Public Service Announcement

Warning: italics follow.

1. To people who write sentences that end in fourteen exclamation points: do you truly believe, in your heart of hearts, that the degree of enthusiasm you convey is proportional to how long you hold down the Shift key? Did you write twelve exclamation points, shake your head silently, and think that just isn’t enough exclamation points? Your sentence with eight question marks, does it question more deeply? Allow me to suggest to you that it does not.

2. Putting something in bold draws attention to it. If a lot of things are in bold, putting something in bold underline can draw even more attention. This is a fickle hierarchy. If readers aren’t already looking at the sentence you made all caps, red, size 18, bold, and italicized, I fear your text has troubles that underlining cannot mend.

3. There are indeed times when saying “is” twice in a row can be borderline grammatically acceptable. Example: “What it is, is a problem.” This does not mean you have to say “is” twice every time you say it. “The problem is, is that we don’t have enough resources.” The problem is, is a little deeper than that.

4. If you’re not sure when to write “use” vs. “utilize,” please consult this handy guide.

(Deep breath.) Okay. I feel better now.

You guys have any pet peeves?

5 responses to “Public Service Announcement

  1. In regards to point #1, I recommend you utilize this link: http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w226/emorock09/rage.jpg

  2. A friend of mine believes (and will rant) that there is no useful reason to use the word ‘methodology’ because it can always be replaced with ‘method’ without changing meaning.

    The trivial response is a sentence such as the one above.

    The response that I am most proud of is:
    A student of cellular biology
    Sent to her professor an apology.
    She said “My result
    Does not fit the gestalt.
    Am I using the wrong methodology.

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