https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/<\/a> Many thanks to Sally and Rosemary for all their hard work.<\/p>\nThe showcasing has grown into such a worthy part of the Alpha routine that we\u2019d miss it sorely if it ground to a halt. The feedback indicates that members appreciate the opportunity to read each other\u2019s work, and the good news is that Clare says she\u2019s getting a generous supply of contributions.<\/p>\n
Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat\u2026 But never mind the goose! Olaf tells me he\u2019s been busy preparing the now well-established Alpha tradition of the Christmas quiz that will puzzle even the most learned Alpha and cause grinding of teeth and tearing out of hair\u2026 plus give us all the fun of solving an impossible puzzle; because somebody always cracks it sooner or later and we enjoy the battle. I can\u2019t wait to see what this year brings.<\/p>\n
My discreet little query re dashes and ellipses set off quite a debate about punctuation generally. In turns it elucidated and obscured some different usages in various parts of the world. Somebody came up with interesting examples of writers who insisted on using their own idiosyncratic variations. (I have a 1903 edition of Tristram Shandy. What a marvellous, punctuational muddle that is!) The great merit of this debate was to make us think about the knotty subject of punctuation and perhaps aim to be more consistent. In a group like ours we\u2019re lucky to have people whose views are worth listening to.<\/p>\n
We even had a swipe at the contentious issue of the split infinitive. I was not listening to a French radio talk about science fiction before the news, when the English sentence, \u201cTo boldly go where no man has gone before\u201d hit my ears. It sounded familiar. I wondered whether they\u2019d found the line in Kipling or perhaps Tennyson? I had to find out.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a \u201cStar Trek\u201d fan. To my knowledge I have never deliberately watched \u201cStar Trek\u201d films or episodes. If I have, it\u2019s made a perfectly delible impression on me. Yet that line was lodged in my memory store.<\/p>\n
I found out that it\u2019s been used at the opening of every \u201cStar Trek\u201d episode from 1966 and that the line contributed towards legitimising the split infinitive and stamping those who opposed its use as deluded pedants.<\/p>\n
Now there\u2019s a cultural revolution I didn\u2019t realise \u201cStar Trek\u201d had so boldly fought. It doesn\u2019t even stop there. There was a sexism issue involved as well. \u201cNo man\u2026\u201d There\u2019s the usual argument to accept the word as referring to humankind generally. But it rankles with some hypersensitive feminists. They crossed out \u201cman\u201d and put \u201cone\u201d \u2013 definitely sexless \u2013 in its place: \u201cTo boldly go where no one has gone before.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m impressed. I have great respect for \u201cStar Trek\u201d now!<\/p>\n
Christine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 4. We\u2019re definitely in full swing now; there\u2019s so much happening that it can be hard to keep up with it all. How much of it registers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13,12],"tags":[6,7,5,11,8,4],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","category-leaderboard","category-writing-thoughts","tag-alpha","tag-alpha-writers","tag-challenges","tag-punctuation","tag-showcase","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}