Pass the Damn Salt, Please: A Comedy of Manners, Language and Relationships Book

This is a story of language about relationships.

No. Wait.

This is a story ABOUT language of relationships.

No.

Of language. About relationships.

Of. About.

About. Of.

Language.

Relationships.

Crap.

OK this is NOT a story of grammar. Nor is it a story about grammar. Sentences will not make you weep with their elegance and construction. Paragraphs perfectly balanced will not dot each page as each chapter propels the narrative with surety and suspense.

No, this is a story about the language we use in relationships with friends, family, and lovers. This story highlights the curious phenomenon that we are far more polite to people we are socially distant from and can be far nastier to those we supposedly are close to.

More specifically, this is the story of a man named Riley and the language in his life.

Fortunately Riley has sense of humor, a verbally sophisticated family and rides the bus. Hence many of his dialogues are amusing. He also meets an equally verbally adept lady named Rachel and we read the words used by Riley and Rachel as they meet, fall in love, meet family and friends, have "The Talk" re. kids and past relationships move in together, descend into screaming fights and move, perhaps, beyond.

Oh yeah, this book is something the author likes to call Novel 2.0. What is that? Like its cousin Web 2.0, it is an attempt to increase interaction between hard working author and passive reader. The reader is provided only with the name of each character as known by Riley, their gender, a one-word description of the location and the words spoken by the characters. The reader provides everything else.


About time, some say.

Not me, mind you.

I, for one, really appreciate that you are considering buying this book and don't want to do anything that would prevent you from adding it to you cart.

I'm just saying there are some, mostly in academia, who think you, gentle reader, crave to become more tightly connected to the story and its characters.

And I think this just might be the way to do it.

Well, it's worth a shot.

As we meet Riley he is at a party…