You’ve been set up on a blind date. You’re asked to meet this stranger at the food court in your local mall. When the date arrives, you’re shocked to find out that it’s a famous fictional character. Describe the scene (who’s the mystery date, how did you react, and what happened the rest of the date).
Be sure to share your responses!
In my last year of college, a friend of mine showed interest in me as more than a friend. As coworkers, we and a bunch of other friends had hung out after work, but this friend and I began hanging out after work without the others.
Other coworkers had showed interest in me as well, but I was easily able to determine that they were not my type for anything more than friendship. However, I was still unsure of this particular friend and his potential standing as more than a friend.
One particular night after work, we hopped into his car and rode back and forth on the main road in the town. My first question, “So, do you believe in God?” turned out to not be the deal breaker of his potential status. Instead, we discussed hopes, dreams, numbers of children we wanted to have, and goals in life.
By the time we parted, it was nearly time for my 8:00 am class, I had come no closer to rejecting him as a potential boyfriend, and we hung out the following night.
In a memo sent to employees at the end of October, Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio said with the retail environment the worst he has ever seen as a bookseller, the nation’s largest bookstore chain is “bracing for a terrible holiday, and expect[s] the trend to continue well into 2009, and perhaps beyond.” Riggio added, “Never in all of the years I’ve been in business have I seen a worse outlook for the economy. And never in all my years as a bookseller have I seen a retail climate as poor as the one we are in. Nothing even close.” The release of the memo was first reported on November 3 by the Wall Street Journal.
Riggio assures that the company’s financial foundation is solid: “We still intend to pay out a $50 million dividend to our shareholders this year. In addition, we have a solid balance sheet, excellent standing with the banking community, and more importantly, a large line of unused credit to draw upon. And, even with this year’s large sales shortfall, we will make a decent profit, and end the year without owing a penny to our banks.”
Riggio’s remarks follow statements made by B&N CFO Joe Lombardi in early September at an investor’s conference, where he said the retail environment was the worst the company had seen in 30 years. The company’s same store sales were down in the first part of the year.
And on November 20, Barnes & Noble reported sales of $1.1 billion for their third quarter, and a net loss of $18.4 million. Same-store BN store sales of $971 million were down a big 7.4 percent (and fell 4.4 percent overall), while sales at the online unit rose 2 percent, to $109 million. The loss includes a special after-tax impairment charge of $7 million “to reduce the asset carrying value of certain store locations.”
Having cut planned new stores for 2009 early from 30 to 35 to a target of 20 to 25 stores, they are “now reducing that number to approximately 15 new stores,” of which nine are relocations and upgrades.
Riggio said they were experiencing the “same type of decline reported by other major retailers” and cited in particular the “lack of coverage of books, both in the mainstream media and on talk-radio,” due to the presidential election and the economic crisis. Riggio told analysts not to expect extra discounts this holiday to drive sales. “We don’t believe that more aggressive discounting is profitable. We can drive traffic, but we don’t think we can drive traffic profitably” that way.
“More than a building that houses books and data, the library has always been a window to a larger world–a place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward. . . .
“Libraries remind us that truth isn’t about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we’re the most religious of people, America’s innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts.
“And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we’ve changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.”
–President-elect Barack Obama in a speech at the American Library Association annual conference in June 2005
When writing lists, it is important to keep the items in each bullet parallel to one another, as this helps the reader understand the meaning of the list. Parallelism is, according to Harbrace College Handbook, “the use of corresponding grammatically equal elements in sentences and paragraphs.”
What does it mean to write parallel lists? To write parallel lists, each item in the list must have the same structure. To be parallel, each item in the list might
Example: When I get home from work, I need to
If the last bullet had said “and also washing the floor needs to be done,” the reader would most likely have had to re-read the sentence to understand the meaning of it in relation to the last bullet. This undesireable added attention emphasizes the error in the sentence and causes the reader to struggle to understand its meaning. Making lists parallel makes reading easier and more enjoyable.
Try It!
Write a sentence with a list of items as unparallel and difficult to comprehend as possible. Then write another sentence with a list that is parallel and grammatically correct.