If you write an italicized movie/book/whatever title then abbreviate any subsequent uses/mentions of that title, must you also italicize the abbreviated forms?

I think so. In legal writing I know you italicize both the full case name and any subsequently-used short form; I'd apply the same rule.

Yes; the exception (sometimes) being in parenthetical form. E.g., you will sometimes see:

"In Hamlet, the king [etc., etc.]. As he later says: "How is it that the clouds still hang on you?" (Ham I.ii).

(However, there are better ways of handling that particular citation.)

I wonder if I could get people's opinions on something. I know they're synonyms, but is it better to use 'ardent' or 'fervent' in the following sentence: -

Sail away on _______ dreams?

It's going to be a line in a poem and I'm undecided which sounds better. TIA.

I would just put "Sail away on dreams"

I like ardent better.

This could affect your decision in either direction: fervent is considerably more common, with ardent being uncommon enough that some people won't know what it means.

I've sent an email to a recruiter for some position or other, it is jumping too much to assume that if the company is using someone that doesn't know the difference between your and you're, they can't be any good to work for?

Yes, 100%.

Don't be ridiculous. If you're going to exclude companies based on this, you won't find any place suitable to work.

And those living in glass houses....

I refer to your sentence structure above. Not sure of that first comma...seems like it should have been a period, with the next sentence starting "Is it..." rather than "It is..."

that might be one of the dumbest assumptions ever. especially if it's a recruiter and not someone you'd actually be working with.

the intended recipient is intelligent enough to know what it means (i assume, anyway).

yeah i'm going with this; i've decided the consonant-to-vowel relationship in between the words 'on' and 'ardent' make it flow nicer.

thanks!

TTI,

I find that Vollmann paragraph fairly unreadable, both in terms of style and content. It's almost parodically overwritten, and it's overwritten in the service of describing something (people eating lunch) that doesn't ask for that level of description. I mean, I don't know the context, so I could be wrong about that, but that's how it strikes me, and it's a gripe I have about DFW too: i.e. arbitrary overdescription of the mundane to no real end.

Also, the descriptions themselves are not great. Forks as Stuka dive bombers? That's straining pretty hard. "Cringing salads" is worse. "Immense collage of sandwich components into his hairy cheeks" is just terrible. If I didn't know any better I would peg this as the work of a precocious show-off in a Creative Writing 101 class, and not a famous author.

Yeah I agree with the points on Volmann.

I wouldn't, however, label DFW's overdescription as arbitrary or frequently about the mundane.

Yes, to be fair, DFW does this kind of thing much better than Vollman. DFW I kind of shelve in the "not my cup of tea but obviously talented and smart" camp. Vollman I actually think isn't very good. There are similarities in the lack of editing department, though.

I loathe the phrase "found dead"

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/63...emoved-857152/

(Btw, in the OP, I was sorta parodying the "pretentious review voice.")

Can someone clue me in on this one? It doesn't look incorrect to me.

Well two things I guess, one being that death is no fun, and the other being that I could infer from most of the times this is used that the person has been found. Just say dead.

I guess "found deceased" would be better

You can generally infer that people die with no known witnesses?

Police arrived at the scene at 8:45, and the suspect was detected in a non-living state.

Can legible be used to describe typing?

Like if the word 'adult' was typed and spelled 'datul', can it be said it is not legible? Came up in another forum awhile back and people insisted legibility has only to do with handwriting when it is defined as:

1. Possible to read or decipher
2. Plainly discernible; apparent

Obviously in my example the word is clearly misspelled, when illegible in written work has to do with the formation of the strokes in writing and not the actually spelling, but by its definition it wouldn't seem wrong to call misspelled typing illegible.

It certainly does not just have to do with handwriting. Something typed with (going back a few years) a really worn ribbon could certainly be described as 'illegible'.

Similarly a printer running out of ink might produce illegible copy. But I would not use the word for misspellings.