Email: Giving them L [EH]

I have to be careful when I type too. (This morning seems to be especially full of typos.) One word I have to be very careful with is "public" (as in "public relations representative"). If I omit the small L, you see...!

Email: Mistletoe on the Internet [EH]

Good question! I have no idea [how you would kiss your guy "under the mistletoe on the Internet"] (unless a videocamera is involved)!

Email: Array of personalities [EH]

Isn't great when your birthday child gets into the cake so much that you have to just hose him down?! Yes, God does make us with an incredible variety of personalities. I wish the fundamentalists would learn that about children and remember that about adults.

Email: Men and mistletoe [EH]

Some men probably figure that mistletoe is a waste of time when you have liquor (or, in prior days, a club)!

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: The Great Warming

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: George of the Jungle [TV]

Neologisms: abstemiate

A verb form of abstemious [MW]:

Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin abstemius, from abs- + -temius; akin to Latin temetum intoxicating drink
: marked by restraint especially in the consumption of food or alcohol; also : reflecting such restraint

Web: Ask the Chicago Manual of Style

"Q. Oh, English-language gurus, is it ever proper to put a question mark and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence in formal writing? This author is giving me a fit with some of her overkill emphases, and now there is this sentence that has both marks at the end. My everlasting gratitude for letting me know what I should tell this person.

A. In formal writing, we allow both marks only in the event that the author was being physically assaulted while writing. Otherwise, no."

(May I also opine on the vocative case, such as English abstemiates it? "Oh, English-language gurus..." is a bit like, "Hey, Culligan man...!" while "O English-language gurus..." is more like "O Little Town of Bethlehem" or "O Buddha...")

Internet: A duck's quack echoes, OK?

Press: Making sense of meditation - HC

"Jesus is a teacher of contemplation. If you study his teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, in Matthew 6, he is not talking about external forms or rituals or particular beliefs you have to subscribe to.

He is talking about interior silence, freedom from anxiety, and mindfulness and living in the present moment. These are the elements of concentration. So Jesus is as much a teacher of concentration as he is of nonviolence.

We are saying that Christians have a theological, historical, Scriptural tradition of contemplation that gives a harmony and a depth to all other forms of prayer and practices of the Christian life."

Internet: Table sold on eBay

This table is for sale on eBay. How can you tell the table is being sold by a man? First look and guess. You will find the answer below, but don't cheat!
.
.
.
OK, this is the answer:

Look at the mirror in the [left of the] picture! And remember, if you're posting a picture on the World-Wide Web [while standing next to a mirror], WEAR CLOTHES when taking the picture!

(I didn't catch that possible answer but two other possible answers would be that the table streamer is paper towels, and pink doesn't go with purple!)

Press: The Orwellian nature of 'Stay the course' - HC

(Houston Chronicle) "The truth is being stolen right before our eyes. Yet there are no mass demonstrations at the executive mansion. There are not a million headlines saying, "Wait Just A Bleeping Minute!"

"We've never been stay the course," he says. Oh, we say.

To which I can only add that war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. And Orwell was only off by 22 years."