[thechat] Punctuation - wuz - RE: RPM Challenge?
Luther, Ron
Ron.Luther at hp.com
Fri Jan 26 13:12:57 CST 2007
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!
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