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Saturday, July 31, 2004
Speaking of ...
If you need a good reason to stop using pompous legalese, Rufus T. Firefly tells you why in-house counsel (or at least RTF) hate it. He gives a non-exclusive list of legalisms he detests. But
I take issue with the last item on his list -- if you like it, then you need to see this item, flagged by Mr. Poon.
Reuben Friedman's Tulane football predictions
My friend Reuben Friedman has been a Tulane fan for 45 years. And every year, he writes his predictions and distributes
them to his friends and fellow Tulane fans. He knows Tulane football better than probably anyone else on the planet,
and he knows college football better than most. I've uploaded his 2004 predictions -- the link is at the top of the
right-hand column of this page.
Recipe for a good glass of iced coffee
I'm back in New Orleans, after a 2˝-day visit to New York. While I was up there, I really missed my homemade iced
coffee. There was a cafe called Europa Cafe near my hotel, but their idea of iced coffee is to pour hot coffee
into a glass of ice. No, no, no. Starbucks had something a little closer to a real glass of iced coffee, but it's
just okay, not good.
The best iced coffee I've found in New Orleans, outside my own kitchen, is at Rue de la Course. But even theirs isn't as good as mine. Here's my recipe.
First, you need a toddy coffee maker. All the decent local coffeehouses sell them. Essentially, it's a plastic bucket that you use to steep a pound
of coffee in 9 cups of cold water for 12-24 hours.
I use dark-roast coffee. Almost any decent dark roast will do. I've used French roast, Colombian, Turkish,
something that CC's sells called Evangeline Blend, and many others. I never use flavored coffee, such as French vanilla. I don't
use Viennese because it's not strong enough for my taste.
Anyway, you dump a pound of dark roast (coarse ground) into your toddy coffee maker. Add 4 cups of water.
Wait 5 minutes for the water to soak into the coffee grounds. Then add another 5 cups of water. Cover to slow
evaporation. Let stand for 12-24 hours. Remove the cork from the bottom of the toddy coffee maker, and let the
resulting brew drip into the carafe that comes with the toddy coffee maker. You now have about 8 cups (2 quarts?) of
concentrate caffeine -- think of it as cold espresso. Probably a one- to two-week supply. You can drink some now,
and keep the rest in the refrigerator.
When you're ready to enjoy, just get a glass, fill it 1/3 with this coffee concentrate, top off with 2/3 milk.
Ice is optional, and probably not necessary if the coffee concentrate has chilled in the fridge. You now have what I
like to think of as adult chocolate milk.
If this mix is too strong for you (wimp!), try 1/3 glass coffee concentrate, 1/3 water, and 1/3 milk. Experiment
with the proportions if you like -- after all it's your coffee.
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Pilgrimage
I'm in New York City today, on business. I'm staying downtown in a little area called Seaport, one block from the
East River, and almost under the Brooklyn Bridge. Yesterday I was strolling west on Fulton Street, to locate the nearest
subway station. After I found it, I decided to continue west, toward Ground Zero. I found it. I took a walk
around the entire site, stopping along the way to look. The last time I'd been in this neighborhood was before 9/11.
Remembering the magnificent complex that had stood there, now seeing what must be the world's largest empty concrete hole
in the ground, made the loss seem so enormous.
I continued walking and found a little old church with a little old burial ground full of old tombstones, many of their
inscriptions nearly erased by wind and time. St. Paul's. Inside I expected to find a church -- instead I found a shrine. After 9/11, the St. Paul's community had set
up a relief station inside the church for the recovery workers. This was a shrine to those workers and those who ministered
to them. George Washington's pew had been put to use as a podiatrist's station, where exhausted workers could have their
feet cared for. Cots had been set up all around the inside of the church, for exhausted workers to get a few hours sleep
before returning to Ground Zero. All in all, St. Paul's had provided the recovery workers with food, rest, and comfort,
round the clock. This went on for months.
I can't tell you whether south Manhattan is back to normal -- I don't know enough about the neighborhood to know what
"normal" is for this place. It doesn't seem like a war zone. Aside from Ground Zero itself, you don't see scars.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Do yourself a favor
Are you running Norton Antivirus on a Windows platform? If so, check your settings and make sure that Live Update
is turned on. There are worms out there that will sneak in and turn Live Update off. Once that happens, your machine
is vulnerable. Norton often finds and fixes these problems, but you won't download the fixes if you're not running Live
Update.
One of these buggers slipped onto my home computer. So when I tried to manually run Live Update, nothing would
happen. Eventually I found that Live Update somehow got turned off (I didn't do that!). I turned it on, ran Live
Update, rebooted, and ran a scan. The scan revealed more than 350 files infected!
