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December 07, 2006
Syntax Holmes
Yesterday I jumped into Sherlock Holmes for the first time, and ever since then I've been splashing around happily like a large dog looking for a thrown stick in a lake but not especially caring if she finds it.
I did find this: the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney.
I was delighted with that all day. What a wonderfully macabre image, a child stuffed up a chimney.
Not until this morning did my brain reparse the sentence into what Doyle probably intended it to mean: the wind cried and sobbed in the chimney, like a child crying and sobbing though it was not in the chimney.
Oh well. These are still great stories.
Posted by didofoot at December 7, 2006 09:28 AM
Comments
I thought the same thing, and am also disappointed.
Posted by: jason at December 7, 2006 05:43 PM
Likewise, when an archaeology article that I was reading told me the upper layer of a site was gravely sandstone, I was alarmed, yet intrigued. I never knew sandstone was such a serious and threatening state for an archaeological site. Tell me more! I begged of it. Is there hope of recovery? Is its condition truly grave, or merely severe? And then I realized it was merely, boringly, full of gravel.
Posted by: Dianna at December 7, 2006 09:14 PM
I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. Unfortunately elephants are endangered so I was arrested. The fact that I was wearing panda skin pajamas didn't help either.
Posted by: matt at December 8, 2006 09:47 AM
eats, shoots and leaves, my friends. (dianna, you would love that book if you haven't yet read it.)
Posted by: didofoot at December 8, 2006 09:59 AM
In 4th grade, during one of those abhorrent state-wide aptitude test things we were forced to endure, there was a section that was basically a bunch of sentences like this and we were supposed to do something with them. There was a lot of quiet giggling during this portion of the exam.
The only one I remember is "I watched a parade on my front porch."
Posted by: matt at December 8, 2006 10:16 AM
"Eat up my friends!"
"Eat up, my friends!"
Thanksgiving comma problems.
Posted by: didofoot at December 8, 2006 10:37 AM
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