What's your Question Mark Inside?

I've just come from tea and cakes at the Chapter House of St Paul's Cathedral. This is not the sort of thing I do every day, as you might imagine. In fact, I've never done it before and probably won't again. So I should thank Martin Firrell for inviting me.

Martin is a public artist, known for projecting often provocative messages onto public buildings. (He's also a branding consultant and writer, off and on, which is how I met him.)

He's been commissioned to create a work to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the topping-out of St Paul's. His response is The Question Mark Inside: an attempt to explore that part of ourselves that leads people to religion or other forms of spirituality. The part that wrestles with all the big questions - why are we here? What's the meaning of life? What's the secret of happiness? All that stuff.

The project blog invites people to contribute their own thoughts on the subject, and has become an archive of deep thoughts from around the world (and some not so deep). Martin's plan, as he told the assembled throng at the Chapter House today, is to 'put all these thoughts into the hugest blender in the world, and press pulse, and create a Question Mark smoothie. Then I'll spread some of that smoothie onto the dome of St Paul's'. Well, there's a thought.

It's an ambitious plan, and an exciting one. The first sneak preview will be on 8 November, to coincide with the Lord Mayor's Show, and then there will be a full, three-week run of the project later that month. Martin and the Cathedral are busily fundraising for the project, so if you feel like helping - either in cash or in kind - you can email emma at martinfirrell dot com with offers.

Why it's important to capitalise proper nouns

From the BBC website this morning. Enough said, I think.

Well, for starters...

I just saw this in my local branch. All my Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells instincts erupted in a moment.

Inside, they repeat the headline. But this time without the offending mark. So not only are they incorrect, they're also inconsistent.

Why oh why oh why, etc.

When 'I will' means 'I won't'

It's funny what you learn in this job. For example, I've been working with Mint, a design agency in Jordan, recently. Together, we named a new property development company in Dubai, which is creating some of the most exclusive and luxurious residences in the world. (And they really are: all hyperbole permitted on this one.)

With the name in place (it's still a secret), I started work on some marketing materials for the two islands they're developing. (See what I mean?)

I was describing a vision of what was to come, rather than an existing property, so I naturally slipped into the future tense: 'We will create the ultimate in luxury,' etc, etc.

This prompted a call from Tania at Mint, who explained that in her part of the world, if you say 'I will do something', everyone understands that to mean it'll never happen.

Of course, we have something like that over here - it's called builderspeak - but it seems to be the generally accepted meaning in the United Arab Emirates. Curious, eh?

What it meant was, I had to write about something in the future while avoiding the future tense. You try it sometime. It's not easy. (Thankfully, I seem to have pulled it off.)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

The sentence above is really that: a sentence. Thanks to Jim Davies of writers' group 26, I've discovered this wonderful thing, as well as many other similar sentences, on a great Wikipedia page.

How can this ridiculous construction be a real sentence? Well, first you have to know that 'buffalo' is an obscure verb meaning 'bully'. (I didn't.) And, of course, that Buffalo is a city in America. (New York state, to be precise.)

That means you can construct this mad sentence, which means, in extended form:

'The buffalos from Buffalo that buffalos from Buffalo bully ('buffalo') also bully other buffalos from Buffalo.'

It may be clearer if you try the sentence with people instead of buffalo:

'Buffalo people Buffalo people buffalo buffalo Buffalo people.'

Or it may not.

This is exactly the sort of thing that can keep me from proper work for hours on end. Enjoy.