"Are You Being Sarcasmic?"

I had a friend who used to say that. It cracked me up. And instead of saying "Goodbye now!" a group of my cousins/aunts/uncles used to yell out the pleasant-sounding "Vagi-now!" (try saying it again with a soft "g.") But I'm moving off message. The message being that I was amused by this writer's suggestion for a new addition to punctuation: the sarcasm point.

He's being sarcastic, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised by the sudden appearance of such a mark. Stranger things have happened (on November 2, 2004, let's say...), after all. I would find the sarcasm point annoying in the same way that I find emoticons (no offense to those who use them) annoying. They take the challenge out of communicating effectively. If I'm being sarcasmic, shouldn't you be able to tell without my having to resort to a punctuation mark that announces it in neon?

Am I really blogging about this? Let's move on...

In typical fashion, I have hidden Christmas gifts all over the damn house and now cannot find half of them.

Moving on again...

I recently spoke (okay, it was an e-mail exchange--must we quibble?) with Eileen about the inexorable sadness of typos. I am cursed with the ability to spot them almost immediately, and I am bummed to say that I am finding certain books semi-rife with the buggers. The worst part is that they happen to be in books written by Filipinos. I find them in books by others as well, but they are not my concern! I want us to be a typo-free people, people! And because I am willing to put my red pen where my mouth is, I have invited Eileen to "use and abuse" my voluntary services over at Meritage Press (which is not to say that Meritage books are filled with typos), and methinks she will.

I like community. Community is good.

As an amusing aside, I will tell you that my proofing talent was honed while working as a copywriter for Illiams-Way Onoma-Say and having to endure the horror of a typesetter accidentally naming a bottle of barbecue sauce "Homie's BBQ Sauce" instead of the far less offensive "Homestyle BBQ Sauce."

I was hoping to be able to laugh about that one day. Today's the day.