("The Alchemist" + "Far From the Madding Gerund...")

[fiefoe]

Paulo Coelho's slim volume starts with the phrase 'personal legend', and instead of resonating with me, it did quite the opposite. The book obviously means well, ('the universal languge of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose') but I never recovered from that false start.

Happened upon this: according to their website, it's the favorite book of two Pussy Cat Dolls members, Jessica and Kimberly.

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Blogs make poor books. After "Girls Are Weird", and Slate's "The Explainer", why would I expect Mark Liberman and Geoffrey K. Pullum's langunage log fare better?

It really shouldn't taking whole posts to defend the validity of "whom" and "would have had to have been there".

'Sometimes I think it takes a really smart person to hold on to a really stupid idea.'