7 responses to “Period punctuation posting . . .”

1. 

   absurdoldbird

   June 25, 2010 at 10:03 am

   Or, if you’re British, never place a full stop outside inverted commas.

   😉

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2. 

   thekingoftexas

   June 25, 2010 at 11:36 am

   I am fascinated by those inverted commas. How did you do that? I don’t seem to have a key for that—it must be similar to the “any key,” the one that we search for when the directions say “hit any key.” How about sharing your secret with me?

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3. 

   absurdoldbird

   June 25, 2010 at 12:37 pm

   lol!
   An inverted comma is just Britspeak for double quotation marks (quotes).

   ‘ single
   ” double… (singlex2)

   or ” which is on my top row of keys. Um, no… not the top row, they’re the number keys.

   Hey – is it true that touch-typing is taught as a matter of course in all American schools? I had to go to a secretarial college to learn mine. Not that I stayed very long! I can touch type with ease, but I didn’t manage to learn the top row – as I have dyscalculia.

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4. 

   thekingoftexas

   June 25, 2010 at 3:46 pm

   If you are asking whether typing classes are mandatory, no, but touch typing classes are available in most schools as an elective. I fared well in typing class in my tenth year of school—I was typing 60 words a minute after deductions for errors, with only four weeks of instruction and practice.

   I believe I would have done even better had our typing teacher not been young, beautiful and single—most of my typing errors were made while my adoring gaze followed her undulating movements as she slithered about the room assisting students.

   I lingered in class after school one Friday—Black Friday—on some silly pretext and committed a serious faux pas. She advised me not to return to her class on Monday—otherwise I would suffer the consequences of my faux pas. Ah, to be young again—not!

   I took two biology classes that semester, Biology I and Biology II, consecutive classes taught by a very-close-to-retirement-aged martinet, a spinster with x-ray eyes, an inordinately long reach and an 18-inch wooden ruler, one that she wielded strongly and frequently on miscreants such as my mother’s youngest son. Bummer!

   I regret that you are afflicted with dyscalculia—I believe I also have it, but it’s in different subjects.

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5. 

   absurdoldbird

   June 26, 2010 at 6:30 am

   When I was nine years old, my primary school teacher was a very pretty 19 year old who my dad invited to a party at our home and one of his friends fell for her… I wonder if this explains why, when I’ve tried to get in touch with some teachers from school, she has not replied! (My dad always laughed at the fact that at nine years of age, I thought she was ancient!)

   By the by, there’s a blog I read that you might enjoy. It’s called Sentence First and is here:
   http://stancarey.wordpress.com/

   Oh – and congrats on the gravitar/icon. You and your wife look like a nice couple of people.
   🙂

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   • 

     thekingoftexas

     June 26, 2010 at 7:36 pm

     Hi, Val—yep, it’s Val from now on, unless you advise me otherwise. By using a first name, I feel that I am in communion with that person, that my voice is being heard and not just wandering around somewhere in cyberspace. And my name is Mike. Not Michael, just plain Mike. I would have preferred Michael but I was in no position to rebut the name—it was thrown at me by an uncle, one of my mother’s numerous brothers, an hour or so after my birth and it stuck, a diminutive of Michael that quickly morphed to Mikey, and I like that even less than just plain Mike.

     My first name is Hershel—ay, and therein lies a tale. I know you dislike URLs in comments, so if you are interested in the genesis of Hershel as my given name, google “gospel singer or drunken deputy.” I can readily say, in all modesty, that the posting is interesting and a good read, well worth one’s time. Just as an aside, I admit that except for that one fault—modesty—I would be perfect!

     Now for the up close and personal part of this comment. You mentioned that some say that you have a nice smile. Yes, you do, and you have the deep-set eyes and the high cheek-bones of a later-day Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn or Jennifer Jones, three of my all-time favorite ladies of the cinema.

     Thanks for directing me to Sentence First—it’s a great blog, and I’m already bemoaning the amount of time that I will spend on it in the future.

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6. 

   absurdoldbird

   June 27, 2010 at 5:16 am

   Hey there Mike, thanks for the compliments, and you’re very welcome to call me Val, that’s my name.
   🙂

   I get the high cheekbones from my mother and my sister is also blessed with them though my face is longer than hers (and a touch horse-like though I try to keep the whinnying to myself).

   My dad was a Michael but was mostly known as Mick. I have a lovely photo of him as a few months old baby with his mother (in 1913) and on the back is written ‘Mickey at three months’. He hated being called Mickey!

   Hershel (not sure if it had a C or not, probably did) was also an astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus, though I believe it was called something else in his time, so you’re definitely in good company.

   I read your post, about the origins of your first name, duly found via google search. All your posts are interesting (and mostly fun, too) but I do prefer the ones about your family and your own history to the ones that I must admit avoiding, like the electric chair post!

   I hope when I’ve a bit more concentration (I don’t sleep well since withdrawing from a prescribed tranquilliser a couple of years ago) to read your wartime memories. I was born in 1951, so by the time I had any sort of outside world consciousness the Korean war was over, but my teen years happened during the Vietnam war. My respect to you for having fought in and endured both.

   I recently bought a couple of autobiographies, one by Harry Patch, the other by Henry Allingham, both men having been WW1 veterans. Harry Patch was 111 when he died, and Henry Allingham was 113. I’m fascinated by history as recounted by real people who lived in my own time-period and before, but I must admit that history books bore me to tears and the content of them tend not to stick in my mind. It’s curious, though, that I bought these at all as I’m not really into war as a subject. I just, quite suddenly, needed to connect to my parents’ and my grandparents’ generations and be able to live through them. Even the pain. Very strange. However, I’m sure you don’t want extra reminders of your own painful years, so I shall leave it at this.

   By the way, I don’t mind links in comments back to a person’s blog providing it’s in context of the post that the comment is about and providing it doesn’t detract from the emotion or intention of my post. So many people will just post the URL of their blog, and it’s like an advert that says “well, I don’t really care what you’ve written, but come and look at my blog.” I really don’t mind a link to a post of their own if it’s in keeping with my post. So your comment with a link to the memory of your cat, stays in on Pitzy’s page.

   Glad you like Stan’s blog Sentence First! It’s absorbing and addictive!

   Reply

    

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