Words About Words - Richard Dooling: Word scholars may want to hold ...

WORDS ABOUT WORDS

Word scholars may want to hold on to those old dictionaries and thesauri, because newer editions will surely be Bowdlerized to accommodate our new hair-trigger capacities for taking offense.
—Richard Dooling, American writer and lawyer, The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 1999

Posted on June 19, 2000 at 7:33 AM

Richard Dooling quotations

Function FormatDate(d) If Month(d) = 1 Then s = "January" If Month(d) = 2 Then s = "February" If Month(d) = 3 Then s = "March" If Month(d) = 4 Then s = "April" If Month(d) = 5 Then s = "May" If Month(d) = 6 Then s = "June" If Month(d) = 7 Then s = "July" If Month(d) = 8 Then s = "August" If Month(d) = 9 Then s = "September" If Month(d) = 10 Then s = "October" If Month(d) = 11 Then s = "November" If Month(d) = 12 Then s = "December" s = s & " " & Day(d) & ", " & Year(d) FormatDate = s End Function Function FormatTime(d) If Hour(d) = 0 Then s = "12" ElseIf Hour(d) > 0 And Hour(d) <= 12 Then s = Hour(d) Else s = Hour(d) - 12 End If If Minute(d) < 10 Then s = s & ":0" & Minute(d) Else s = s & ":" & Minute(d) End If If Hour(d) <=12 Then s = s & " AM" Else s = s & " PM" End If FormatTime = s End Function Function RemoveSpaces(sOriginalWord) sWord = sOriginalWord If Left(sWord, 1) = "-" Then sWord = Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - 1) End If Do While InStr(sWord, " ") <> 0 spacePos = InStr(sWord, " ") If spacePos <> 0 Then sWord = Left(sWord, spacePos - 1) & Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - spacePos) End If Loop Do While InStr(sWord, "/") <> 0 spacePos = InStr(sWord, "/") If spacePos <> 0 Then sWord = Left(sWord, spacePos - 1) & "-" & Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - spacePos) End If Loop Do While InStr(sWord, "'") <> 0 spacePos = InStr(sWord, "'") If spacePos <> 0 Then sWord = Left(sWord, spacePos - 1) & Right(sWord, Len(sWord) - spacePos) End If Loop RemoveSpaces = sWord End Function Function ReplaceSingleQuotesWithHTMLCode(sOriginalText) str = sOriginalText Do While InStr(str, "'") <> 0 quotePos = InStr(str, "'") If quotePos <> 0 Then str = Left(str, quotePos - 1) & "'" & Right(str, Len(str) - quotePos) End If Loop ReplaceSingleQuotesWithHTMLCode = str End Function Function ReplaceAllQuotesWithHTMLCode(sOriginalText) str = sOriginalText Do While InStr(str, "'") <> 0 quotePos = InStr(str, "'") If quotePos <> 0 Then str = Left(str, quotePos - 1) & "'" & Right(str, Len(str) - quotePos) End If Loop Do While InStr(str, """") <> 0 quotePos = InStr(str, """") If quotePos <> 0 Then str = Left(str, quotePos - 1) & """ & Right(str, Len(str) - quotePos) End If Loop ReplaceAllQuotesWithHTMLCode = str End Function Function ReplaceString(strField, strFind, strReplace) findLocation = InStr(strField, strFind) Do While findLocation <> 0 If findLocation = 1 Then leftField = "" Else leftField = Left(strField, findLocation - 1) End If rightfield = Right(strField, Len(strField) - findLocation - (Len(strFind) - 1)) strField = leftField & strReplace & rightfield findLocation = InStr(findLocation + Len(strFind) + 3, strField, strFind) Loop ReplaceString = strField End Function