Friday, August 01, 2008

Flotsam and, uh...

Apparently, my ampersand is unusual. There's nothing like it on this page of 100 handwritten ampersands.

But never mind that. Ever since I saw the play Charley's Aunt as a teenager, I have adored the phrase "flotsam and jetsam" but have never quite been able to work it into a conversation. (Flotsam is sea junk that floats, and jetsam is stuff that falls off of ships or is tossed off to lighten their loads.)

I can't recall where or why one of the female leads in Charley's Aunt said something about being tossed aside "like so much flotsam and jetsam." Is there a thespian in the house?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

It's so funny that you should bring that up. That is the chapter in The Lord of the Rings that I reached last night.

Brenda Coulter said...

Oh! I had forgotten that was a chapter title in LOTR. But then, it's been about two decades since I last read the books....

bryon said...

Here's a discussion at Ask MetaFilter about ampersands:

http://ask.metafilter.com/98878/How-to-write-ampersands-by-hand

There's a lot of the "rules are rules" theory that you discuss in your Monday post about the writers group. Your ampersand wouldn't fly with some of the folks at AskMeFi.

I saw your blog at The Presurfer. I'm hoping mine will show up soon, as well.

Brenda Coulter said...

Good link, Byron. Thanks for sharing it. And thanks for clicking over from The Presurfer. I got a nice little thrill when I visited there this morning and saw my own blog featured.