Recent Comments

1. about 24 hours ago on The Duplex

   About a week ago, when Glenn McCoy resumed drawing the strip and updated his style.

2. 8 days ago on Pickles

   And 411 was just the new-fangled 3-digit version. Originally, it was 555-1212. (And of course, before that, 0).

3. 8 days ago on Pickles

   I’m somebody!

   (I do remember the thrill of seeing my name in the phone book for the first time!)

4. 8 days ago on Pickles

   I think POPCORN (767-2676) was pretty local. I know northern California had it, but several other places I lived did not.

   But I think most places had some number you could call for the time of day; I was told the phone company provided that for convenience because its rates varied according to time of day. Time of day was not well standardized at the time; your opinion and the phone company’s opinion of the time of day might be different by minutes.

5. 8 days ago on Pickles

   Why would you call that a cell phone? Wireless phone, maybe, but I don’t see anything cellular about it.

6. 8 days ago on Pickles

   And name and address for an automobile license plate number was public record.

7. 9 days ago on Baby Blues

   AI gets pretty confused sometimes. I’d pay more attention to something written by a human expert. Adding “ing” to a noun to make it a verb is a form of “verbing” and is not a generally accepted part of English grammar. It’s more of a colloquial corruption of the language that is often used humorously. The word “verbing” is in fact intended to be humorous. You don’t have to use ing to verb, by the way (see, I just verbed without ing!)

   Gerunds, on the other hand, are part of the grammar. You can always use “ing” to make a noun and no editor will correct you.

   The verb “access” means “to gain entry to”. The gerund formed from this verb, “accessing,” is a noun that refers to the act you perform when you access something. It’s obviously a noun when you use it in a sentence such as, “accessing the room is the thing you have to do first.”

   By the way, gerunds (nouns) aren’t the only thing for which the ing suffix is used. It’s also for the present progressive verb tense (“I am accessing the room now”) and as a present participle, which is an adjective (“Accessing individuals will be arrested”).

8. 9 days ago on The Duplex

   Thumbs up.

9. 10 days ago on Baby Blues

   Turning the noun “journal” into a verb (“I am journaling”) is kind of the opposite of gerunds, which is turning a verb into a noun (’journaling is my favorite activity").

10. 10 days ago on Baby Blues

    Journal is commonly used as a verb in accounting (to make an entry in the journal).

    10 years ago or so, I read about journaling as a growing hobby or psychotherapy. It was around the time I heard about “scrapbooking.” I presume that’s what Zoe is doing, and there’s more to it than classic diary-keeping.