Miscellany

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

  Insult and mockery cannot substitute for intelligence and insight.

   When someone says, "Don't you think that ...?" they're not asking for opinion, but for agreement.

   Consider the phrase, "I was very fascinated by ..." There are no degrees of fascination, just as there are no degrees of unique, which means "one of a kind." Either you are fascinated or you're not. Either something is one of a kind, or it's not.

   Talent is what you're born with. Skill is how you develop it. Luck is what happens to you along the way. Success is a blend of all three.
   
   Propaganda often masquerades as marketing a message.

   Typographical gimmickry is no substitute for readability. Grammatical shouting insults reader intelligence.

   Consider a sentence with 160 words, 11 commas, 4 dashes and 2 sets of parentheses. It may be "correct" but it's unreadable. Or, when you have the time, count the number of words, commas, semicolons and colons in the opening sentence of John Milton's "Paradise Lost." Then remember why you found the work unreadable, if not boring. 

   Then there was the press release that put some words IN ALL CAPITAL letters, other words in Bold Face, still others in bold italic, yet others in BOLD ITALIC CAPS  and still others BOLD FACE CAPS and underlined.  When that strategy goes on for two full pages, it's no longer informational for a news reporter, but like a screeching used car commercial.

   Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.