Sars,

Dear K,

Thanks for the suggestion, which other readers seconded; other song ideas appear below. As always, I’ve asterisked those I received more than once.

Alabama, “Mountain Music” *
The Band, “Up On Cripple Creek” *
The Beatles, “Rocky Raccoon”
Bob Dylan, “Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues”
Bob Seger, “Get Out Of Denver” *
Bowling For Soup, “Surf Colorado”
Chris Ledoux, “The Buffalo Grass”
Cowboy Junkies, “Townes’ Blues”
C.W. McCall, “The Silverton” (or “Wolf Creek Pass”)
Dave Loggins (or Wade Bowen), “Please Come To Boston” *
Emmylou Harris, “Boulder To Birmingham”
Jimmy Buffett, “Mile High In Denver”
Johnny Rivers, “Mountain Of Love”
Joni Mitchell, “My Secret Place”
Judy Collins, “Blizzard” (or “Home Before Dark”)
Mountain, “Theme From An Imaginary Western”
Nanci Griffith, “Across The Great Divide”
Ozark Mountain Daredevils, “Colorado Song”
Peter Mulvey, “Denver 6 a.m.”
Phil Pritchett, “Colorado On Trial”
Railroad Earth, “Colorado”
Simon & Garfunkel, “Go Tell It On The Mountain”
16 Horsepower, “Denver Grab”
The Supremes, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”
Tom Russell, “Denver Wind”
Warren Zevon, “Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead” *
Yonder Mountain String Band, “40 Miles From Denver” (or “At The End Of The Day”) *

The Ballad of Baby Doe
The South Park movie soundtrack *
String Cheese Incident

A friend and I were discussing an article we’d both read, and my friend raised objections to the author’s use of the word “e-mails” as the plural of “e-mail” (there was also some argument about the use of the hyphen, but I won’t address that for the time being). None of the online dictionaries I subsequently perused listed a pluralized form of the word. My friend suggested there should be no such thing, citing examples such as how one would say, “Check your e-mail,” as opposed to “Check your e-mails.” I agreed with her examples, but I also brought up the fact that I would never state “I sent out several e-mail today.”

Dear Puzz,

Yes, I think the noun can have an S at the end of it — when it’s referring to individual letters or messages. As you pointed out, “several email” is like “several grapefruit”; it sounds off somehow.

But I think you can say “check your email” and have that be correct as well, because it’s referring to the email program, or using “email” as a “group noun,” like “people.”

Part of the problem is that the word “email” derives from the word “mail,” and nobody really ever said, or says, “I sent a bunch of mails” — “letter” is the individual unit, and “mail” is the aggregate — so we’re not used to the word “emails,” and to using it differently from the way we use “mail.”

Short answer: “emails” is fine, depending on the context.

Sars,

Dear Dem,

You don’t say whether she had a maid/matron of honor at all, besides/instead of you, which does affect my assessment — you say that she did the lion’s share of the planning herself, both times, and it sounds like the two of you drifted apart somewhat between Wedding #1 and Wedding #2 anyway. Now, if she replaced you, while letting you assume that you still had the matron-of-honor position, that’s bullshit. If she just didn’t have a particular honor attendant at all, well, okay; she still should have said something to you, but it’s easier to forgive if the basic issue is that she thought you’d “get it.” But…you didn’t.

I agree that avoiding a confrontation on the actual wedding weekend was the way to go, but one of you should have broached the MoH topic well before you got the salon schedule — and if it wasn’t her, it probably should have been you, when she said she could just do everything herself. Regardless, if she didn’t switch you out for somebody else, it probably had more to do with logistics than with anything you should take personally…but if it was the latter, well, you’ve started to drift anyway. Just let it ride.

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