To blame every American transgression on the culture is to absolve Americans of any responsibility for anything. (Via: Dooce.com). You'll have to register [free] to read the first link to the NYTimes.com. It's worth it. A good evaluation of the way politics and religion are being used and abused.
Someone at the BBC ... the B-B-C, who really ought to know better, who we expect more from, wrote this headline: C-sections 'could be cut by 25%'.
“...but we can get a lava-lamp anywhere....” Overheard in a gift shop somewhere in California on our recent vacation.... presumably part of a conversation wherein two people where trying to figure out what to buy, and one had suggested a lava lamp, and another person was countering that they should get something else, because lava-lamps were to be found on every corner.
“Did you not want no ice?” Said to me by a waitress not long after our return to Ohio. My reply was not much better, “Yes, no ice please.”
Logically (and by “logically” I mean “if we set aside the atrocious grammar for a moment), “not want no ice” would be equivalent to “does want some ice” which I did not want, so technically I should have said, “No” as in “No, I don’t want no ice” which would have been a triple negative. However, I knew the question was really asking if I wanted a beverage devoid of ice, which was true, so the context-appropriate answer was “Yes” however I did clarify that I wanted “no ice”
Before anyone starts busting on Southern Ohio grammar, let me just say that I’d rather hear “don’t want no ice” than live somewhere where lava-lamps are commonplace, but that’s just me.
You should always serve XHTML as XHTML (to browsers that support it, of course). Serving text/html to a browser says 'hello, this is broken crap, please do your best with it'. XHTML is supposed to be a step past broken crap, so you should serve it as such.
(Sam Marshall on webdesign-l mailing list, talking about the recent XHTML mime type thread)