Dear Editors:
We would like to express our considerable annoyance with the preponderance of lists being generated by the so-called end of the millennium. Here are our ‘top ten’ reasons why you should encourage fewer lists, and more grammatically intact prose:
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10) Lists are incapable of expressing irony.
9) Making other people feel they should read Ulysses is vicious, iniquitous and generally not nice.
8) Actually reading Ulysses is even worse.
7) We don’t like counting backwards.
6) Lists lead to people compiling books of lists, which are doubly annoying.
5) Is always filler.
4) Too many sentence fragments.
3) Countdowns lead one to expect that a rocket will be launched. But no rocket is launched.
2) Casablanca.
1) Is usually a huge letdown.
Please feel free to use this list in place of other lists you may be tempted to print, and save Canadians valuable reading time. We hope this suggestion is taken with the seriousness in which it is given.
Mark Rayner, Esq.
On behalf of The Emily Chesley Reading Circle
Originally published: November 29, 1999 in the National Post
Visit The Emily Chesley Reading Circle and discover more of our Letters of Annoyance.
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