CASUAL FRIDAYS
Stephen Gilbert: ‘I thought you just got to wear an Aloha shirt.’
☞ Sure. But I was speaking of VERY Casual Fridays.
INTERNET HOAX BUSTING
Oscar Fricke: ‘Another good debunking site: http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org.’
Ralph Sierra: ‘I prefer http://urbanlegends.about.com.’
☞ The other two hoax-busters, recommended Thursday: snopes.com and urbanlegends.com. Between the four of them, could we ever be duped again? (Unless we’re duped early, before the deception has attained the status of urban legend.)
Ed Miske: ‘Whether that passage was uttered by Julius Caesar or Sid Caesar, it is appropos of what’s happening.’
WHO DID SAY THAT?
Kate Rothwell: ‘Want to find a specific quote without wading through a whole play? Try bartleby.com. You put in a line or two and it’ll search thesauruses (thesauri?), dictionaries, several versions of Bartlett’s quotations, Shakespeare’s works, Bullfinch’s mythology, Robert’s Rules of Order, collected verse, Fowler’s Modern English, Strunk and many other amazing REAL reference materials (not just a bunch of websites put up by the hoi polloi). Not so great if you want to find something by other than dead white guy writers or politicians, but the absolute best if you do. It’s free, but it’s something for which I’d be willing to shell out dough.’
☞ [Stage-whispered:] Not so loud – they might hear you and start charging. But thanks! (And don’t under-rate google.com for the same purpose. Type in part of a quotation – in quotes – and you are very likely to find just what you’re looking for.
