As usual

Long time no see folks!

Again, some er... short time has passed since our last update. Dio must be rejoiced. But there is always and explanation. What is it? No need to tell, some things are best left unknown.

As for a quick note on English-learning lately, I can say that I had the chance of reading The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and Elwyn Brooks White. The book is a classic on English writing. It was written in 1918, and even so was very easy to find (!). Yes, I didn't read it by chance, I was looking for the book. I was pointed to it by the references of the great book LaTeX: a Document Preparation System, by Leslie Lamport.

Even though some of the advised spelling pactices are out of date (to-day things are different, as surely as the writers of to-morrow will not spell as we do) the reading gave me a handful of interesting insights on important aspects of writing (and also of not writing). Let me tell it another way. Writing involves much more than laying down words in a gramatically acceptable way. Writing is (can't help thinking has to be) connected with communication, thus implying the existence of a recipient for the message. It is then that things get messy. As long as the main goal is to have the message conveyed, the necessity of a transparent containter for it will be highly important. The text is the container of the message, the clearer it is, the "tastiest the milk" (Paulo Feofiloff). Plainly speaking, that was the line I followed while reading the book (it may not apply directly to literary writing).

So much for this post.