Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

This is entirely standard practice for "polished writers" like Tom
Wolfe (I mean, he's published and everything, so he must be good,
right?).  You sir, are a turd-polisher only, and a piss-poor one at
that.  While I'm at it, your reference elsewhere to my being "stung"
when you referred to me as a functional illiterate, was priceless -
for my money your best piece of "writing" so far, since it combined
humour and fiction in a way that you singularly fail to achieve in
your "novel".  Some might argue that you are actually at your most
inventive when dishing out insults.  Maybe you should give up the
attempt at "writing" (it's doomed anyway) and become a heckler.
There's not much money in it, I grant you, but a good heckler is worth
his weight in, well, turds.

Will.

I can't produce examples off-hand, but it looks familiar and
acceptable.  I take it as part of a step-by-step account of the
episode: Thorgen begins to speak, pauses briefly to push paper, the
pause marked by an ellipsis, -- ah, the good old days! -- and resumes
speaking.

You may find that even unexceptionable postings of yours draw a
hostile response for a while.  I urge you not to respond defensively
or hostilely, if it really is your intention to begin playing by local
rules.  The hostility is a reaction to what is passed, and should
diminish if people see that your approach has changed.

ObStagedirections: I do punctuation in a pretty impressionistic way,
and would welcome some input on the comma I put before the dash in
para 1.  It seemed to me that a comma was needed somewhere, to
separate "and resumes speaking" from "...papers", and that seemed
better before the ellipsis than after it; but would the ellipsis
itself have been a sufficient separation?  If so, is that not to say
that you can't have an ellipsis there if no separation is intended?

MORE TOM WOLFE:

She looked at Martha and swung her big brown mascara'd eyes upward, as
if to say, "Isn't this something"

So she inched closer to the tall stooped figure and exclaimed: "Authur!"

"Well, well, well ... Peepgass," he said.

I don't think so," said Lomprye's lips. But his eyes said, "Kindly
disintegrate."

Licht, a trim, silver-haird man whose face was all sharp angles, shook
his head and said, "That guy--he's such a throwback. He's here
somewhere." He craned his head about. "I saw him earlier."

Richman laughed in his soft way. "Me, too."

"That's right," said Julius Licht, a bit tentatively, since he had no
idea who this grinning man was.

"Ours--PlannersBanc's, said Peepgass, rolling his eyes in the way that
says, "Discretion keeps me from going into the details." Aloud: "You
know Croker Concouse?"

"As a building" Nothing," said Peepgass. "It's a fabulous building. As a
situation--" He rolled his eyes once more.

"Let's just say that if Charlie Croker still owns Turpmtine Plantaiton
six months from now, it'll bea a miracle," said Peepgass. Still more
rolling of the eyes.

Peepgass gave his lips a terse pursing and shook his head.

elanders set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time
continuum:

No problem, merely marking the point at which said papers were - and here
the mind boggles at a possible typo - trust at said Charlie.