Fun_People Archive
30 Sep
Bits O' Bull No. 392!

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 18:38:03 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Bits O' Bull No. 392!

Forwarded-by: mlinksva@netcom.com (Mike Linksvayer)
Excerpted-from: BONG Bull No. 392!
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  Copyright (c) 1996 by BONG.  All rights reserved.

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...

IF NO NEWS, SHUT UP.  Lee Hickling <hickling@radix.net> reports, "At The
Evening and Sunday Press of Binghamton, N.Y., where I learned the trade (to
the extent that I ever learned it) one rule was enunciated to me this way:
The plural is never formed with apostrophe-S. No exception to this rule
exists.
     'My favorite, though, was memorably expressed to me during my early
weeks at The Press by Stuart A. Dunham, the brilliant city editor of that
era (who died too young, like many of the good ones).  As I was leaving the
office, full of zeal and ambition, he stopped me and said, 'Listen,
Hickling, if nothing happens, don't write me a story about it.'"
     Indeed a brilliant rule, Lee.  It brought to mind another.  The late
Houston Post in the 1960s was one of those rare papers that had an in-house
style book and it made for pretty good reading in its own right.  The entry
for "Muchly" was thus:  "Evenly oncely is muchly tooly oftenly."

© 1996 Peter Langston