I really don't mind dumb T-shirts. But preachy dumb T-shirts? On the bike path last night I came upon a nimwit poking around the community garden with a T-shirt that read "One Less Car." What does that mean? Should I wear a T-shirt that reads "One Less Crucified Somerville Schmuck"? And why isn't it "One Fewer Car" or "One Fewer Somerville Schmuck"? I guess because you don't know the total number of cars or schmucks (although the ration seems to be 0:1, in my neck of the woods.) But back to the point - if this guy never owned a car, is it "one less car?" If he had a car and got rid of it, is he really justified in wearing a t-shirt that says "one less car?" Does he know that that his action has resulted in one less car? What if I had just gone out and bought another car? Or two other cars? Then I would have three and he would have none, and he would have to wear "One Car Fewer Than Would Be Otherwise Had Someone Not Gone Out And Purchased Two."

Or maybe not. My math is shaky, as will be remembered by the people I was having dinner with on NYE 2007 when I was rather swayingly holding forth on the relationship between punctuation and mathematical functions, and was like "IS four plus three eight, or does four plus three BECOME eight?" I suspect I've mentioned this before, but it's such an Oldie/Goodie. But I have to say that had my architect housemate not pointed it out, I do believe it would have gone un-commented upon, even if it's because no one pays attention to me.

I guess the problem is that "One Less Car" is a sentence fragment masquerading as a real thought. This is funny, as in my new job I find myself working with writers who are very suspicious of sentence fragments. I love them in theory, because when used well they show how few words need to be used to communicate, and I think that they're often compelling by structural definition. And people don't always realize the semantic power of grammar and punctuation. At work, however, the DO love the trailing-off ellipses, which often strikes me as three bullets to the heart...

One thing I can say if anyone ever considers an MAPW from Carnegie Mellon? It really does teach you how to argue for your choices, which is important in a world where, more or less, everyone thinks they can write. And they can, of course, but my sense is that with us, every single thing is considered and optimized. Back me up, Miss Marple! Daisy! (also, MAPW's? Whoa.)

In other news. a canary zoomed past our deck last night and landed on our fence, where it sat for hours. P. supposed it was hurt or freaked out by not being in a cage. Our next door neighbor tried to capture it because there was a cat lurking nearby. But now it's in our grape arbor thing, so http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/laf/648256545.html. But if all is lost, it would be sort of neat to get a photograph of the cat that ate the canary, for future comparison.