Hugovk doesn't seem to quite understand the mission of the "scare quotes" group. The letter he found on the bus is kind of interesting though.
I suppose this was the qualifying spelling: "we are out are cell's all day."
Well that would have been the qualifying spelling if the letter had appeared in the misused apostrophe group. Are you laboring under a similar illusion to Hugovk's?
Hey speaking of open threads: has anybody else started Against the Day yet? I just picked it up this morning and am trying to figure out what is going on as I read the first chapter, though I sort of know the better strategy is to float along on the saline bath of text and get enveloped by the gentle arms of text and get devoured by the slavering maw of text, and hope that "what is going on" becomes apparent to me later on.
Oh, crap. But! It looks like Hugovk also posted that letter to at least two offending-apostrophe groups. So I was, um, sort of onto something. Sort of. Not really.
Is it just me, or are some of those apostrophes actually appropriate? Like the ones on the motor shop sign, and the one on the Bernardo's sign? Isn't it acceptable to use apstrophes when forming plurals from numbers and abbreviations?
OT, but I think we all owe AWB a sneer. Thanks a lot.
Mistaken use of scare quotes is always better than the grocer's apostrophe (hey, I didn't know that had a name before) because you generally get something really funny when you read the mistaken scare quotes as actual scare quotes. The classic of the genre is the so-called "fresh" fish.
get devoured by the slavering maw of text
ATM.
4: I didn't know you and text were such a hot item!
Reading sounds like a very good way to spend Black Friday. If it's 57 degrees and sunny, am I crazy if I take my book to the lake to read? It feels warm.
In honor of alameida I'm going to think about my alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe shirt.
I had a great-aunt who would put people's names in quotes, so her letters went: I went up to visit "Edith" on the weekend. She is worried about "John" who is back on the bottle. And so forth.
It looked like she had an elaborate system of pseudonyms, but they were just their names. No-one knew why she did it. Maybe no-one even asked.
14 -- this reminds me a little of gossip columnists who put proper names in bold.
7 -- is "exporter of wheat" some kind of euphemism?
As to Against the Day: Here's an information bleg. Gotta run but if you have info post it here, I'll check back later on, thanks.
Taking advantage of the open thread: the NYT bread recipe has been a big hit in the Chopper household. Now I find myself interested in trying more wet-dough bread recipes and understanding the theory behing breadology a bit better. Anybody got any book recs? I've been eyeing The Baker's Apprentice.
I'm looking at you, M/lls.
The Amy's Bread cookbook is really good both for recipes and theory. It may be out of print though. Tassajara Bread Book has some good theory in it but the recipes are not all that. (It has gone through a number of editions though and I'm not sure if what I said applies to the current one.)
Yeah Amy's Bread is out of print and used copies are fetching high prices.
Sorry, Choppeur, I was away for the weekend. I think The Bread Baker's Apprentive would probably be my top pick to take your knowledge of how and why bread works up a notch. Reinhart's very much into the slow cool rise, and has lots of good recipes.
Another worthy book on the technical side is Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes.
And The Bread Builders by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott is also a great great book. Although it primarily focuses on building your own wood-fired oven (which I hope to do at some point, and seems like the kind of thing you might be into), it has a lot of great info on the mechanics of what makes good bread.
Amy's Bread is indeed a wonderful book for learning techniques. You might check your local library to see if they have a copy or can get it on loan for you. Also good on technique is Daniel Leader's Bread Alone. And any of Peter Reinhart's other bread books.