Chris Lawrence is discussing the abuse of colons in making the titles for academic publications, brought on by this entry by Kate Malcom. Says Chris:

Anecdotal point: my vita lists twelve different works (my dissertation, a working paper that I plan to send out for review Monday, and ten conference papers). My dissertation’s title doesn’t contain a colon; the working paper does. Six of the conference papers have colons in their titles; two have a question mark that functions as a colon; and two lack colons completely.

I am hereby inviting Doc Chris to co-write a paper with me, in a search for a relationship between colonic abuse and academic status. This seemingly very PoMo title would probably work: Colons in Academic Writing: Lingusitic Excess and the Decline Of the Creative, Witty, Catchy Title Ecouraging Further Alienation of the Academically Juvenile.

I doubt it would sell, but that’s what requiring students to read them are for. Hmmm. Sounds like another PoMo title for another publication. Required Undergraduate Readings: A Study of the Relationships Between Obtuse Academic Publications, Student Peformance, and their Psychological and Emotional Well-Being as a Result of Being Required to Read Said Readings.

That’s going to be a bestseller.

(This is my entry in today’s Beltway Traffic Jam, Doc J’s daily link-o-rama. He, on the other hand, I would invite for a co-authoring project for a publication with a short title, as long as it does not have the word “History” in it.)