A 1969 vision of how the Internet would’ve worked. Not too far off.

From ProofreadNOW:

Press releases, news reports, and newsletters often include quotations. As the writer, you sometimes find the need to explain or elaborate. You can use brackets to do so. Here’s how.

Parentheses within a quotation enclose material that is part of the quotation. Brackets are the only mark of punctuation that indicate that the enclosed material is not part of the quotation.

The mayor said, “John is my choice for treasurer” may not be clear if John has not been identified or if more than one John has been mentioned. The mayor said, “John [Smith] is my choice for treasurer” uses brackets to give the surname without misquoting the mayor.

The mayor said, “He is my choice for treasurer” can be clarified by replacing the pronoun with the bracketed name: The mayor said, “[John Smith] is my choice for treasurer.” The pronoun could be allowed to stay—The mayor said, “He [John Smith] is my choice for treasurer”—but it is rarely necessary to hold the reader up this way; it is usually better to omit the pronoun.

Smith said, “The Bard of Amherst [Emily Dickinson, 1830-86] is my favorite poet” uses the bracketed material after The Bard of Amherst rather than in place of it, because it is not just a pronoun that would be displaced; the writer does not want to lose the epithet that Smith used but does want to explain it.

The mayor said, “Smith [who is now out on bail] may not seem the obvious choice” uses brackets to supply material that may not be essential to clarify what the mayor said but that the writer thinks readers will find relevant.

Smith said, “I base my oratorical style on that of Pliny the Elder [actually, Pliny the Younger; the elder Pliny was a naturalist] and expect to overwhelm the electorate with my eloquence” uses brackets to enclose a correction. Such bracketed corrections are apt to seem snide and often are snide—which is all right when writers are being frankly derisive, but objectionable if they are just slipping in a little dig to make themselves appear superior to whomever they are quoting. The overuse of [sic] indicates such a smart aleck—[sic] is useful when it is important to point out an error, but it should not appear after every minor error; minor errors should either be allowed to stand for readers to notice themselves or else be quietly corrected, except in works of literary, historical, or legal significance in which such correction would be an unacceptable violation of the text.

Excessive uses of [sic] sometimes expose themselves: “Who [sic] shall I say is calling?” she warbled indicates that the writer, ignorant of proper grammar, thinks Whom would be correct. And GT readers know “Who shall I say is calling?” is indeed correct!

Source: The Handbook of Good English by Edward D. Johnson, 1991, Pocket Books.

Sunset Pizza & Pasta, Sunset Beach CA, 03.28.2010

An SNL classic with Phil Hartman. Don’t miss the jingle at the end.

Squoise loves her carbs. Throw down a T-bone steak, some chicken nuggets, a meatball, and crouton, and she’d eat the crouton first.

http://storyofbottledwater.org

The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.

Robert Culp was best known for his work alongside Bill Cosby in “I Spy”. If you’re a generation younger than that, you’d probably remember him best as Bill Maxwell in “The Greatest American Hero”.

Just in from my sister Heather:

There is a story to this:

My mom has always told me that when I was born, she sat up immediately and looked the clock and said, “It’s 4:07, its 4:07, its 4:07!” It was always just a funny story until the day of the wedding.

My brother Jace is very sentimental and loves things to do with time or ages. Oh, and he loves his iPhone 😉 So when he knew Sabo was about to announce us as husband and wife, Jace looked at the time. As you can see here, it was 4:07. As my mom put it in her beautiful speech, God brought me into their lives at 4:07, and at 4:07 they gave me away.

I couldn’t have written a better story myself. God has blessed me over and over. I am so thankful to be alive.