Welcome to “Margie Holds Court”

Margie Wakeman WellsGeneral 18 Comments

As I launch this blog, Margie Holds Court, it is my hope that it will be a place where we can share our love of this language.

As I approach the winding down of my teaching career — I started as a high school Spanish teacher in 1964!! You do the math — I want to talk about the way this language works and the marvelous opportunity we have to play with it and use it and dissect it every day in this world we call court reporting. We use the language in a unique way in this field. We worry and fret over every comma and hyphen, and let’s not even talk about what to quote and whether to use a dash or a colon.

It is my hope that you will jump in and respond here. After all, where else do you get to talk to people that love/hate the same stuff you do? I know we won’t always agree, and that’s okay. There is certainly enough room to wiggle in some places. But there are rules!

I have to share this quote from Facebook, where someone said something like “But it doesn’t look good with a comma.” James Barker, of Searchmaster, replied, “We are not decorating the den; we are punctuating the transcript.” Punctuating the transcript, indeed.

Happy punctuating.

Margie

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  1. Congratulations Margie!

    So wonderful to read your blog and your thoughts on your future. I am so looking forward to following you and can’t wait for your smartphone app to keep me in the loop.

    Again congratulations and here is to a successful 2nd/3rd career for one of the smartest people I know…

    Susan Frank

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      Hi, Jean.

      I really hope students from all over will log in. I think there will be much here to learn. Give my best to all your students and your staff. It was a fun time that day in New Jersey last year.

      Margie

  2. Margie…Congratulations!!!! I recently went to one of your seminars and had gotten SOOO much out of just 1 hour. I can only imagine what I will be able to get out of your blog. Thank you so much for this…. Looking forward to “Holding Court” with you!

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  3. Hey……….
    Congrats on the blog !!
    Glad to see you found something to do with some spare time =o)
    I look forward to your posts and, as always, appreciate the good source of information…..thanks!

    Take care……………Kary

  4. Ms. Wells, I thought years ago I would never see you again. We worked very hard in your English class at Bryan College, but I enjoyed every bit of it. I’m so proud to have had you as my teacher. I can still hear you and Ms. P’s voice today.

  5. I am so excited about this, Margie!! I look forward to reading your posts and the cool discussions and clarifications that will inevitably follow.

  6. I’m very happy you have this blog! I’m not a reporter — didn’t finish CR school but I am a math/science teacher who still loves grammar stuff!
    And I have a question — affect or effect? How do I know?

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