The Lexicographer's Rules

"The men are blue-collar workers, sunburned laborers taking a break from mowing suburban lawns, hauling drywall into a new South County housing tract, or digging ditches. They wear ball caps or T-shirts that advertise the names of their businessesŃlandscape firms, hardware stores, construction companies. They dress in tattered jeans and construction boots; a few belong to unions. They've got fingers like driftwood, and when you shake hands with them, it's as if there's sandpaper pressed between your palms. They stand in stark contrast to the pretty boys, all younger than 25, employed in the service sectorŃbusboys, valets or dishwashersŃas evidenced by their smooth hands, clean-shaven faces and overall natty appearance."

—Orange County Weekly. Lucha Libre, a free-for-all fight between gaudily dressed low-rent Mexican wrestlers and cardboard Anglo stand-ins, draws Latino families from Mexico and Central America to watch racial tensions be realized in live-action cartoon form.'

"One of the things we kept doing long after the killings ended was to patrol the country roads where youngsters continued to go parking, despite all the warnings we'd been giving. One night, around midnight, I was driving down this dirt road and came up on a couple. I walked up to their car and tapped on the window and said, 'Don't you kids know that you could get yourselves killed being out here this time of night?' This young girl just smiled at me and replied, 'Don't you know you could have gotten yourself killed?' And with that she raised this big ol' pistol to the car window." "

—Dallas Observer. Carlton Stowers tells the fascintating tale of the unsolved murders of teen couples on dark roads in Texarkana, the town that straddles the Texas and Arkansas borders.'

"There are moms who come in: 'I don't feel my baby move,' they say. Some of them know. You can see the fear on their face. A minute or two goes by and we can't locate the heartbeat. They know. It's so difficultŃwhat do you say? When a baby is born dead, it's an eerie silence. So quiet. The mother is there crying her eyes out. The dad, too, and the siblings are joining them. I can't leave that behind that day. There is no way. You think about it later again and again."

—Washington Post. Paulette Lawal is a labor and delivery nurse at Washington Adventist Hospital, Takoma Park, Maryland.'

"Time to dance. I busted a lindy circle followed by a double spin. The goth paused a beat and did the same step. We eyed each other, as if for the first time. I worked up a trade-slide block turn in skater's position, and he followed the move effortlessly, moving into a Frankie's Roll that consisted of a tap-back foot on the second beat, followed by a roll-roll-triple on four. We were now dancing side by side. I duplicated the block turn, working a stomach roll into the trade slide. Other dancers moved aside and cheered each completed move."

—McSweeney's. A journal entry from Bob Bringhurst about being in a bar, a bit deep in the glass, dancing with Rose McGowan and against her goth date.'

"If you know anything about Roseanne, you must know that she is a non-conformist and rarely does what society expects of her. I believe that you and her would definitely 'hit it off' and the conversation would definitely be interesting and fulfilling for the both of you."

—The Smoking Gun. Larry Ish, producer for the Roseanne talk show, writes to convicted bomber Theodore Kaczynski (three murdered and 22 injured), requesting an interview for the program. That's just one of many such letters from producers and journalists, many of them vain, formulaic or falsely sympathetic.'