Regarding “alright,” the online editions of Oxford and Cambridge do not agree. Maybe we should not be surprised. The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary accepts “alright” and Oxford does not. At least not the Oxford that comes as a Widget on Macs. For what it is worth, my Mac’s word processing program, “Pages” does not mind it one bit. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary dates its usage to 1887 and states that journalists, business writers, and writers of fiction are the most culpable for promulgating “alright.”

If those pointy headed dons at Cambridge don’t mind, this American philistine is all right with alright.

http://www.wsba.org/media/publications/barnews/peeves.htm

I do rant so about the Republicans, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be called hypocritical. That’s the problem with setting high standards. People expect you to live up to them. True, I could often be accused of being shrill, but always honest, and to the best of my ability to discern it, ethical.

O’Donnell also showed up faithfully when Sheekey was running Bloomberg’s Republican convention, struggling to create a groundswell for Bloomberg’s third party presidential run, and trying to get somebody to take a Bloomberg VP big seriously. He thought those were just great and misunderstood too.

Dexter — last year Pam gave me a lottery ticket she bought, which she said had won $5. I looked it over, and thought it was a $1 winner — but a winner nonetheless. I stopped at a Marathon station and drew a nice tall icy cold Diet Coke, and I had about 75 cents change in my pocket, so I figured I was covered even if the ticket WAS only a dollar winner.

I gave the ticket to the cashier and told her I thought it was worth a buck, and she ran the thing through her machine and then promptly counts out my change for the soda pop purchase — $98 and some-odd cents. The damned thing was a $100 winner!

And then I was on the horns of an ethical dilemma: do I disclose to Pammy that the $5 ticket she blithely handed over to me was actually worth a C-note? I pondered that for approximately 30 seconds, but the joke was too good not to tell her (and she instantly snatched my wallet out of my pocket!! Now THERE was a ‘missed opportunity’!)

I was working on Nance’s edting quizz — but the damned thing is a lot of work! We ain’t talkin’ “pick A B C or D” — you gotta get your hands dirty.

I did the first two paragraphs, and then scrubbed the mission.

Here’s the first paragraph they had, and then what I did: (I cannot do the strike through trick, so boldface words are what I struck out)

Manny Ramírez also fits the description of a future Hall of Famer without a team, but his situation is different. Ramírez, 36, is still one of the best hitters in baseball and is hoping for a multiyear contract that will pay him about $25 million a year. He could have signed by now, he just wants a more significant paycheck to do so.

1. Manny Ramírez also fits the description of a future Hall of Famer without a team, but his situation is with a difference. Ramírez, 36, is still one of the best hitters in baseball and is hoping for a multiyear contract that will pay him about at least $25 million a year. He could have signed achieved that, but now he just wants to learn the maximum limit of his market value a more significant paycheck to do so.

If’n I didn’t get any other damned thing right — that gratuitous “just” was SURELY in need of being exorcized!