This story describes a similar problem. I'm not sure whether I had the exact one it describes, but the story confirms that stuff
like this exists.
The lesson: Periodically check your Norton settings, to make sure that you're getting your Live Updates.
I suggest a once-a-week routine. And take care of your antivirus software, so that it can take care of you.
Monday, July 26, 2004
A problem I would not have imagined
Someone wants to put a blurb about me in an email newsletter.
She sent me a draft of the blurb, and I added a sentence about the Louisiana legal web log that I contribute to, Naked Ownership. The newsletter editor replied: "Sorry but I can't add that sentence because the
word "naked" would never get through everyone's spam filters. That's also why I can never say someone graduated magna
cum laude, etc. We get accused of sending out nasty language. Strange problem but true." (Fortunately, no
such problem with "Rain Man"!)
I guess there's a lesson here.
When you write an email, keep it clean, and avoid language that a spam filter might misinterpret. If you want to use
email to lay a verbal whuppin' on someone, use your imagination.
More photo problems
If you see blank spots on this site where photos are supposed to be, the problem is with the site host, Earthlink, not
with your browser.
DNC bloggers
Here is a story about bloggers covering the Democratic National Convention, including (at the end) a list of delegates' blogs.
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Speaking of bad writing ...
Speaking of bad writing, here is a story about the winner of a bad-writing contest.
Friday, July 23, 2004
28 reasons why English teachers die young ...
... or go insane. My friend Paul Stackpole sent me this. I've seen it before, and maybe you have too.
But if you haven't, it'll make you howl.
Twenty Eight Reasons Why English Teachers Often Die Young.
Actual Analogies and Metaphors
Found in High School Essays.
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed
by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without
Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked
at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools
about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him
like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh,
like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He
was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because
of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
9. The little boat
gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement
like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,
surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12.
Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like
maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the
grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other
from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also
never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
18. Even in his
last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this
plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22.
He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping
on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like
a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
26. Her
eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
27. She walked into my office like
a centipede with 98 missing legs.
28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
If the standard is manifestly erroneous, why do we still use it?
When an appellate court reviews a trial court's factual findings, the appellate court usually will not reverse unless
the trial court's findings are "manifestly erroneous" or "clearly wrong." Courts and lawyers often refer to this deferential
standard of review as the manifestly erroneous standard or the clearly wrong standard. That bugs me
-- it sounds like there's something wrong with the standard. The reader might fairly ask, "If the standard is
erroneous or wrong, shouldn't we get rid of it?"
I propose that lawyers and judges instead describe this type of appellate review as the manifest-error standard
or (even better) the clear-error standard. That conveys the meaning, without making it sound like the standard
is faulty.
If you follow this suggestion, remember to hyphenate your phrasal adjectives, to make plain to the reader that manifest
or clear modifies error, not standard.
P.S. (Elongated photos)
I just reduced the photo size again--from medium to small. They look okay for now (5:20 p.m.). Hope they
stay that way.
Elongated photos
The photos below of my father-in-law and his medals display elongated on many screens, including mine. I don't
know what the problem is; they looked fine when I first uploaded them. I've tried editing the post to reduce the size
of the photos. That seemed to work for a little while, but the last time I looked, they appeared stretched out.
I wish I knew what the problem is, as I'd like visitors to see the photos properly proportioned. This web log is hosted
by Earthlink and created and maintained with Trellix (Earthlink's web-site builder). If anyone out there has any ideas
about how to fix this problem, please let me know.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Today's wordy phrases
Wordy phrase: issued a warning to
Could just say: warned
Wordy phrase: must take heed of
Could just say: must heed
Wordy phrase: it is the duty of appellant to
Could just say: appellant must
"This Land" moved to Atomfilms.com
The Jib Jab election cartoon, "This Land" (posted here), has proven so popular that the Jib Jab server couldn't handle the traffic. But not to worry: AtomFilms has
it here.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
And the horses they didn't ride in on
Here's something you've always wanted: the entire script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
And the horses they rode in on.
Courtesy of Mr. Poon, here is The New Yorker's account of the Cheney-Leahy war of words. Warning: Do not attempt to read it while drinking, unless you like blowing
your beverage out of your nose.
The Human Clock
7:03 am | link
Monday, July 19, 2004
Today's hero
First Lieutenant Ignatius DiGeorge led a platoon in the ETO during WWII. He was wounded in the battle for
the German town of Schmidt. (I hope I spelled it right.) Today, at the D-Day Museum here in New Orleans, he
was presented with the medals he earned 60 years ago: the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He's my father-in-law,
and I'm proud of him.
