[thechat] Punctuation - wuz - RE: RPM Challenge?

[Luther, Ron]

Joel D Canfield noted:

> derivations of coMic sections
>>that would be you, eh?

Moi?! [1]

[1] As is 'surprised'.  Not as in 'factorial'.  
Factorials are scary. ... Especially a 
'Ron(factorial)'!  Whoa! Egad! Beware! 
Run for your life!!!!!!



Actually I was thinking more about your comments on my 
(admitted) overuse of ellipses. [2] (And exclamation 
points! {Although that wasn't mentioned.}  Footnotes 
either!  Or brackets.  Or parenthetical remarks.) 

Musing about origin and intent on the drive home yesterday.

Now Rudy is quite the pro at succinctness.  Brevity. 
Minimizing tangential distractions.  He works at it. 
And it works for him.  Yet somehow he communicates 
warmth and humor in spite of economy. In short 
sentences. Of few words.

Apparently I'm not that focused.  <SURPRISE! />  I find 
too many shiny ideas needing to be explored simultaneously. 
{Ooooo!  There's one now!}  Disheveled yet amusing. 

Relating that maelstorm verbally requires timing, changes 
in pace, considerable use of pause, and lots of changes in 
timbre, volume, tone, and expressiveness.  Puppets also help. 
And cheese.  In short many things difficult to convey in 
a flat written medium such as email.

... It would appear that, apparently, I'm not content with 
merely *Producing* the email ... I want to *Direct* as well!

;-)

The profusion of emoticons, the oft lament for an irony tag, 
and the many lol/rotflmao sidebars suggest that other 
control freaks also feel this need for additional expressiveness.  

<pre> tags might help.  It would allow more white space. 
More 'compositional' freedom for arrangement implying timing 
and perhaps to some extent tone/pitch.

But maybe what we really need are more sheet music like elements 
that we could incorporate into prose. (That last sentence 
was intended to be read in 6/8 time at 110 bpm.)  (Oh hell, 
give it a 'slow waltz' lilt as well!)  (Full rest.)

<coda>Use of codas would probably [1 require more discipline 
for composition.]</coda>[2 make reading more difficult than 
it already is too.]

Now, if we had a visual system whereby we could give 
different time values to different words or syllables ... 
that could be a start in the right direction.  Enlightened 
countries already have different sizes and colors for 
different paper money denominations.  Why not different 
sizes and colors for dif-fer-ent written time values? 

That way I could note that the word "different" in the 
last sentence was to have been read stoccato with each 
syllable as a dotted quarter note.  Could be fun!


Good thing I only have a short drive home, huh?  
Otherwise I mighta come up with somethin weird ...


RonL.

[2] I googled for 'punctuationaholics' and returned 
zero documents! Nada.  Zip.  Once indexed this may 
be the one and only such document!