Althouse: "Let's take a look at the prehistory of *cough*-style asterisking in comic strips..."

March 14, 2013

"Let's take a look at the prehistory of cough-style asterisking in comic strips..."

"... and the more recent usage as a form of 'cyberpragmatics.'"

13 comments:

traditionalguy said...: *IMO the Government should issue new alphabet symbols that can end this crisis in communications*

*There are enough acronyms now to drive a man insane*

*A few more alphabet symbols won't hurt any worse*; 3/14/13, 8:52 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Pretty soon I'm going to have to concede there's nothing new under the sun.; 3/14/13, 8:53 AM
Anonymous said...: So let me get this straight:

The Pope ISN'T Italian,

and

He only has one lung?

*cough*; 3/14/13, 9:00 AM
edutcher said...: Are we sure this is "informing the reader of a shift in style or voice," or is it just bad punctuation?; 3/14/13, 9:14 AM
Unknown said...: Language does the darnedest things.; 3/14/13, 9:19 AM
Nonapod said...: It's a little silly but I don't have a problem with that type of construction.

But I dislike when people spell out "Sigh" in a forum post (especially when it's critical of one of my posts) and I really dislike when people sign their posts as it seems pretentious. I can read your damn name, it's right there.; 3/14/13, 9:29 AM
Wince said...: Turn your head and *cough*.

And one more time.; 3/14/13, 9:55 AM
campy said...: *barf*; 3/14/13, 10:00 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Nonapod-

You just don't get it. *Sigh*

Ignorance is Bliss.

*ducks*; 3/14/13, 11:13 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: So now that both content and style of the NYT are at the level of the funny pages, how are we to differentiate?; 3/14/13, 11:26 AM
Crunchy Frog said...: So now that both content and style of the NYT are at the level of the funny pages, how are we to differentiate?

The funny pages are more honest.; 3/14/13, 12:48 PM
Astro said...: What is missed here, apparently, is that Pogue's sentence gains nothing by the use of the *cough*ing. Leaving it out means we'd only lose Pogue's visual illustration of his personal derision of Microsoft's Zune, Kin Phone and Spot Watch. The overall tone remains, so no real information is added. Unlike the comic strips, where the sounds are shown *sigh* because you can't draw a sigh. [What was that again about a picture being worth a thousand words?]

I'm thinking Zimmer was just using Gruber's comment about Pogue as a springboard for what Zimmer really wanted to talk about. *sigh* This reminds me of a story Mark Twain used to tell...; 3/14/13, 2:54 PM
Anga2010 said...: *rolls eyes*; 3/15/13, 1:25 AM