Professor Old Silly’s Tutorial Tuesday – We Had and Have the “Had Had” Winners!

Welcome back to Bloggyversity, English Comp Class 10001.3b, “Writing With Power in Fiction”. Take your seats, please class, I need your full attention, as in immediately. I have another very important tea and crumpets date with Ms. Flanders in just ten minutes, so stop with the flirting and sophomoric shenanigans, turn off your ipods, cell phones, black and/or raspberries, stop with the twittering, get your faces out of Facebook, boot up your monitors, straighten your drawers, plop your butts in your seats and be quiet. I’m in no mood for your typical silliness. Plus if you’re good I have some more fresh baked cookies for you all after class, courtesy once again of the lovely Ms. Flanders.

That’s much better. Ahem. Today, first off, it is my pleasure to announce the winners from Marv’s “Weekend Literary Teaser.” As you recall, the challenge was, without rearranging the words, or breaking the sentence up into more than one, or capitalizing any words not already capitalized, to correctly punctuate the following sentence:

Where John had had had Mary had had had had had had had had the teacher’s approval.

Only one person got it completely correct. That person happens to be my analytical-to-the-nth-degree brother, Daryl Wilson. I was like, “What? He almost never comments on my blog, but he just couldn’t help himself on this one! – the guy’s never seen a puzzle or brain teaser challenge he could pass up having to figure it out, lol. That’s classic Daryl. So anyhowzit, kudos to bro, who submitted the answer below in the comments. The only way (that I know of) to correctly punctuate that sentence into some semblance of grammatical sense (while adhering strictly to the rules laid out) is this-

Where John had had “had,” Mary had had “had had”; “had had” had had the teacher’s approval.

I know, it still reads a bit awkward, not the best sentence structure this side of the galaxy, but it is correct with regard to following the rules of punctuation–American style English, anyway. Which leads me to the next entry, which I want to give honorable mention to, because although she did not follow all the rules to the letter, she did come up with a correct, creative answer that reads better, with a more sensible flow to the sentence structure. Debbie Johnson submitted the following:

John, where Mary had had “had had,” had had “had”. “Had had” had been preferred by the teacher.

Of course, she even changed a couple words altogether, and the period separating the two sentences should be inside the quotation mark.  A colon or semicolon goes outside quotation marks–in both American and British English styles, but not a period–not never, period. But anyway, it’s a pretty darn good rewrite of a cumbersome collection of mostly repetitive words, hm?

Now – guess what …

Blog Dismissed!

Yup. G’on’n play hookie for the rest of the day. As usual leave your comments on my desk, and I must say … Wow! You’re all still here … Gold stars for everyone, and please help yourself to these still warm fresh-baked cookies Ms. Flanders was kind enough to bake for you all.

Ooops, my cell.

“Yes, yes, Ms. Flanders, I’m coming, be right with you …”

Oh, class? … no more than two apiece, please? Let’s be good and share, now …

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