Our latest "controversy."

This morning when I fired up my Outlook, the first email I read wasn't about one of the more serious issues we have to tackle here in the 3rd Ward, like re-routing 26th Street around Armitage Square, or apprehending Dr. Thomas Jefferson Harding. Instead, it was about something much more mundane that, for some reason, I've been hearing a lot about lately from you all. I'll let you see for yourself:

councilman larson,

your assistant marisha is totally right. all those "quotation marks" your using all the time make you look completly clueless.

just a word of advise,
ben in wihinapa

I showed this email to my assistant Marisha. I told her I couldn't believe the hardworking people of this community didn't have better things to do with their time then send me emails critiquing my blog's use of quotation marks. Furthermore, I didn't really see why I should pay much mind to a man that, with all due respect, clearly could not be bothered to correctly spell the words "completely," "advice" and "you're." Marisha told me I was missing the point.

Well, as an elected official and your 3rd Ward councilman for nearly five years now, I pride myself on not "missing the point." So I made a little bet with Marisha that I would give her tomorrow off if we looked at the University of Mishipeshu English department's online style guide and found that it confirmed my continuing correct usage of quotation marks.

So Marisha looked it up. Here is what she found. The emphasis is hers:

Unnecessary Quotation Marks: Do not use quotation marks for common nicknames, bits of humor, technical terms that readers are likely to know, and trite or well-known expressions.

Well, OK, fine.

I get the point.

As an elected official and your 3rd Ward councilman for nearly five years now, I also pride myself on knowing when I've been bested. I still maintain that there's probably lots of terms in use in some of the more technical writing I do here sometimes that readers are not "likely to know," but fair is fair. So Marisha has the day off tomorrow, and I will not put words like "e-mail" and "network" in quotation marks. Unless I think they need them.

So if you see a smart-looking young lady out in the Stanton Avenue shopping district tomorrow, say "hello" and ask her if she's enjoying her "day off," because it will probably be Marisha.