Annoying Habit #2: The Overuse of Colons in Article Titles: An Annoyance.

A cursory glance at the titles of the 583 doctoral dissertations completed at Harvard University in 2004, which we all make from time to time, reveals that 235, or 40 percent, include subtitles. 65 out of 154 article titles (42 percent) in the 2005 volume of the Journal of Structural Geology have the same distinction.

I haven't seen such colon-obsession since last year's National Proctologists' Association meeting (Carbondale, Illinois). So as I chronicle People's Annoying Habits, with Part Two I include you, Mr. Seven-point-font-on-the-book-spine-academe.

Tell me, how did this happen? Did you submit to your supervisor your rough draft, entitled The Effect of Carbon-doping Magnesium Dibromide Superconductors on Particle Acceleration Efficiency, only to have him send it back scratching his head, until you re-sent The Effect of Carbon-doping Magnesium Dibromide Superconductors on Particle Acceleration Efficiency: "A Study", eliciting an understanding glow? Or did The Prevalence of Mixolydian Lute Arpeggios in Elizabethan Theatre just not resonate with the faculty until you added Reviews and Implications?

Or is it not those already in the know, but Joe Public you're concerned about? Afraid I'll be shuffling through the stacks, looking for Homo-erotic Nazi Cinema: The Reichstud in Flames, as we all do from time to time, and as I scan your very own Homeopathic Therapy for Melanoma Metastasis, my eyes will glaze in incomprehension unless an inquiry follows the title? At which point I will read your six-hundred page valium-substitute and be so entertained that I look up your permanent address in the back and send it to my sister, who's always looking for a good genius to lay?

No, I know why you did it - it's because you're annoying. Why didn't you spend nine years finding out what herbs are good for that? Is it because cancer is more painful than being annoying? You would say that.