Fifteen reasons why it's not 15

This rather glorious interview with Francis Ford Coppola about, oh, everything and anything anyone should care about does, alas, exemplify a point to which more publications should divert attention.

I can't rail about such an incursion in such charming company as Mr. Coppola, but I will show you this excerpt:

"The cinema language happened by experimentation – by people not knowing what to do. But unfortunately, after 15-20 years, it became a commercial industry."

Briefly, publications have sensible standards about the way they present numbers. Fine. I posit that among those standards should always be an exclusion for numbers in quoted speech.

Why? Not just because I'm a sneering grammarian, but because it's impossible to say 15-20. What is there is "fifteen dash twenty." We say "fifteen to twenty" only because we infer the "to" from the dash.

People don't speak in text-convenient abbreviations, they speak in words. Like "fifteen" and "to". Perhaps Coppola actually said "fifteen or twenty". Perhaps he said "fifteen, twenty". Who knows? Even if he said "fifteen to twenty", it's kind of, well, irrelevant. The point is that, regrettably, his personal expression has been reduced in this case to a typesetting convention.

Written text should take its cues from spoken language (especially in speech), not the other way around.

[the cure]

[had thought things were getting better, but they weren't: all the time, the fear was simply moving deeper, embedding itself. All along, the hardness was only growing tougher, the isolation becoming more complete. The cure was the disease. I stopped understanding, and I stopped wanting answers]

Social media paranoia

You know, sometimes (okay: all the time) I write off Twitter compliments on my work from strangers simply because I'm sure the charming-sounding complimenter is just trying to "engage", to "connect", to add "nodes" to their "ecosystem".

Immediately the initial spark of charm passes, I'm left with the thought, "Oh, but they didn't really mean it." Stupid, huh?

Or is it? Seriously, people go around laboriously tweeting to others in order to "build eminence" and "implement strategy". They do. I'm not kidding. Everyone's your friend on social media, even when it only suits them. In most cases, only because it suits them. I'm serious.

Man, this social media paranoia is really fucking with my head.

Colons and dashes (or: gesturing and bananas)

I know, I know. Colons and dashes. Who can work out that little contretemps? Throw a semi-colon into the mix, and you've got a contre-menage-a-trois, which is just about the worst French affliction there is.

Listen, forget about semi-colons for now. They have nothing to do with dashes and colons. That's all you need to know about them within this particular context.

So, to colons and dashes. There are plenty of high-falutin' rules that, if you wish, you can research and memorise so you can wow potential suitees at parties. As per usual, I will bypass these and give you my own humble interpretations of the usage of these two forms of punctuation. Okay? Okay.

The dash

We're not talking hyphens, people. Dashes. Whether it's a spaced n dash (blah – blah) or an unspaced m dash (blah—blah), the dash does the same thing.

The dash does for grammar what the gesture of holding your hand out, palm-side up, and moving it toward your listener does.

Imagine we're talking, you and I. It's getting a bit peevish. You want to use a semi-colon, and I'm trying to explain to you that it's just not right in this context. Then I say, "Look—it's just not right." And at "Look", I lift my hand to about waist-height, palm up, and advance it in your direction.

This gesture invites concord. It's not confrontational; instead, it almost pleads for understanding. This is what the dash does. It says, "Hey, here's what I really mean. Here's a bit more detail. Get me now?"

The colon

The colon says, "ta-daaa!"

Personally, I like to think that the colon prepares the reader for the concept precipitated by the words that appear before it, but you probably think that's a big fat bunch of bull. Fine. Just think of it as "ta-daaa!" alright?

"I had lunch: bananas on toast."

Yes, it would be far more entertaining to punctuate our sentences with "ta-daaa!", but it's unlikely to be appropriate in all cases.

If "gesture/ta-daaa!" is too obtuse for you, perhaps think of dashes and colons thus: the dash pre-empts the advancement of further elucidation for the reader's kind consideration, while the colon, like an equal sign, separates two equal parts of an equation.

Dashes can also be used parenthetically; colons can be used to introduce lists. But what with all this gesturing and bananas, we've probably done enough for one day, don't you think?

[dawn]

[At dawn
--cock's crow--
the trees explode:
a shrapnel of birds
wheels, screaming,
then forms a broken,
flickering cloud
that turns toward water,
keening.

The raddled grasses
rill and ripple
and whisper softly of snakes
and secrets.
Yet I keep walking--
warm sun, dry wind
--and look toward water,
dreaming.]

Sleep deprivation

This happened over the "break". I was so impressed by the fist-to-the-eye-socket-style manifestation that I thought I'd show it to you. The dim lighting is especially writer-starving-in-garret, don't you think?

If in doubt...

My sister once gave me some good driving advice. She was a terrible driver, but she advised me, from the passenger seat of her car, which I was driving at the time, "If in doubt, don't."

Good advice for driving. But for life? I've adapted her base sentence, preserving the stem and changing the verb:

If in doubt, write.

I've found that this works in almost all cases. Tired of the humdrum work day? Write something for fun. Underwhelmed by the band? Write a message to that effect on the wall of the venue's bathroom stall. Missing someone? Write them a letter.

Writing works. It works out. Explains. Expresses. Fills the gap. Perpetuates the delusion that things can be made sense of. Allows us to face what make us afraid. Tempers our moods, becalms hurt feelings, and lets us empathise with others as well as with ourselves.

My advice to you? If in doubt, write.