Friday, June 22, 2007

The Double Colon:: What gives?

Well, clearly the choice to use a double colon was not only aesthetic (the doubleness of sisterhood) but also a nod to the glorious, and now defunk, analogy section of the SAT, which I loved so much.

And speaking of my predilection for standardized testing, today's front page story on the NYTimes was an interesting story: "Research Finds Firstborns Gain the Higher I.Q." The article states that "The eldest children in families tend to develop higher I.Q.’s than their siblings, researchers are reporting today, in a large study that could settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order."

Perhaps this accounts for the confusion?

Advanced Grammatical Creativity : : Elise
as
Concrete Grammatical Understanding : : ?

One must consider, of course, that if our vitas were posted, some might expect this pairing to be the exception which proves the newly founded rule. The article goes on to state that "Researchers have long had evidence that firstborns tended to be more dutiful and cautious than their siblings, and some previous studies found significant I.Q. differences." Interestingly, my grammar and spelling has not tended to be more dutiful or cautious than my sister's. Though my personal behavior, has, perhaps. This is a complicated issue.

1 comment:

MP said...

Okay darling, not to prolong this discussion forever, but in analogies the double colon functions as "as," and the single colon as "is to." As in: "Punctuation skills: Megan :: competitive snarkiness : Elise."

This means that your comparison, which begins "Advanced Grammatical Creativity" needs a rewrite in both form and content.

But seriously, I don't want punctuation wars, I WANT YOU TO SEND ME VISUAL ARTWORKS IN THE MAIL SO THAT I CAN WRITE TEXT TO ACCOMPANY THEM AS ORIGINALLY INTENDED. Pretty please? It could even be a children's book for Maggie, if that'll spur you on...