October 27, 2003
Sarah Hollingsworth, Editor
Book
of the Week: The Deluxe Transitive Vampire
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Karen Elizabeth Gordon,
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the
Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993)
(PE1112 .G58 1984 at Odegaard Stacks and Suzzallo/Allen Stacks). |
If English
grammar is your number one bugaboo, and you approach your legal writing
assignments with the fear and trepidation of a five-year old gearing up for All
Hallow’s Eve, then you might want to check out this time-honored and
delightfully original volume which is available at two of our sister libraries
on the UW campus. Even the most grammar-phobic curmudgeon is sure to be drawn
to the author’s eccentric (to say the least) approach to making the conventions
of English grammar entertaining as well as comprehensible. “It is in high
spirits that this opulent, rapturous, vamped-up grammar drama leaps into your
lap,” the author notes in her preface. She delivers.
Using a
“ménage of revolving lunatics,” Gordon weaves a loose tale of High Gothic
proportions to illustrate the basic rules every student should know. Just to
give you a taste, her lunatics include, among others, a wolf, a bat, a baby
vampire, a lamia, a courtesan, a pizza chef, and a debutante. With
illustrations that even---or especially---a lawyer could love, Gordon renders
the frequently dark and dreary rules of English grammar memorable in an odd and
curiously haunting way, reminiscent of the shadowy stories we sometimes weave
from the headstones found in old, neglected cemeteries.
- “The
lithium worked, and the mania subsided”---a simple compound sentence;
- “The
hand that is languishing on the windowsill once was mine"---a restrictive
adjective clause; and
- "She
wrapped herself up in an enigma; there was no other way to keep warm”---a
semi-colon separating independent clauses and illustrated by the painting of a
nude.
Edgar
Allen Poe warned that, “The true genius shudders at incompleteness . . . and
usually prefers silence to saying something which is not every thing it should
be.” While true genius is not a prerequisite to everyday legal writing, the use
of good English grammar is, and silence is frequently not an option in
law school. If you are feeling a bit weak and weary in this particular field of
endeavor, you might want to check out Gordon’s entrancing approach to a
sometimes deeply shrouded and mystifying subject.
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GALLAGHER ART WALK CONTINUES
If
you haven’t yet had taken the time for a self-guided tour of the fabulous
Native American Art Collection in our new Library, stop by either the
Circulation Desk or Reference Office and pick up an Art Walk packet. The
instructions are easy---simply label the circles on the Floor Plan of the
Library with the numbers on the Artist Key that correspond to each work.
Turn in your answers---even partially completed answers qualify---to the
Circulation Desk or Reference Office before noon on Tuesday, October 28,
2003. The winner will be randomly selected from all entries, and, as
usual, prior contest winners during this quarter are not eligible to win the
prize. |
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TRICK OR TREAT !
 |
To do justice to All
Hallow’s Eve, it only seems appropriate that we scare up some spooky
judicial quotations. To win the next in a long line of fabulous Law Library
Trivia Prizes, fill in the blanks in the following quotations using the
correct phrase. Turn in your answers, together with your name and email
address to the Reference Office by midnight on Tuesday, November 4, 2003.
The winner will be randomly selected from all entries.
Good Luck!
1. "_____ is not a
brooding omnipresence in the sky . . . ." (Southern Pac. Co. v. Jensen,
244 U.S. 205, 221 (1917) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
The
rule against perpetuitieS
The
common law
A
dying declaration
An
incorporeal hereditament
2. "Invocation of the
Due Process Clause to protect the rights asserted here would make the ghost
of _____ [citation omitted] walk again." Federal Housing Administration
v. Darlington, Inc., 358 U.S. 84, 91-92 (1958).
Jacob
Marley
Lochner
v. New York
Thomas
Jefferson
Marbury
v. Madison
3. "In its procedural
history, at least, this litigation has lived up to Judge Lumbard's
characterization of it as a '_______’ posing as a class action.'" Eisen
v.
Carlisle and Jacquelin,
417 U.S. 156, 169 (1974)(Powell, J.).
Salem
Witch Trial
Gordian
Knot
Witch’s
Brew
Frankenstein
monster
4. “Although the Year
2000 ("Y2K") did not usher in _____, it did leave us with a number of
contract disputes.
Information Systems
and Networks Corp. v. City of Atlanta,
281 F.3d 1220, 11th Cir.
(Ga.), Feb
06, 2002 (Birch, C.J.).
A
Reprise Of Psycho
Halloween
IV
The
apocalypse
A
Phantom Specter
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