There's a certain trick of writing that I keep seeing. It's the practice of emphasizing by separating each word in its own sentence, like, Oh. My. God. Guys, it's just been overdone.
I'm not sure how it began. It might have been someone trying to ridicule William Shatner's speaking style. I think it might have been that classic "Poochie" episode of The Simpsons, where the Comic Store Guy declares the latest Itchy And Scratchy to be the Worst. Episode. Ever. I'm not sure how everyone seems to know he was speaking each word in its own sentence, but that's how I've always seen it spelled.
By the way, I learned in school that you are supposed to italicise the name of a TV show, as opposed to say, a song, whose title is quoted. But what about a show within a show? They never covered that, and the mundane entertainment of the time didn't require us to know.
Anyway, the thing that pushed me over the edge on this one-word sentence thing was an op-ed piece today about Thomas Mulcair. It's bad enough that the writer used this abused technique to describe an unexciting politician, but he was actually trying to emphasize the very fact that he is unexciting. So that's it, it's the period that broke the camel's back from now on, if you want to emphasize something in print, you'll just have to us all-caps and exclamation marks, just like us poor souls on the Internet.
I'm not sure how it began. It might have been someone trying to ridicule William Shatner's speaking style. I think it might have been that classic "Poochie" episode of The Simpsons, where the Comic Store Guy declares the latest Itchy And Scratchy to be the Worst. Episode. Ever. I'm not sure how everyone seems to know he was speaking each word in its own sentence, but that's how I've always seen it spelled.
By the way, I learned in school that you are supposed to italicise the name of a TV show, as opposed to say, a song, whose title is quoted. But what about a show within a show? They never covered that, and the mundane entertainment of the time didn't require us to know.
Anyway, the thing that pushed me over the edge on this one-word sentence thing was an op-ed piece today about Thomas Mulcair. It's bad enough that the writer used this abused technique to describe an unexciting politician, but he was actually trying to emphasize the very fact that he is unexciting. So that's it, it's the period that broke the camel's back from now on, if you want to emphasize something in print, you'll just have to us all-caps and exclamation marks, just like us poor souls on the Internet.
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