It has bothered me for a while (in a fairly trivial way) that the recent posts here, which are mostly just plugs for new writing over there, have been being categorized as writing, thereby making it necessary, if somebody wanted to look at the posts which are actually about writing, for that person to sift through a bunch of little plugs to get to the real posts about writing, of which there are some, though mostly not real recent.

(Grammar buffs can appreciate how I deployed the passive voice in the previous paragraph to make it seem as if some abstract force has been classifying these posts this way, as opposed to them being categorized that way by me, which is more accurate. Of course, those same grammar buffs would probably be dismayed at the sentence itself, which is rather long and awkward.

For those grammar buffs, I'll have a little entertainment at the end of this post.)

So, I created a new category, called plugs. This post is classified as a plug, as well as blog news and grammar, for obvious reasons. Over the next few days, I'll go back and reclassify all the plugs as plugs, so the ones which are really about writing can have a little elbow room.

Since this is categorized as a plug, you can be sure that it's plugging something, which is the beginning of The College Murder Case, which starts here.

On the grammar front, here are two items from the Chicago Manual of Style Q&A for this month:

Q. My colleagues are divided in their opinions about "storing data in a computer" versus "storing data on a computer." Which is correct? Thanks.

A. You can do either, but I would store the data in the computer. It used to be easy to store stuff on a computer, but now with flat screens and laptops it tends to slide off.

Q. I have a sports-related question resulting from a recent conversation with a friend during a baseball game. I maintain that the proper term for that administrative unit overseeing sports at a college or university should be "Athletics Department," but my friend contended that it is "Athletic Department." Who’s right?

A. You can spell it either way, but unless your department is particularly buff, "Athletics Department" makes more sense to me.