something for the ladies

Into my inbox the other day came a lengthy article on the beauty of Marriage and the general splendidness of being a Good Wife.

In amongst the usual exhortations to various wifely duties there also appeared this gem:

Wives ought to reference their husbands.

Well, indeed! I thought. It's about time somebody alerted us to this sadly neglected conjugal duty. Because, after all, consider what the alternative would be. Plagiarism, girls, that's what - plagiarism! And people have been kicked out of universities for less.

In the spirit of mutual sisterly helpfulness, I'd therefore like to propose the adoption of the following citation convention:

Hubby, My (2006). Pers. comm. (Available upon request. Please do not cite without permission.)

I do hope that this reminder will be beneficial to some among my readers; and in the mean time I'll try not to notice any further trivial slips of the keyboard to make mountains out of ... this one was just too good to resist.