten Questions You Probably Didn't Care About!
My pal Kimberly set thse ten questions up, so I figured I'd answer them - I am such a sucker for personal questionnaires. I don't know why. I think the answer to #7 has a lot to do with it, though. 1. What's the bravest thing you've ever done?
Probably moving across the country to marry a woman in Alaska who I loved madly but knew mostly from the internet. It's so normal now that it seems so strange now, but my life has been full of risks. As far as personal bravery, though, I haven't had much of an opportunity. I sporadically wish for the "hire-a-terrorist" company, where you would pay someone a lot of money - and years later, when you had forgotten it, they would hold you up at gunpoint. You would then find out how much of a pussy you were. Really, I think it would work. Like Fight Club, you'd be surprised how many men would love to play with controlled violence. 2. What do you do when you're sad?
Putter on the computer. Play videogames. Ask for cuddles. Read, sometimes, but reading doesn't really do it. When I'm sad, I curl up into a ball, soak myself to the bones in my own pity, then eventually come out the other side. 3. What things make you happy?
What don't? A short list: - New computer games, the manual freshly in my hand in the moment before installation
- Singing around the house, going "la la la" whenever I want
- Movies, and going out for coffee afterwards and dissecting what worked and what didn't
- Coming off a good session where I got to have lots of character angst
- The comfort of going out to a fine meal that I paid about $80 for, and realizing that yeah, I'd pay that again
- Mentioning "corduroy pillows" again, bringing my lifetime total up to approximately three hundred thousand and fifty
- Finishing up an essay where I said what I wanted to say
- Eating an entire container of some sort of sugary confection
- Finding new music on Limewire
- Discovering a new author that I really really like, then realizing that I have a new series of books to plow through in short order
- Finding some delightful new recipe that I can actually cook
- Listening to Gini tell the same damn story yet again and still laughing
- Recreating various movie and television scenes with friends who like that sort of thing
4. How has your day been?
Better. I had a lot of stress over the weekend, but actually sitting down and writing out a game summary helped. Furthermore, I watched Reservoir Dogs whilst I edited today, and promised to make oatmeal scotchie cookies and send them to my daughter in Alaska, so things were relatively cheery. 5. If you had your choice, would you want to be kinder than you currently are, smarter than you currently are, better-looking than you currently are, richer than you currently are, or none of the above? I'd be richer. Mainly because, to be bluntly pragmatic, being richer fixes the first three by a large shot... Or at least how people improve it. 6. What is most important to you in life?
Honesty. Seeing the truth. Understanding what truly is. 7. What do you worry about?
Lies. Growing old. The eventual threat of impotence. My weight. Dying alone. And, strangely enough, not being unique. I realized this as I was typing up the list, because I was actually scratching my metaphorical chin and saying, "Hmm... What sorts of fears can I have that set me apart from other people and make me sound dazzlingly charming?" Strangely enough, being an insufferable prick and dying from terminal cancer of the pretentious appear nowhere on this list. 8. Whom do you love?
What kind of an ungrammatical question is this? Humanity. Next. 9. What's your favorite thing about where you live?
My office. I love having my own little private space to watch TV and type and everything and all. That's just plain neat. Plus, it also says to me in many ways, "Hey, I'm a freelance writer! I have an office!" With porn in it! 10. What's your least favorite thing about where you live?
The toilet. It seems to enjoy blowing up with vengeance. I keep yanking the top off of the tank and saying, "We're gonna need a bigger boat."
Current Mood:  exanimate
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| | I'm your pal? Wow. You make pals easily. I have no problem with being identified as such, but was mildly and pleasantly surprised.
You start a sentence with "I watched Reservoir Dogs" and end it with "so things are relatively cheery"? Hm. Interesting definition of "cheery". I'm starting to think I may need to request a Ferret-to-Kimberly Translation Dictionary. Or perhaps, over time, I will write my own.
My professional proofreader's hackles have been raised by your accusation that question #8 is somehow "ungrammatical". Care to debate?
I loved many of your other answers (the one about listening to Gini tell the same story made me smile, because I feel the same way about my husband ... he can make me laugh with the same old stuff over and over again), but those were the ones that begged for response. ![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/82771973/446406) | | From: |  zoethe |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 05:18 am (UTC) |
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Um, can I be horribly amused by the irony of the sentence:
>>My professional proofreader's hackles have been raised by your accusation that question #8 is somehow "ungrammatical".<<
(The period ALWAYS goes inside the quotation marks! Question marks, dashes, colons and semicolons, yeah they can go outside. Periods and commas, NEVER)
Oh, and the Ferrett-to-Kimberly dictionary? I've been working on my version for, what three years of marriage now? He still manages to surprise me [g]. Actually, not to be even more nit-picky, but The Chicago Manual of Style (which is what most of my proofreading clients requested that I use) disagrees with you. Also, you are referring only to the *American* style of positioning periods in relation to quotation marks. The British style is quite the opposite, so it's difficult to say "never" in this case. kimberly_nlts
Location: SF Bay Area, California, United States
Not England
I believe that when in Rome, write as if in Rome. (gd&rrf) I conducted part of my education in the UK, and consider myself a citizen of the world . And I was under the impression that Live Journal was not solely an American forum, but perhaps I am wrong. | | From: | zoethe |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 12:09 pm (UTC) |
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I counternitpick your nitpickiness with both the Harbrace College Handbook, which puts the period inside of the quotation mark, and the Chicago Manual of Style, which states that even in the so-called "British style," the period outside of the quotation mark is used only when actually quoting someone, and only when the quote itself does not end at a period in the original. This is because in the British style only the exact quote--and nothing else--goes within the quotation marks. Since you were not actually quoting anyone and are instead using the quotation marks to convey a sense of irony, the period would be within the marks.
