TONIGHT ON DUMONT.

The Alan Sundry Show, featuring Alan Sundry and his very special guests:

Vice-President Harris talks about that time somebody recognized her on the street.

Rollo, the Calculating Poodle, prepares Alan’s quarterly estimated tax payment.

Bozar the Clown, appearing on Zoom from an undisclosed location, makes popovers in the shape of the Temple of Vesta.

Teenie Sparkle, host of the popular children’s program Sparkle Park, tells Alan what she really thinks of those sniveling brats.

Enoch Witherburton and His Not Labeled for Individual Sale Orchestra play the Century III Chevrolet jingle.

Tune in tonight: 8 p.m., or 9:26 p.m. Central, because deliveries are slow these days.

. 3 comments.

Comments

  1. MartinD says:
    November 15, 2021 at 2:27 am

    Dear Dr Boli,

    Please forgive a comment that doesn’t follow from the current item, but the Autobolificator recently took me to https://drboli.com/2015/03/17/style-advice-from-theodore-lowe-de-vinne/. Dare I suggest that you haven’t mined this remarkable resource as deeply as it deserves.

    Page 20 (the author strictly forbids abbreviating this as p 20) says “It is a proper and decorous system to spell out doctor, professor, general, colonel, captain, major and like titles. Good book and magazine work oppose abbreviations of such titles.” As even Boswell’s Life of Johnson uses Dr I wonder where this objection came from (though perhaps Boswell is not a proper and decorous model).

    Page 66 introduces reformed spelling. Some of these have caught on, but others like crost in place of crossed are entirely new to me and I struggle to believe were ever used. Some words like pedobaptist seem remarkably specialised in a list of only 300 words (I took the risk of looking it up online).

    Finally there is much wisdom regarding forms of address. My early religious education classes with the saintly Mrs O’Brien never considered the possibility of writing to the Pope, but now I know the correct way to conclude my letter. The author also helpfully suggests “Those who are not Catholics should trust to good sense to conclude respectfully”. Presumably instead of concluding with some wish about the recipient burning in hell for eternity.

    I remain respectfully etc. (etc. etc. being frowned upon).

    Reply
    • Dr. Boli says:
      November 16, 2021 at 11:54 am

      Once again, something in this comment (perhaps the reference to practitioners of infant baptism) triggered the automatic spam filter, so please forgive our robot for delaying its publication. The robot means well, and one hesitates to hurt its pride by admonishing it too severely.

      Mr. Theodore Low de Vinne had his eccentricities, but they were well-thought-out eccentricities. He was entitled to them, since he did more to raise the standard of American typography than anyone else of his generation. And in spite of what seems like a humorous contrast between the stated principle of avoiding arabic numerals and the barrage of arabic numerals that follows, Mr. De Vinne knew what he was doing. There is a place for spelling out numbers, but that place is not in cross-references to numbered paragraphs.

      Dr. Boli notices that you had the good breeding not to mention his own embarrassing error in spelling Mr. De Vinne’s middle name wrong in the title of this article.

      Reply
  2. von Hindenburg says:
    November 16, 2021 at 7:14 am

    That would be a fascinating program indeed.

    Reply

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