Sunday, July 18, 2004
This land is their land
Whether you're a liberal weenie / or a right-wing nut job / this link will make you laugh and laugh.
Like Hedwig?
My favorite scene in Hedwig and the Angry Inch is one where Hedwig thanks the audience that turns out for a concert. "Thank you. Both of you."
At the bottom of the column at right, I've added a hit counter. I do this mainly out of curiosity. I may
find that my audience is about the same size as Hedwig's. If so, that's fine -- after all I'm writing mainly for
my own amusement.
Even highly popular bloggers -- for instance, this guy -- wonder whether they're writing for just a few people. Why do it then? Because it's fun. See also
here.
Query: If most of the hits turn out to be my own, is that like some kind of cyber-onanism?
More on misused quotation marks
I particularly like when something is "'kosher.'"
What's so funny about this misuse? Bryan Garner's Modern American Usage answers the question. One proper use of quotation marks is "when you mean so-called-but-not-really," [I'm quoting
Garner here] -- or as Bekah puts it, to show irony or sarcasm. Thus, when your local deli says:
Our meats are "kosher."
it unwittingly says that its means are called "kosher" but are not really kosher.
In my July 6 post, I listed three proper uses of quotation marks. Actually Garner lists five proper
uses:
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When you're quoting someone.
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When you refer to a word as a word.
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When you mean so-called-but-not-really -- in other words, to show irony or sarcasm.
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When you're creting a new word for something, and then only on its first appearance.
-
When you're marking titles of magazine articles, book chapters, poems not published separately, and songs.
If it's not one of these five, it doesn't belong in quotes.
2:09 pm | link
Judge Alex Kozinski on the Dating Game
Underneath Their Robes has a video clip of a young Alex Kozinski's competing in -- and winning! -- The Dating Game. Go there, and watch him smooch -- Romanian
style. Kozinski has since gone on to fame, if not fortune, as a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Saturday, July 17, 2004
What's in a name?
That depends on the writer. For instance:
My firm is involved in litigation concerning naturally occurring technically enhanced radioactive material.
When referring to this stuff, plaintiffs use the acronym TERM (technically enhanced radioactive material) -- which suggests terminal.
Defendants, meanwhile, use a different acronym: NORM (naturally occurring radioactive material) -- which suggests normal.
Each side thought about the message it wanted to convey, and coined an acronym to reinforce that message.
Another example: Suppose you represent the Concordia Parish Employees Credit Union. That name is too
long to repeat -- you need a shorthand version.
An unimaginative writer might resort to initials: CPECU. The problem with this bit of shorthand is that,
unlike TERM and NORM, it has no persuasive power. It's just a random bunch of letters, evoking
no memory or association, triggering no emotion.
For shorthand, you might call this client Concordia; to remind the reader where its members live, and for those
familiar with Concordia Parish, evoking memories of the place. Or you might call this client the credit union;
reminding the reader what the client is (a little bank owned by its depositors), maybe even evoking memories of
the Bailey Home & Loan in It's a Wonderful Life.
Sometimes a commonly used set of initials does acquire meaning. In Louisiana, everyone not only knows what LSU
is, but probably has memories or feelings associated with LSU. But most initialisms that people come up with don't
have that kind of power.
You can't always choose what to call something. But when you can choose, choose well. Do what Strunk and
White say: make every word tell.
Jazz Fest 2005
The 2005 Jazz Fest is only nine months and five days away. To start getting in the mood, go here and look at photos from the 2004 edition.
Friday, July 16, 2004
A Hot Dog Worth $7
This week's installment of The Brushback is worth checking out. My favorite headlines:
"Player Who Left Everything On Field Forced To Drive Home Naked,"
"Long Home Run Causes Chris Berman’s Head To Explode," and
"Seven Dollar Ballpark Frank Made From The Finest Hog Anuses."
Osama Bin Lotto
7:15 pm | link
Tour de France Photos
Fox Sports has some beautiful photos taken at the Tour de France.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Faith, Love, and Tears
My usually jaded neighbor Chris Rose wrote this story about another neighbor, Children's Hospital. The subtitle: "At Children's Hospital, the tears are real, and so is the
courage."
A Writ In Time
8:08 pm | link
Convince versus Persuade
Michael Adams has a nice piece about the words convince and persuade in the July 2004 issue of the
Fifth Circuit Reporter. (Sorry, no on-line version available.) The two words are not synonyms.
As Adams points out, convince means to change another's thinking about something -- for example, to win an argument
or a debate. Latin scholars will recognize in the second syllable the Latin word meaning conquer. (Think of
Julius Caesar's famous words: "Veni; vidi; vice.")
