Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Apostrophe Catastrophe

Came across this post in Blogosphere about apostrophe abuse. Ended up writing a ditty there.. but could not edit it there... could not editee/a written ditty.

The abuse of the apostrophe is on my list of pet peeves as well. (The under-use of the hyphen is a close second)

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APOSTROPHE CATASTROPHE
Or, The abuse of apostrophe's,
Or, Its not right,
Or, Soon it will find it's grave!
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Loud and strong
Proud and long
Grammarians complain
But it's all in vain
It'll happen now, and again
Then it'll be the common strain!
Sound and fury down the drain
Might as well say "Amen"!

- Thomas Jay Cubb

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Current Jokes

While in school, we were taught that the waveform for AC is a sine curve.
The representation of the signal was like: ^u^u^u^u or /\/\/\/\/\/\/\ with a line passing through it: you know what I mean.

This realization led to the postulation of the following explanations/justifications.

1. Why don't birds on wires get electrocuted?
Because they might be perched on a section of the wire through which the wave-form doesn't pass.

2. Why we need not pay for electricity.
Because the current comes to our home and then goes right back to the power-station.

Yup, these are PJs.

3. How could power-cuts possibly help to save energy?
The power was generated by water falling on the turbines. The power was being generated anyway (other localities would have power), the water was falling. It could not go back up, so weren't we actually wasting that water!