Quotation Marks

My readers are getting smarter. This would be good news were it not for the fact that I?m getting lazier. And smart questions make me work harder, forcing me to engage in an activity my brain seems more loath to do every day: learn. Still, if I?m going to keep raking in two figures a week for this column, I must try to keep up. So I?ll start with a tough one from Aine of city unknown who writes, ?One thing I have started seeing the past year that is driving me nuts is when people use a slash but put a space before and after it. So rather than saying ?

I’ve been taking the train lately. It’s just three quarters of a mile from my house and arrives just a half mile from my destination. My route requires me to buy just four passes a day for a total of $5 — only 40% more than the gallon of gas I would otherwise use — and it gets me to my destination just 15 minutes later than I could get there by car. For all these reasons and more, I can’t imagine why I would hop in my air-conditioned, practically new car and miss out on all the foot-blistering, deodorant-testing, please-don’t-talk-to-me-you- smell-like-Lindsay-Lohan-on- Sunday-morning fun. (Note to self: sue Al Gore for mental damages.

A retort for letter writers A cute word play on congratulations or a quick recovery? Either way John Muir Middle School might want to place the "grad" in quotation marks next year. That way, there will be no uncertainty for Burbank residents wondering whether their school tax dollars are being spent wisely. Rex Bowlby Burbank Girl Scouts could use old library As a member of Girl Scouting for more than 18 years in Burbank -- both as a girl and now a leader -- I am writing this letter to give you an idea of what this program has meant to me over the years and to urge everyone to support the effort to turn the old Buena Vista Library into the Girl Scouts of the San Fernando Valley Council Office.

Like everyone who lives in and around Los Angeles I sometimes read scripts. Friends' scripts. TV scripts. Movie scripts. Unfortunate scripts. Painful scripts. How-can-I-everlook-my-friendin-eye-again scripts. It's a sad commentary on our culture that everyone with a Southern California zip code thinks he has the next great blockbuster, or 10, tucked away in a desk drawer. But sadder yet is the fact that these scripts, wretched as they are, are still better than any of mine. But I've found a way to save face, in my own eyes at least.