It can be difficult to get The West Wing out of your head ...
Series 1. "Mr Willis of Ohio," written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Christopher Misiano.
At an after-hours poker game in the White House, President Bartlet is indulging his annoying habit of testing senior staff on their general knowledge.
* * * * *
BARTLET: There are fourteen punctuation marks in Standard English grammar. Can anyone name them please?
CJ: Period.
JOSH: Comma.
MANDY: Colon.
SAM: Semicolon.
JOSH: Dash.
SAM: Hyphen.
LEO: Ah ... apostrophe.
BARTLET: That's only seven. There are seven more.
TOBY: Question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces and ellipses.
CJ: Ooh.
JOSH: Wow!
TOBY: Do you call the raise sir?
BARTLET: There are three words, and three words only, in the English language that begin with the letters 'dw'.
JOSH: This is a pretty good illustration of why we get nothing done.
* * * * *
If you relish brilliant writing and can cope with the odd foray into grammar geekery, buy the West Wing box set and don't leave the house until you've watched it all.
The West Wing and all its characters are properties of Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Production, Warner Brothers Television, and NBC. No copyright infringement is intended.
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