(And please forgive appalling obsessiveness--I am in my first year of law school and Legal Writing is a horror of proofreading and nitpickery.) To be honest, I've never had much respect for the Harbrace College Handbook, because in my experience it tends to oversimplify.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition, section 5.13:
"The British style of positioning periods and commas in relation to the closing quotation mark is based on the same logic that in the American system governs the placement of question marks and exclamation points: if they belong to the quoted material, they are placed within the closing quotation mark; if they belong to the including sentence as a whole, they are placed after the question mark. The British style is strongly advocated by some American language experts."
The Chicago Manual of Style recommends the American style for periods and commas, but acknowledges that it is not the only "correct" method of punctuating.
Section 5.12 of The Chicago Manual of Style also explains that there are instances when "the period not only may, but perhaps should, be placed after the quotation mark." So it isn't a cut-and-dried issue. That's my only point. :-) | | From: | zoethe |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 12:43 pm (UTC) |
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Harbrace is definitely simplified, I was jsut looking to throw some extra weight around. [g]
But I will stick to my guns here. If you were actually quoting something, and doing so in the British style, you would be correct in placing a period that belongs to the sentence but not the quote outside the quotation marks. Since, however, you were only using them for emphasis and not to quote authority, the period belongs inside.
And besides, neither of us are in England, so the argument is moot. If I spell "aluminium" in the British style, I will get it wrong in the USA.
I'm sticking to my guns, too. *g* While I most definitely was not quoting an authority, I was in fact quoting Ferrett's post. And, as I mentioned in my previous nit-pick, even The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges that there is no one correct method for punctuating such, even in the U.S. So guess we have to agree to disagree. | | From: | zoethe |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 06:08 pm (UTC) |
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Well, in every class I've ever taken, major points were deducted for period outside the quotation marks, and in every document I've ever written as a paralegal it has always been expected to be the same.
But I'll let people know that the issue is still undecided.
;-) Wow. Those must have been some really anal math and science teachers you studied with, to take off *major* points for period outside the quotation marks. And if you ever studied linguistics, you would have had the exact opposite problem. | | From: | zoethe |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 08:06 pm (UTC) |
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Actually, it was English Comp and History where I got misplaced periods pounded out of me. But you're right, Linguistics almost killed me because of the way the rules waffled about. Just when I thought I had it all figured out.... [g] | | From: | theferrett |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 10:08 am (UTC) |
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| | Well, How Would YOU Define It? | (Link) |
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Heh. I suppose I could have said, "My person-who-I-saw-some-very-intense-personal-stuff-in-her-journal-and-whom-I-agreed-with-it-and-felt-some-sort-of-kinship-since-she's-been-through-many-of-the-same-relationship-difficulties-that-I-have-and-we-seem-to-have-similar-world-views-but-I've-never-actually-met-her sent me this list"... But that seemed a little longwinded, even for me. I think you're cool. That makes you a pal. I'll leave it at that.
I rather like Reservoir Dogs, and I can be made giddy by an exceptionally well-done piece of art irregardless of its content. (Yes, "irregardless" may raise hackles among proofreaders, but I intend to use it. Irregardless.) Reservoir Dog's tightly-wound plot (which wanders a bit when the psycho gets his day, but what the hell), its snappy dialogue, and its overall fine acting made me feel better. What can I say?
As to the who/whom issue, it can be debated either way - I believe that when you ask, "Who do you love?" the "who" refers to a collective plural - ONE group of people or things. You could say that the who refers to a collective group of people and thus should be plural, but that feels awkward and restrictive.
And remember, I'se an editng. ![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/120384112/733201) | | From: | kimberly_a |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 11:20 am (UTC) |
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| | Re: Well, How Would YOU Define It? | (Link) |
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I just don't have a word for that. *shrug*
Re: who/whom. I will take your response as a "Yes" in answer to my question re: whether you wanted to debate. I have never heard "whom" referred to as the *plural* of "who". (and yes, I'm putting that period outside the quotation marks, and sticking my tongue out at your wife while I do it *g* ... and I also write run-on sentences, and mis-use ellipses, and sometimes don't start sentences in parentheses with a capital letter ... but that's because this not professional writing -- or proofreading, or copyediting, or typesetting -- for me)
Ack. Back to who/whom. Got distracted by something shiny, there, for a sec. It's my understanding that "whom" is the object (rather than subject) form of "who" (just as "her" is the object form of the subject "she"). Therefore, just as you would write, "Do you love her?" (as opposed to "Do you love she?"), you would also write, "Whom do you love?" (as opposed to "Who do you love?"). I could be wrong, but I'm pretty certain about this, as I've studied grammar fairly extensively. You sound pretty certain, too, of course.
Of course, the real issue here is the fact that "whom" is basically falling completely out of usage in American English. The average person has absolutely no idea when it should be used, and considers it stuffy or stuck-up-sounding. Unfortunately, I'm obsessive enough that I can't seem to prevent myself from using it when it's grammatically correct, even though I realize that it makes me sound like a prat. | | From: | zoethe |
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| Date: | October 15th, 2002 12:36 pm (UTC) |
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| | Re: Well, How Would YOU Define It? | (Link) |
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Well, now I'm compelled to disagree with you, sweetie. Whom is used for pronouns that are used as the object of the sentence. Kimberly has this one right for formal usage, but informal use of "who" at the beginning of such a sentence is acceptable.
The Avenging Grammarian strikes again! ("Who was that masked woman?" "I don't know, but she left a silver highlighter....") |
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