We had a well-known author come and give a talk at my school about his newest novel. All the students had read it for their English class. As I led him to the gymnasium, I said to him, "I noticed you really like the absolute phrase.""What's that?" he asked.I grabbed my copy of the book, flipped it open to a random page, and immediately found an example. "Look, right here, there's one.""Oh, yes," he replied. "I do like those. What did you call them again?""Absolute phrases," I replied.Ever since