. . . when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows … - Lynne Truss

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Often times I'll quickly dash off an email or text message when I leave a party. A particularly enjoyable evening, however, that warrants a thank-you note or a phone call. I always say a handwritten note is the ultimate hallmark of a classy woman. But an email is better than nothing.

Lynne Truss

. . . when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and of having to compensate - with quite elaborate behaviours = for the sudden half-disappearance of the person we were just speaking to. 'Go ahead!' we say. 'Don't mind us! Oh look, here's a magazine I can read!' When the call is over, other rituals come into play, to minimise the disruption caused and to restore good feeling.

Come, Disruption, Play, Real, Winning, Wins

Same Author Quotes

As with email, the recipient of a texted question seems to have the option to ignore it, while nevertheless saying hello, lovely day, and so on.

Lovely, Email, Saying Hello, Option, Saying, Ignore

It should come as no surprise that writers take an interest in punctuation. I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th-century writer were, "I should have used fewer semicolons" - and although I have spent months fruitlessly trying to track down the chap responsible, I believe it none the less. If it turns out that no one actually did say this on their deathbed, I shall certainly save it up for my own.

Believe, Should Have, Track, Fruitlessly, Come, Although

Well, start waving and yelling, because it is the so-called Oxford comma and it is a lot more dangerous than its exclusive, ivory-tower moniker might suggest. There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don't, and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken. Oh, the Oxford comma. Here, in case you don't know what it is yet, is the perennial example, as espoused by Harold Ross: "The flag is red, white, and blue. " So what do you think of it? Are you for or against it? Do you hover in between?

Taken, Thinking, Oxford, Red, White, Case

I do needlepoint from kits. I give them as gifts to people in the form of cushion covers and they are often speechless with horror.

People, Giving, Horror, Needlepoint, Cushion, Covers

I mean, full stops are quite important, aren't they? Yet by contrast to the versatile apostrophe, they are stolid little chaps, to say the least. In fact one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burn-out from all the thankless effort.

Chaps, Contrast, Effort, Jobs, Mean, Stops