Re: television themes: I started watching the post-miniseries first season episodes of Battlestar Galactica last night, and I'm pretty sure they've taken all the opening sequences to use themselves.
I just started to watch these too and was intrigued by the fact that the second half of the credits is basically a trailer for the episode to come. Interesting, but a bit too spoilery for my tastes. Does that continue on throughout the series?
Also, serial commas rule. As I tell my students, they can only clarify what you are trying to say, so why not use them?
In "serial comma" you mean a comma that comes before the word "and", like in Nutty's example from above, "I'd like to thank my parents, G-d and Ayn Rand", that makes so much mroe sense if it's "I'd like to thank my parents, G-d, and Ayn Rand" and not as if Ayn Rand suddenly mothered a kid with some holy spirit, right?
It took Nilly's explanation of that sentence for me to realize why a comma might be necessary. What kind of fool thinks that Ayn Rand would let God get close enough to her to make a baby?
I abuse commas enough that I don't need those extra serial commas.
I generally don't use serial commas. Call me Rebel Without A Comma.
Better than
Rebel Without a Clause.
Serial commas are unnecessarily anal, however, and I enjoy watching fusty grammarians wail in torment as they are inevitably weeded out by our fast moving culture. Ha ha! I laugh at your grammar pain.
If you teach this to the writers I edit, my revenge will be more horrible than you could possibly imagine.
Oxymoron! Glee is necessary, and you can't overindulge in it. Particularly when you're evil. If you're not going to enjoy your evil then why bother? Jilli will back me up on this, I'm sure.
Yes I will. Even if your stance on the serial comma is so wrong it almost robs me of words.
Yes, BSG continues to spoil the episode in their opening sequence.
BSG --
I've been known to use my TiVo's power to pause and go slowly through the spoilery part of the opening credits, to tease myself a little bit with speculation about What It All Means. They're very well chosen, truly.
Could it be that A*n C******r is the bastard child of Ayn Rand and G*d?
Do swords count?
In a sense, swords ARE tire irons, with a finishing school education.
