@phoneboy Feel relieved to have made it?
@streakmachine I only keep rare/hard to get physical copies….or ones that are a bit special in some way. Do you keep the cases or just shove the discs in pouches and bin the cases?
@sumudu Borders is American, or was. I think it went bust. Their Paperchase stationary department had nice stuff.
I'm tempted to give up on em-dashes completely. People frequently use parenthesis when they ought to be using em-dashes but I increasingly don't blame them. Using em-dashes is a pain. The symbol is not on my laptop keyboard and getting it from the Character Viewer involves friction even when it's in the favourites. There is one other reason why I'm considering adopting punctuational wrongdoing (on top of the unconscious mistakes I probably make all the time). Namely, I don't think they work that well visually for identifying asides, especially the longer ones. They just don't stand out that well in the text which can lead to a bit of confusion. Brackets visually stand out rather well don't they?
It wouldn't be the first time I've knowingly adopted punctuational criminality. About fifteen years ago I decided I was going to start putting the words 'and' and 'but' after commas even though I was told at school not to do so. I even sometimes start sentences with those follow on words. Shocking. Punctuation is important but it's not that important.
I once came across a grammar and punctuation test for ten year old Edwardian school kids. I did abysmally in the test. I got most things wrong. The provided answers and explanations made it clear just how far education had fallen even for my generation, let alone younger ones, and just how complex and difficult proper grammar and punctuation is. Mind you, I try to be careful about criticising young people for their educational standards because a) mine could be better b) it's not their fault and c) the amount of effort and hours they have to put in is still massive.
We'll never get back to the old standards. I can't see that ever happening.