http://www.metafilter.com/tags/Footnote Posts tagged with 'Footnote' at MetaFilter. Sat, 08 Jun 2002 12:54:44 -0800 Sat, 08 Jun 2002 12:54:44 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/17678/ <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/721833.html">Metaphysical significance of punctuation marks (a)</a> Periods . and commas , are lovely because they are simple... Semicolons ; are pretentious and overactive...<i>Italics</i> rarely fail to insult the reader's intelligence..."Quotation marks" create the spurious impression of an aristocracy of sensibility...The exclamation point ! is obviously too emphatic, too childish, for our sophisticated ways...Questions ? and exclamations ! betray a sense of inquisitiveness and wonder that is distinctly unmodern....(parentheses) and - dashes - betoken stylistic laziness, a failure of discipline....(a) content footnotes are symbols of failure. tag:metafilter.com,2002:site.17678 Sat, 08 Jun 2002 12:54:44 -0800 Comma Dashes Exclamation Footnote Italics Language Parentheses Period Punctuation QuotationMark Writing Voyageman