The school with a run-on

I often walk by an elementary school in the Gold Coast, which is a nice neighborhood with money and education and clean sidewalks and nice dwellings. So it surprises me that they have a run-on sentence etched into its outer walls:

There isn't a period, either, so they probably made a stylistic choice. But why would they tolerate absolutely no punctuation in the midst of a statement about learning? Or I could understand if they at least they had a line break to separate the sentences, but to have nothing at all? It's not even accurate of the original quote, which was a comma splice (which I can't stand, but then again, it was the 18th century, Abigail Adams had no formal education, and a lot of her writing was bizarrely spelled, punctuated, capitalized, and pieced together, though maybe 18th century American English was like that, and the spelling was acceptable back then, and it's changed over the last couple-hundred years; maybe we're wrong, who knows).

This is the original quote, which is from a letter that she wrote:
"Roving is not benificial to study at your age, Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardour and attended to with diligence."

Thus there are a couple things going on in the school's appropriation of Mrs. Adams' quote: they don't use her punctuation, and they don't use her spelling of "ardour" either. We modern Americans use "ardor," and since she was an early Yankee, she was probably still influenced by Britain. So really, in an effort to promote learning, the school might be undermining it by not being accurate; they should have directly copied what she wrote, especially since many of the students will most likely be more involved in academics as they get older.

Better to underestimate and over-deliver than promise something you can't do

I almost had this post done, when I decided to delete what I wrote and start over, because it sounded like I was being way too critical of:

1) people who promise to meet you at a certain time and are late, even after promising they'd be there "soon," which sometimes could mean a half hour to a full hour
2) workers who promise to show up within a window of time, then show up after the window has closed, after not even bothering to call, and you have to call the company to find out what's going on, while they apathetically promise that they'll be there "soon"
3) tradesmen who promise they'll show up early, i.e., "you're the first in line, then you can get out of here when we're done," then don't show up until about two hours later, with no explanation or phone call, not even bothering to answer phone calls or emails to verify that they're even coming
4) companies that promise services that will arrive in "less than half an hour" and keep promising mere minutes but show up in three hours
5) shipping companies that promise to deliver a package by a certain day, then lie about not being able to deliver said package, even though there's always someone there to receive it
6) people who say they'll call back "right away," and the call never comes, or comes some days later

I could go on and on and bore people with details of people and companies that promise on-time something, and rarely live up to what they say. It would be much easier and more polite and honest to simply say what they really mean. If people aren't able to be somewhere, promising the impossible doesn't make us feel better; it makes us feel duped and annoyed if we're tight for time. The next time someone promises me something, I'm going to ask them what they really mean. Are they really going to be there in a few minutes, or are they going to be quite late? Are they really going to show up by 2:00, or are they not going to be able to make it because they have a lot of things lined up before me?

The other day, I figured traffic would be bad, so I told someone I might be 15 minutes late. Instead, I was 5 minutes late. I told someone else I'd get something done by the morning. Instead, I got it done that night. It's a lesson I learned from Scotty: better to surprise people by getting something done faster than they expected.

I got a free book but didn't like it

I was contacted by a major publisher about a book that I might be interested in reading (and reviewing) because it was language-oriented, and I was excited because I had just finished reading Laura Caldwell's The Night I Got Lucky, which was published back in the mid-aughts. It had been sitting on my shelf for several years, and I wasn't motivated to read it because I was more of a non-fiction type of person, and when I tried to read it, it seemed silly. But I didn't want to get rid of it because I actually met her, we exchanged emails, and she signed the book when I bought it. Now she's a very successful author and everything else, thus I had met her in the very early stages of her fiction-writing career.

After reading some other novels and really enjoying them (though not enjoying one whose movie was way better than the book), I finally picked hers up, and it was fantastic. It was entertaining and thought-provoking, and now I realize that she nailed story-telling and structure very well to the point that I want to do the same (though she now writes on more serious topics and seems to do a lot of stuff that isn't frivolous).

So it was at this point when the publisher contacted me, offering me a book because they thought it would fit with what I write about here and probably do for work (which requires me to apply lots of grammatical and English-language knowledge). I got the book and started reading it immediately. But there really wasn't much of a story, and I couldn't relate to the characters. I found that I didn't even really know the characters, and nothing was prompting me to keep turning the pages other than to find out if the first few pages would be answered (which they weren't for like a hundred pages later, where I wanted to give up anyway). The book seemed to glide over life instead of getting inside the characters' heads and hearts and letting us know what their struggles were. It skimmed the surface and seemed pleased with itself instead of turning outward towards us to pull us into the world where they had to deal with various trials, and clever phrases were uttered instead of genuine dialog. I seriously didn't understand why the book got such great reviews, and how the author got such a book published after having some best-sellers.

Was I missing something? I went online and found some reviews with thoughts similar to my own, then noticed that a number of people got free books through Netgalley or by being active on Goodreads or just being popular book bloggers. What's great is that some of the reviewers who got the book for free gave an honest review, even saying that they didn't finish it because it wasn't good enough to waste any more time. Others liked it, but weren't really specific. But other than those digital reviewers (and I have no problem with publishers contacting them or going through Netgalley or other sites to get exposure), I noticed that a lot of established, successful authors gave glowing reviews as well, which made me wonder if they were friends with the author or people in the publishing house or whoever was connected with the author/book/company/whatever.

Then I wondered if I should just say nothing online about the book, because the publisher had taken the time and money to send it to me, and they "deserved" a good review, and if I wasn't going to give one, I should remain silent. But then that's dishonest advertising, and would mean that they're essentially paying for positive publicity by giving us something for free. And there was nothing in their emails or snail-mail that suggested I should do that. They were totally ethical and just wanted to find a niche outlet that fit their book. I looked at discussions online, and found a blog post that said people should be honest in their reviews. Since I am not a dedicated book blogger like those other folks are, I really don't have to deal with this issue often, and if I don't like a book, I do a quick negative rating on Bookdigits and move on.

So I decided to write about my experience rather than the book itself, and if they ask me via email what I think, I'll be honest and say I didn't like it. Maybe if I were writing publicly I would be more diplomatic, but I just did not want to spend any more time with the book. And while I appreciate them reaching out to me, it doesn't guarantee a positive review. I'll just rate it at Bookdigits and move on to better books.