Steve Johnson writes about a friend who lost a Rhodes Scholarship because of his use of italics. (I may be overstating a little.) It reminds me of my friend who had applied for a faculty position and was waiting to be interviewed at the annual American Philosophical Association meeting. His application was full of his scholarly accomplisments and achievements, the articles he had published, the dissertation he had labored over to support his bold thesis about Nietzsche, and just a few lines about his personal interests. He was waiting in the hallway as the current interviewee departed, and heard a faculty committee ask, “Who’s the next one?”

Answer: “The saxophone player.”

Categories: misc dw