Someone I admire once lead me to subscribing to the Huffington Post.  What a mistake.  But I did learn something.  If you want to write for the Huffington post the headline of your posting can be, or probably is, generated by a simple grammar.  Usually these involve a celebrity, say scientists or a reality TV star, and a list of ten ways to achive some desire.

Lists are fun.  And taxonomy is easier than real work, or at least it seems that way when you start.  And simple writing guides often suggest the list as possible frame to adopt.

There must be hundreds of blogs and websites that specialize in lists.  Bookmarking sites, obviously, fall into this bucket.  But there ought to be a list of great lists.  I have maybe a half dozen people who I follow on various bookmarking sites, because they list such interesting stuff.  This all comes to minded  because Andrew Gelman draws our attention to this delightful blog of lists.  For example here he has a list of fake books  Dickens commissioned to populate his study’s book shelves.  And this amazing list of foods Twain dreamed of while traveling.  The valuable information that pratfall > kiss > baby > kitten > dog > landscape; if you wish to write box office hit.

So I think I need a list of lists of lists; and now I have at least a first entry.