I never thought I’d have to actually spell this out, but here it goes: The nutritional content of Product A at any given eatery is not in any way affected by the nutritional content of Product B. Sounds simple, right? I mean, obviously, if I order a triple bacon cheeseburger at the healthiest restaurant in the world, the fact that the restaurant preparing it also makes nutritional food does not in any way make the food that I ordered any healthier, all other things being equal. You would not believe the number of times people do this, though. The fact is that the majority of most people’s nutritional knowledge comes not from facts, but from…

Rather than try to review Star Trek: Into Darkness (which really wasn’t that bad, despite my statements below), I thought I’d ask some of the questions that came to mind while watching the film. As with other entries in this series, this should be pretty obvious: Spoiler Alert. Let’s be honest, though: You’ll see every “twist” coming from a mile away. Here we go: Does anyone else think the “Prime Directive” thing—already well understood by fans of the series as “the rule that must always be broken to make things interesting”—doesn’t really figure into this plot at all? Does Noel Clarke (who plays the distraught dad with the sick child) have nude pictures of J. J. Abrams or something? How else could one explain his…

I’ll probably change this a few dozen times, and to be honest, I wouldn’t take it that seriously, but here you go:

I refer of course to the spaces between lines in text, not the number of spaces after a period (it’s one, by the way). Okay, I get it, double spacing the lines of an essay makes it easier to insert editing marks… sort of. Considering I’ve marked up text with single-spaced lines with ease (and trust me, I make a lot of marks) I don’t see how this is a problem. Also, if it’s a final project or the teacher doesn’t make editing marks, why do they still need it double-spaced? No, it doesn’t increase “readability”. Why would it? Say you’re looking at billboard from a distance, and you want to read a line of…

Okay everybody, did you have a good weekend? Great. To begin class today, open up your Chicago Manual of Style to 5.220, “Glossary of Problematic Words and Phrases”, and look up “affect; effect”. Or find your copy of The Elements of Style and flip to the section on commonly misused words and phrases. Or maybe your copy of An Easy Guide to APA Style to the bottom of page 39. Yes, psychology folks, you get a little more wiggle room to use “affect” as a noun, but not as much as you think. Just because it can mean “emotion” doesn’t mean you get to use it whenever you want. But there can’t be that many…