Ask Alice the Accountant

For a long while now, I've been compiling a list of nutty search terms that land people on this blog. I just haven't been sure what to do with them. Then suddenly, yesterday, it hit me. I am going to run a sporadic "Ask So-and-So" feature so that I can help out all these poor souls who are desperate to know something about the hibernation patterns of kangaroos or the best ways to keep one's thighs from touching each other. And the "So-and-So" will change every time I get organized enough to put up one of these posts. Sometimes she'll be a doctor, others a vet, or a naughty girl-for-hire, or an etiquette expert, or a fashion maven, or a plain old martini-slugging lush. Or whoever it is whose expertise multiple people seem hoping to find when they land here. And she'll answer all these poor readers' questions -- the ones that sent them here and left them disastrously unfulfilled. So that if anyone else comes along, wondering

What a the grammatical problems that accountant encounter.

he or she will not have to leave disappointed. Never fear, dear reader, Alice the Accountant can help you out!

At least one of the grammatical problems that plague accountants is the inability to distinguish between common punctuation marks such as periods and question marks. Those marks are pesky and confusing, and we accountants generally only have use for a period (or decimal) in our daily lives. But I understand that the other marks are good too, and that there are rules for using them. Please note: semi-colons are very tricky and should only be attempted by professionals. But we accountants can certainly master question marks and exclamation points, if for no other reason than to jazz up our writing a bit. Obviously, the typo of a for are is something that could happen to anyone, not just accountants--but this suggests that just as you double-check your math, it can also be productive to double-check your typing. In your query, you could usefully choose to make accountant plural, or add the 's' necessary to make the verb agree with a singular accountant. Your choice.

So there you have it: proper punctuation, proofreading, and subject-verb agreement are skills accountants could stand to refresh. It is a little ironic that the last is a matter of numbers. But irony is even harder to master than punctuation. So let's start with this as the first of several accountant encounters. (Which, by the way, would make an excellent title for a poem, were I poetically inclined: "Accountant Encounter" by Alice. But I'm a numbers girl myself...)

On to the next query, a plea for: Fun with numbers phrases. Ah, yes... numbers are fun. And it's worth having some phrases that say so. This gets us to a grammar problem, however, since phrases are not sentences, and if I only give you incomplete sentences (phrases), it might not be clear how much fun math is. But I'll do my best. Here are three, for a start: Numbers Fun! or Fun Numbers! or Fun with Numbers! (again, notice the appropriate use of alternative punctuation marks). With this head start, I'll bet you can come up with even more on your own.

And finally:

math games using uncooked macaroni

Although I no longer personally use uncooked macaroni to calculate anything on tax returns or for bookkeeping, I know that it has its popularity as a medium for math games. I don't know any math games myself that don't involve calculating integers or cooking the books, neither of which can really be done with "uncooked macaroni," but I think if you try making piles of the dry noodles, you can then count them and see whose pile is the biggest. That might be fun. Or you can use them as chips when playing Math Poker (like regular Poker, except you count cards). Or you can use them in place of actual numbers to teach basic arithmetic processes. Just be sure your division problems are carefully planned to work out evenly, since I don't think it's very simple to work on fractions using small, hard, dry noodles.

I hope I have been helpful. Stay tuned for other useful responses to Google queries in coming weeks. If you are feeling anxious about your shabby knees, come here for more information. If you want a list of hair-brained homophones, you're in the right place. There is apparently nothing this blog does not know. You'll be so glad you asked.