1 Use
A bullet (•) is a ball-like mark that demarcates text, especially each of a series of listed items.
551 Use bullets to mark a series of listed items that are of a more or less equal ranking, especially to draw the reader’s attention and make reading easier by breaking out items into discrete chunks.
Every community needs to ask these questions:
• Does it have first-rate people on its school board, and are they broadly representative of the community?
• Does the board have open lines of communication to the school administration, to the teachers and to the entire community?
• Is it getting the information it needs to make responsible decisions, both short- and long-range?
• Does it have effective liaison with allied community programs: with the departments of health and welfare, with housing, private industry, transportation, and total city planning?
• Is it doing what a board should do—setting the policy for a strong administrator responsible to it—or is it wasting its time by dabbling in administrative details?
(John Gardner)
In airplane travel, small infringements can affect the well-being of many. Helpful behavior includes:
• Organizing one’s hand baggage before boarding in such a way as to make it possible to slip into one’s seat with it and then distribute it overhead and underfoot, rather than standing in the aisle to do so while several hundred people pile behind you.
• Taking no more than one’s share of the amenities—pillows, blankets—and of storage space, and less of that, if possible.
• Cooperating in exchanging seats with people who want to sit together.
• Spending as little time in the bathrooms as possible, for which Miss Manners will give special dispensation to do moderated grooming at one’s seat.
• Staying out of the aisles and out of the way of moving service carts.
• Not begrudging moving to let those in one’s row out when they deem it necessary for whatever reason.
• Controlling one’s children so that they refrain from such voluntary actions as kicking the backs of the seats in front of them and endowing them with strong constitutions so that they do not indulge in involuntary unpleasant actions, as referred to above.
(Judith Martin)
You may feel your presence at home, in the office, or at a party will be less than well received, given the amount of garlic you have just consumed at a particular meal. Any one of the following actions might help you deal with the problem, to everyone’s relief:
• Chew and swallow some fresh parsley.
• Rub a piece of lemon over your tongue and the insides of your mouth.
• Chew a few coffee beans.
• Take some antacid.
• Use some mints.
(Letitia Baldridge)