..................... I own this pedigree herd of dots.

Do you indeed? I'd heard (pun, you winkle) that you'd borrowed them for the purposes of bragging. Well, I inherited all these commas:,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Well, ladies, I've invented invisible punctuation

nobody can say it isn't there

just because it can't be seen

Hmph - I can do better than that - I own the dash - it is particularly useful to me cos I'm always in a rush - I find I can make my sentences ever so long and people can still understand them - unlike your invisible punctuation!

p.s you address your thread to ladies - are the gents free from this boasting condition? I've heard many a one describe what car they drive with a certain pride....

Hello, Isobel. The 'ladies' I referred to were myself and myself, and the term was not by way of excluding the gentlemen but of including myself in two minds.

The dash you speak of is actually a minus sign and therefore part of the mathematica and arithmetic collection owned by the state. My invisible punctuation is a kind of grammatical ghost. You knock three full stops out and the pause they cause comes to an unseen end, but it is an end and it therefore has a full stop that is invisible to the naked eye.

I see said the blind man who could indeed see everything perfectly. What you say about minus signs and maths fills me with dread! I have myself been in two minds as to whether to upgrade my dash to a semi-colon; I think it may give my writing a certain look of intelligence; less rushed, more condidered; it did seem a bit like driving a porsche to the local netto though; horses for concourses and all that darling...

Yea, I always get seasick! Then I get lost - when I go boating, it always goes awry!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah -ha, Mr Sherwood, the dot surmounted by the dash rampant! Are they your own?

or was that just an exclamatory interjection?

:;"'<>?/&!+=~` No I'm a real mixed bag

Are you related to the Ancient Egyptians? Do you have a chin tube?

Tut Tut - is that another euphemism?

Don't be too long gone awry my boastful friend - I shall miss all your unique madness. xx

...

A dog, the back end of a bus and a hairy boy scout bush ranger - where else could you get such a fan club?

<#><#>

And the eyes have it.

ÔÔ

In an attempt to wressle this thread from the grip of fasntasy can I talk about my habbit of inserting unusual characters (some of which appear here)into some poems to help 'illusatrate' them. as in the example below. So what do people think. I know its nothing new, but does it help at all? or is is an unecessary distraction?


The Glass Conch


Tired…

Shelling –

My neck needs your nuzzle >
My hips, your push ( )
My hands, your twist of spun sugar ~
My heart, your press of hot flowers }*{

Peel me as the light fails
And as the tide departs, hushhh…

Don't get me started! (re: are poets lazy?)

Yeh, and they'm fasnasty too!

Just rounding up some of the stray Maam ... .. ... .

The Emperor of Yuiop has disappeared! Shot for his &s!

have you tried triangulating Tring with twine, not string?