Thanks, Nilly. I thought for a moment that erikaj had gone off into Surreal-ville, behind one of ita's term papers.

H:LOTS. David Simons on a Baltimore frenzy. Go, David! Get yer Baltimore on!

P-C, it's not *that* late yet! It's almost 1am.

I'm two-thirds of the way in writing my first babbly draft of the first answer (out of two required). The real trick, with me, is keep all the meaning, cut the words to only a third of the original length, and still keep it readable. I think I'll write down the draft of the second answer before going to editing. Or falling asleep over the keyboard, whichever happens first.

[Edit: the real trick with me, apparently, is using the words that mean what I want to say, not the opposite. I wonder what I'll think about what I'm writing in the other window, when I re-read it in the morning, if I can't even post properly with simple words]

Poor Nilly. My bad linguistic habits are probably so confusing!ETA: Gus, it's Simon. As in "Reach for the sky, Motherfucker!"

"You didn't say Simon says!"

Otherwise, wrod. Go team Simonverse Balmer. It's weird I love somewhere I've never seen.Esp. with a nick like "Bodymore, Murderland."

P-C, it's not *that* late yet! It's almost 1am.

Oh, that's nothing, okay.

Or falling asleep over the keyboard, whichever happens first.

No no, the thing to do is lie down to "rest your eyes" and wake up six hours later, confused.

real trick, with me, is leave all the meaning, cut the words to only a third of the original length...

Adjectives. Cutting the adjectives and adverbs is the trick in English. Maybe it is different in Hebrew.

Adjectives. Cutting the adjectives and adverbs is the trick in English.

Damn. No adjectives or adverbs there. You're already learning.

Maybe it is different in Hebrew.

Maybe ? Stop peppering up your language, Gus! MURDER YOUR DARLINGS.

Apropos of nothing except that Jesse mentioned bridesmaiding, I just went wandering around Go Fug Yourself, and found in the comments on the skankariffic prom dress that someone has found the official most heinous bridesmaid's dress ever in the history of anything, ever, like, ever, and it made my eyes hurt so badly I had to show all y'all to share the pain.

It's actually not skanky at all, which makes its awfulness even more spectactular.

erika, I've never had a problem reading anything you've written.

lie down to "rest your eyes" and wake up six hours later, confused.

Whole six hours? By then, it's waking up because people get in here in the morning again.

Cutting the adjectives and adverbs is the trick in English. Maybe it is different in Hebrew.

Not so different, I think. Even though in Hebrew they come on opposite sides ("tasty chocolate", for example, doesn't have the adjective before the noun it describes, but after it, so in fact you're saying "chocolate tasty". It always seemed to make more sense, for me - first you say what it is, then describe its attributes).

For me (not Hebrew, I do that in English, too), I find that I tend to write several sentences that say nearly the same thing, but not exactly, and I don't want to miss any of those facets of meaning. I'm not pleased with any one of them alone, which is why I almost-repeat-myself-but-not-really. Then, when I edit, I'm trying to look for the best way to combine them to just the one sentence, that still has all the layers of the several earlier ones.

Alright, I'm done being all gloomy, except for one last item on that topic.

You realize that would make you a Gloomy Gus, right?

Nilly!

Also,

Even though in Hebrew they come on opposite sides ("tasty chocolate", for example, doesn't have the adjective before the noun it describes, but after it, so in fact you're saying "chocolate tasty". It always seemed to make more sense, for me - first you say what it is, then describe its attributes)

IIRC, English used to be more flexible about that, many hundreds of years ago; you could play around with word order depending on what you wanted to emphasize, and even adjectives wobbled around a bit on occasion. We still have the light fantastic and the siege perilous and maybe one other, but generally our adjectives are big bossy doms who insist on going first.