Since I mentioned Alex Beam in connection with the Brocabulary book, let me say a few words about his recent book A Great Idea At the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books (PublicAffairs, 2008), about the 54-volume Great Books of the Western World series (first published in 1952).
Archive for January, 2009
The Great Books
January 2, 2009Comments spam
January 2, 2009My posting on bowl games got some relevant comments, but then there was an avalanche of spam comments. Apparently, posting about sports — I am, incidentally, not at all a sports fan, I just stumbled upon this topic — sets off a huge number of spamming sports sites.
So I’ve turned comments off. If you have something substantive to say, send me e-mail.
Chris Waigl tells me that comments on entries in the Eggcorn Database have attracted so much spam — I’ve fielded some of it — that she’s turned off such comments. Completely. I’m sorry about that, but I don’t see any other solution.
International first name, avoiding of
January 2, 2009In Mildred Culp’s syndicated “Business Matters” column, as found in the Palo Alto Daily News, 1/1/09, p. 15, she fields a query from “Hopeless”, who reports having “an excellent work history, but I have just not been getting any good hits off my resume”, and asks Culp to review the attached resume. Culp replies:
Before reading your resume, I considered possible discrimination because of your international first name. Consider using a middle name to job hunt [note very common back-formation] or first and middle initials followed by your last name.”