I was driving back from dropping Julia at work this morning when I found myself composing poetry in my head. This is the first time for months that this has happened. Probably six months. In that time I have been ill, depressed, short of inspiration etc. That’s proof – at school they always used to say etcetera meant you had run out of ideas.

My WP spellchecker does not like etcetera, so I checked et cetera. It doesn’t like that either, although both forms are considered correct by other authorities. It’s OK with etc though, with or without the full stop. This confirms my thoughts about spellcheckers and the people who develop them.  This isn’t another discussion of American spelling, more a comment on the assumptions made by the purveyors of computer software. Why is it assumed that I would want to take the language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible and consign it to the waste paper bin of history, in favour of a language which has no concept of the existence of a full length word for etc and thinks that favour is a mis-spelling?

My Orange Parker Pen

Did you find that last sentence understandable. I recall that sentences of up to 20 words are considered best. At 30 or 35 you get to a length where people have difficulty grasping it. That one has just run on to 55 words. I counted them after i found I couldn’t see an easy way of trimming it.

You are a poor sample to ask, as you are all clearly of above average intelligence (and above average in many other areas too), but I was curious to see if I got away with it and produced a readable 55 word sentence. That one is only 43 words long. Until I started looking I always thought I wrote short sentences. I’m clearly going to have to start looking at my readability indexes again.

And so, in a short opening paragraph, I tell you the poetry has returned, and in the rest of it, I ramble on. Sorry about that. However, I can’t stay chatting, I have poetry to write, and probably a second blog post to compose.

Orange Parker Pen