funnyr@looking.on.ca (Funny Guy) (11/17/90)
Recently I have received a large number of messages say, "Hey, why did the volume of rec.humor.funny increase tremendously, and why do all the messages not have signatures on the bottom?" What has happened is that you are using a newsreader that breaks up digests into individual articles without being told to do so. The 8 part "true news digest" was posted in such a form, and readers like NN present the individual messages in the digest as individual news articles. There is a special indication of this (no article numbers, I think) but people seem unaware of it. Please stop complaining to me! I put the articles together in a digest because of the nature of them, to allow people who don't like that sort of thing to skip them all at once. Next time I will not use anything that can get caught by an undigestifier. I think digests and undigestifiers are a kludge on usenet. If the digest is individual messages, it should be undigestified at the gateway, not by the newsreader. But that's another flame war. Anyway, the true news digest is almost done. If you want to skip it now, the best of it can be found in the True News chapter of the Volume III jokebook, which is almost ready. (I'll announce when it is.) Since I'm proofreading the books now, let me give some hints on style that many of you are unaware of. This is going to sound pedantic, and some of you have been excellent, but a lot of you are making the mistakes noted below. The following are examples of proper RHF usage: "How are you?" he said. NOT "How are you?", he said. "I am fine," she replied NOT "I am fine" she replied. NOT "I am fine." she replied. He said, "It's called 'fun.'" NOT He said, "It's called 'fun'." (Question marks and exclamation points can go outside single quotes, however.) He said, "I like you." NOT He said, "I like you". NOT He said "I like you." Hello! NOT Hello ! When you're smiling NOT When your smiling I am its master. NOT I am it's master. It's evil! NOT Its evil! First sentence. Second sentence. NOT First sentence. Second sentence. ^^ ^ For more examples, consult any of the various style guides available in any bookstore. The number of missing commas in submitted joke text is also astounding. Yes, this is a grammar flame. Remember, however, that a rec.humor.funny posting is read by more people than the average letter to the editor of a large daily newspaper, and it has your name at the top. I merely select them, and in most cases I don't have the time to correct your errors. I only do this at the end of the year, once I have selected which of the jokes will go in the annual collection. With many jokes, the quality of the telling is as important as the joke itself. In a written medium like USENET, that means attention must be paid to style. I thank you for any effort you can take to improve your jokes. -Brad