Re: PTree, that's hilarious!

You know, once I bought one of those amazing Readers' Digest books that is the most thorough and beautifully presented work on its subject that the average person could hope to find.

Without running and looking for the title, they did one on landscape gardening that took my breath away. Done years ago, it is THE definitive work on the subject, for you and I, to this day.

I sneak off with Readers' Digest books priced at only $1 or $2, from garage sales, certain that someone will catch me.

People just don't know that they are selling a college course on the subject.

The one I bought retail was about linguistics, particularly those in the U.S.A.

It showed the development of English on this continent, in all its dialects.

I know, that astonished me, too...that North Americans have 'dialects'.

The book pointed out that words and phrases develop on USAGE...and that linguists must study and document not only our popular trends in usage, but in pronounciation and meaning.

Can you imagine the discussions that must take place in the boardroom of each and every dictionary publisher?!

And now, with the advent of the Internet, where every and anyone can self-publish, repeatedly...well, it must look as though the language has exploded.

I wonder where it will all land. Probably none of us will understand our grandchildren, nor vice versa.

That's one reason I'm still in there pitching the stuff I learned when Hector was a pup. Another reason is that I don't know any other style, at least not well enough to write it. Sigh.

"Eats, Shoots and Leaves," you say? (He-he-he.) I'll look for it!

Thanks,

Fledgling