Monday, April 20, 2009

Happy Belated Anniversary to Elements of Style & Random Thing #8

Somehow I missed that April 16th was the 50th anniversary of Strunk & White's Elements of Style. Required reading in my Freshman English Comp class in college and a handy thing to have lying around in general. I know some disagree, but I'd rather go wrong using Strunk & White's advice than try to muddle through improving my writing on my own. At least I think it sounds better to say "But that's what Elements of Style suggests." than "uh, well, it looked ok to to the MS Grammar check".

NPR did a radio commentary in honor of the anniversary - you can click on this link for the audio (you may need to click again inside the player to start it) or this link to read it - but I think it's more fun to listen to.

Random thing:

When I was younger I went to night classes at a Bible college, taught at a private Baptist Church school and was one of my church's teen group's adult leaders. I loved the Biblical Archeology class best - the whole history of the Middle East region and shards of evidence of the historical lives of the Bible figures was fascinating - and the professor had spent extensive time doing digs at places like Jericho. I also was active in various Bible studies for many years before and after that. So when I heard about a TV show that was loosely based on the story of David and Saul (the story is told in the books of Samuel and others in the Bible), set in a present, but alternate universe, timeline, I thought I'd watch. I rarely catch it on TV, so I watch the full episodes on NBC.com during lunch break or after work. I was chatting about the most recent episode with my husband today:

DH:
kings?
me: it's a mini-series
you'd hate it
me: sort of an alt-history loosely based on the story of David and Saul in the Bible and has a slight "homage to Dallas and Falcon Crest" feel to it
DH: i misread that initially and thought it said "david soul", not "david & saul"
and i was very confused
me: heh
DH: an alternate history based on david soul in the bible?
wtf?
jesus & hutch?
me: Jesus & Hutch...you're gonna get hit by lightning
DH: so long as it's cold lightning, i'm ok with that
it's HOT

And that's my random thing.

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2 comments:

Laurie Ashton Farook said...

*smirk* You and the hubby are funny. And he's gonna get hit by lightning, but he's still funny. :)

ohdawno said...

he does stuff like that all the time and I keep wondering when it's gonna happen...undoubtedly when I'm next to him and not suitably grounded.