Persuade means to induce somebody to do something through argument, reasoning, or entreaty. To convince
is to affect someone's thoughts, while to persuade is to affect someone's actions.
Thus, while the Democrats will try to convince you that Kerry is the best candidate for president, that won't help them unless
they also persuade you to vote for him.
There's a lesson here. As lawyers, our goal is not merely to convince (to win an argument), but to persuade
(to get the judge or jury to do something for our clients). Convincing is not persuasion; it's merely a means
of persuading. Pure logic might convince, but you often need more than pure logic to persuade.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Ho-Hum, Another On-Line Personality Test
Wackiness: 30/100
Rationality: 100/100
Constructiveness: 80/100
Leadership: 70/100
You are an SRCL--Sober Rational Constructive Leader....
For your results, go here and click on "Better Personality."
10:04 pm | link
"Going" versus "Moving"
My pastor, Fr. Tom Stahel, wrote this interesting observation in today's church bulletin:
"Funny thing about the English language, how it is governed by so many unrecognized rules. Often when we use an
expression we take it for granted, we are just following the rule of an unspoken game. Take, for instance, the expression,
'I'm going fishing.' That word 'going' + the gerund form 'fishing' makes sense, and sounds right, to our ear.
But how about 'I'm going studying," or "I'm going raking'? Why would we never say that? Because in English, the
rule seems to be that the word 'going' is used with a gerund only for leisure activities: 'We're going swimming.'
'He's going skating.' But not 'she's going typing' or 'he's going farming.'
"Summer is when a lot of those 'going' expressions are in use: 'We're going snorkeling in the Bahamas,' or 'We're going
mountain-climbing in North Carolina.' Or just plain old 'We're going across the lake.'
"But how different the last expression becomes if we substitute the word 'moving' for 'going.' 'We're going across
the lake' is about leisure, vacation time, but 'We're moving across the lake' is about a life change.
"... [T]he Christian journey we are all embarked on is more like moving somewhere than just going somewhere.
When St. Luke says (Lk. 9:51), 'Jesus set his face resolutely for Jerusalem,' ... the text is not saying that the Lord was
just going up there and maybe coming back. No, he was moving his ministry to the capital, to the seat of his people's
destiny...."
Fr. Stahel is a good man, as shown by another item he wrote several months ago.
Bluesman Jimi Hendrix
Many friends who love Jimi Hendrix don't think of him as a blues artist. Truth is, Hendrix was one hell of a bluesman.
If that's news to you, go here and listen to some samples from his posthumous album, "Blues." (A coincidence: an old running pal, Jeff Hannusch,
wrote the liner notes.)
Friday, July 9, 2004
Language and Marketing
Louis LaCour, a partner at my law firm, had to replace the video card in
his home PC. After buying the part, he checked out the manufacturer's web site "to see what they had to say about the gleaming little beauty I had
just plunked down $80 for ..." He passed along this sample of what he found (interesting parts in blue):
ASS KICK'n graphics performance
XTASY 9100, powered by ATI's RADEON 9100 VPU with128MB or 64MB DDR
memory gives BITCH'N EYE CANDY! TRUFORM technology makes stuff
more rounded and natural-like, while HYPER Z™ II saves bandwidth for better performance in your
more demanding sit-e'ations ATI's SMOOTHVISION, anti-aliasing, kicks the CRAP
out of visual distortion resulting in smoother looking images. HI-RES 32-bit, 3D gaming up to 2048x1536 means when 'intense
applications' come out to play, XTASY 9100 says: "BI-A-TCH! GO MAKE ME A SAMWICH!!
TAPP'n in to TWO Monitors &
DVD
ATI's HYDRAVISION supports ol'school CRT monitors and flat panels, while VIDEO
IMMERSION II enables integration of UNBELIEVABLE digital video stuff, including advanced de-interlacing for FREAK'N
AWESOME video quality. YOU JUST connect to a digital flat panel and dig crisper images and ease
yo' eyestrain pain!
Muses Louis, "I
could be wrong here, but I'd wager that I'm not their target market. Can you imagine some IS manager shopping for 1,000
video cards reading this?"
Thursday, July 8, 2004
If You're Warm and Happy ...
9:26 pm | link
Great Lunch Spot
If, like me today, you find yourself on I-55 just south of the Mississippi-Louisiana border around lunch time, do not
eat fast food. Instead, pull off at the Highway 16 exit and get your needs met at Alma's. I found this place by
accident today -- and a very excellent accident it was! I had the Thursday special: smoked chicken, two sides
(I ordered the turnip greens and blackeyed peas), cornbread that didn't need any butter thank you, iced tea, and for dessert,
bread pudding with vanilla sauce. Price: $6, plus tax and tip.
