1000 SHARDS

"Ah, words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away."

- John Clare, "Remembrances", quoted in Christopher Hitchens' recently published memoir, Hitch-22. (Sad to discover that the raffish rogue now has cancer of the oesophagus).

As a magazine editor, I read and proof a dozen or more submitted articles every day. In my experience, the misuse of commas is by far the most widespread impediment to clear communication, which is the essence of good writing. Here's an good illustration of the power of the humble comma (via boingboing.net):

And here's another of my favourites, from Lionel Hutz, attorney at law:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x89x2h_lionel-hutz_fun

This is one of my favourite passages of prose about writer's block and procrastination, from the inimitable US political humorist, P.J. O'Rourke.

Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing. For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes sorting my neckties by width, looking up the word “paisly” in three dictionaries, attempting to find the town of that name on The New York Times Atlas of the World map of Scotland, sorting my reference books by width, trying to get the bookcase to stop wobbling by stuffing a matchbook cover under its corner, dialing the telephone number on the matchbook cover to see if I should take computer courses at night, looking at the computer ads in the newspaper and deciding to buy a computer because writing seems to be so difficult on my old Remington, reading an interesting article on sorghum farming in Uruguay that was in the newspaper next to the computer ads, cutting that and other interesting articles out of the newspaper, sorting—by width—all the interesting articles I’ve cut out of newspapers recently, fastening them neatly together with paper clips and making a very attractive paper clip necklace and bracelet set, which I will present to my girlfriend as soon as she comes home from the three-hour low-impact aerobic workout that I made her go to so I could have some time alone to write.”

— P. J. O’Rourke
The Wit and Wisdom of P. J. O’Rourke