Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Spaceopoly Kill this Thread V: the 24 hour version!

Overall, I have good memories of college. Unfortunately, I graduated at age 20 with a BA in English and no marketable skills. Finding a job afterwards was not easy. Potential employers would look at my résumé amd say "Have you considered going back to school?". I did six-and-a-half years later.

I can never decide whether my biggest mistake was going to college in the first place, or re-enrolling again after dropping out.

[Aside to Fanfic Lass: It was a serving/busing job in this snooty cafe' in a snooty NYC department store. My boss was, shall we say, an extremely difficult person. But when work was over she'd sometimes invite staff to stick around and have a drink (on her) at the bar. Well, I A) Didn't drink then, B) Didn't like my boss and C) Had no diplomatic/butt-kissing skills to speak of. So I'd just grumble, "No thanks," and leave.

Hence my eventually being canned for having an "attitude problem," when at that time and in that place, NOT having one would normally be what landed an employee in hot water. ]

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Diplomatic skills can be useful. It's necessary in my job. It's amazing how upset people can become about a 60-cent overdue fine.

Curses... Foiled Again! [/Snidley Whiplash Voice]

Hey, now. Sixty cents buys an entire comic book, so long as you've already paid to have your Time Bubble charged up.

The funny thing is some people, even people who aren't wealthy, will happily pay fines for 50 dollars or more, but those little fines get to them.

I imagine they consider having to deal with smaller amounts as a drain on their time. Or something.

Maybe. But it's not like they have to pay them right away. As long as they keep fines under ten dollars, they can still use their cards and they have till the card expires (every three years) to pay.

That's a very generous system.

It varies a bit from locality to locality, but most public libraries have similar practices.

I tend to not turn in books late, so I don't know how they do it where I live.

You're a responsible library patron, Miner!

I am, indeed.

They make it pretty easy, though. I get automated e-mails letting me know that the books are due and providing a link to where I can renew them if noone else has requested them.

We do the same. Of course, if people change their e-mail address without telling us, that can cause a problem.

I notice also, Miner, that we both spell "e-mail" the proper way, with a hyphen. I always thought "email" looked like it should be pronounced "uh-MAIL" or "EM-ail".

"Email" suggests a type of bird to me.

That and the hyphen represents the elision of the rest of the word "electronic". In Spanish, it's still officially called "correo electronico", though many Spanish-speakers in this country refer to it as "el e-mail".

Of course, I recently had to explain to our summer intern--who is fully bilingual and grew up speaking Spanish--that where we work is indeed a "biblioteca" and not a "libreria", which would be a bookstore.

too bad. Think of the profits if she'd sold off the holdings!

I used to spell it "e-mail," but I work in academic institutions where the tendency is to spell it "email." As words become more familiar in English, the tendency is to gradually do away with the hyphen (e.g. "stepgrandson").

That's true, though I've always had a fondness for hyphens.

good point, HWW. Even "today" used to be "to-day."

Bah. I think we should resist linguistic change as much as possible. We should start by purifying English of all outside influences, as Poul Anderson does in Uncleftish Beholding.