Style and form

Style and form

Posted Oct 22, 2005 20:01 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165)
In reply to: Style and form by man_ls
Parent article: Ballmer: Microsoft to go after Linux strongholds (ZDNet)

Likewise for exclamation marks! Save them for the genuinely surprising, or genuinely funny. If the sentence doesn't read right without the exclamation mark, chances are it's better left unsaid: not surprising enough, or funny enough, to be worth the reading.

On the subject of focus, consider (from the soap opera actress, in John Sayles's movie "Passion Fish", pondering how to play one of her assigned lines, presumably post-UFO-abduction):

I didn't ask for the anal probe. [must have been somebody else]
I didn't ask for the anal probe. [they said I did]
I didn't ask for the anal probe. [I was just as happy without]
I didn't ask for the anal probe. [some other kind, sure]
I didn't ask for the anal probe. [no comment]

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