A little whine with your superfluous adverbs?

May 22, 2009


Panel 1:The Jackelrod Sphere has taken an interesting approach to today's panel. It has, more or less, cut and pasted yesterday's panel 3 into today's panel 1. However, it has also taken the time to erase the talking skunk, replace it with a jogging rabbit, and then, perhaps to add an air of authenticity to the entire enterprise, drawn in some stem and grass details in the foreground. In the process, the truck hasn't perceptibly moved and, yet, our silhouetted malfeasor continues to "direct" the truck. All in all, this panel leaves me feeling a bit unsettled this morning. I mean, why all the effort if the the end result is essentially unchanged?

Panel 2:Our midnight bandits are unloading 55 gallon drums of toxic waste by pushing them by hand. A gallon of water weighs roughly 8 pounds and the materials in those drums isn't going to weigh much less than that. As a result, a 55 gallon drum of liquid, toxic or otherwise, is going to weigh upwards of 440 pounds. These, fair readers, are some super macho criminals we're dealing with here. Mark Trail is going to have his hands full trying to beat them into submission.

Panel 3:When you go to a bagel shop do you say, "I'll have a sesame bagel, and also some cream cheese." When your spouse asks you to go to the grocery store does she say, "Please get some chips and also some salsa." When you describe your vacation in Florida, do you say, "I went to Disney World, and also the Epcot Center." No, no and no. Normal english speakers do not use "also" when describing two related ideas, notions, desires, etc. We just use "and." It gets the point across, it's grammatically correct, and one doesn't end up sounding like an android when they talk. I know I regularly complain abou the Jackelrod Sphere's abuse of the english language, but today's example is particularly annoying.