Alma's address is 11155 Highway 16 West, Amite, LA, 70422. Phone: (985) 747-0301; fax (985) 747-0401. The
only bad news is this item, stated on their menu: "Sorry!! We do not deliver at this time."
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
Please Please Don't Quote Me
10:12 pm | link
Quotation Marks
- To show a direct quotation.
- To show irony or sarcasm.
- To set off a title of an article, an essay, a poem, a short story, or a song; or the name of a sculpture, a painting,
or a TV show. (This sounds like a question on an intelligence test, doesn't it? "Which item doesn't belong?)
(Titles of longer works -- books, plays, etc. -- should be italicized.)
If the usage doesn't fall into one of these categories, then don't use quotation marks.
To learn more, read these:
- Patricia T. O'Conner, Woe Is I 156 (2003).
- C. Edward Good, A Grammar Book for You and I -- Oops, Me! 410-11 (2002).
- Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 716-17 (2d ed. 1995).
8:39 am | link
Sunday, July 4, 2004
A New Pledge Of Allegiance
I have a problem with pledging allegiance to anything. The root of the word allegiance is the French word
lige, in English, liege -- as in my liege lord. My handy Webster's dictionary defines liege
(adj.) as "having the right to feudal allegiance or service ... obligated to render feudal allegiance and service."
Liege (n.) means "a vassal bound to feudal service and allegiance ... a loyal subject ... a feudal superior to whom
allegiance and service are due." I thought the whole point of the War of Independence was to get rid of all things
liege.
If we must pledge our liege to a thing, I say let's pledge it to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the freedom for which it stands--the same freedom for which millions have sacrificed. Then, the next time someone
wants to pass a law against, say, flag burning, we'll remember our priorities.
Better yet, let's pledge our loyalty and service to our neighbors and all our fellow Americans.
Real Freedom
We became a free nation, not when we won the Revolutionary War on October 19, 1781, but when we declared ourselves free
on July 4, 1776. There is a lesson here. Our ancestors didn't fight to free themselves -- they fought because
they were already free. They didn't die to make us free -- they died to show us how to be free.
In this essay, first published in 1987, Elie Wiesel approaches the same truth from a different angle.
Friday, July 2, 2004
A Danged Dangler
I read this sentence today in a judicial opinion (named omitted to avoid antagonizing the court):
Plaintiffs in this case are the surviving spouse and minor child of suicide victim, J-----, a patient of defendant, Dr.
R-----, who died on December 10, 1990, when she ingested an overdose of medication prescribed by defendant.
Now the first time you read that sentence, you might think for a moment that Dr. R----- had died. The problem is
that the who clause is positioned next to Dr. R-----. And in the English language, modifiers
generally go next to whatever they modify. Thus, the reader momentarily thinks that Dr. R----- died.
You might say that the reader, on reaching the end of the sentence, can figure out that J----, not Dr. R----, is the
one who died. But why write a sentence that needs figuring out? We should strive to write sentences that make
the reader's job as easy as possible.
To fix this sentence, we need to put the who clause next to the noun it modifies: J-----. Thus:
Plaintiffs in this case are the surviving spouse and minor child of suicide victim, J-----, who died on December 10,
1990, when she ingested an overdose of medication prescribed by defendant. Dr. R-----.
That sentence is still too long and complex. We have four verbs, hence four ideas (are ... died ... ingested
... prescribed). And note that the verbs are in reverse chronological order, thus making the reader work even harder
to figure out what's going on. Let's break it in two, and restore some chronological order:
J---- died on December 10, 1990, when she ingested an overdose of medication prescribed by Dr. R----. Her surviving
spouse and child have sued Dr. R---- ....
I know: the first sentence is still in reverse chronological order. I've sacrified chronological order
to put the most important information (J-----'s death) up front. Compare that to the original version, where the
first information is the identity of the plaintiff. Which has more impact?
At least one important idea is missing from my revision: suicide. My version is imprecise -- the
way it reads, the overdose may have been accidental. Let's make it more precise by moving from the general to the specific:
On December 10, 1990, J---- committed suicide by taking an overdose of medication prescribed by Dr. R----.
Her surviving spouse and child have sued Dr. R-----....
Thursday, July 1, 2004
Silence
"To man in the state of nature there is little that is more uncomfortable than another man's silence. The man that says nothing
is a disquieting and uncanny creature." Otto Jespersen, Mankind, Nation, and Individual from a Linguistic Point of View 8
(1946).
This quote comes courtesy of Bryan Garner's Usage Tip of the Day. Go here to sign up.
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