Open Side Menu Go to the Top
Register
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! "Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode!

10-06-2011 , 06:40 PM
Ty. The fact that the semicolon suggestion came from a chick has lead me to conclude that women don't know grammar.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 06:55 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ToTheInternet
em dashes anymore
CIP: I have an unrevised 177,544-word-long nonfiction doc (don't ask), and it has 1,821 em dashes. One em dash every hundred words.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 07:08 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNiggler
I asked the Grammar Lady a while back about using ' instead of 's, and she replied:
I'm disinclined to follow advice from someone who not only uses media as a singular, but uses it at all when what she means is press.

But I'm our resident nineteenth-century curmudgeon.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 07:17 PM
I like TTI's suggestions for improving the passage, but would add that it should be "Critics... such as Robert Bailey". Like is for comparisons, such as for examples. [And let's not get into like versus as.]

Some critics disagree on this one.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 07:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by atakdog
Yup.

In English we get to choose between "achieves" and "does achieve", even though as a first order thing they're identical. The latter construction puts more emphasis on the fact that action occurs as opposed to what it is, and that's what I wanted — think "No it doesn't." "Oh yes it does."
I understand the usage. But somehow this -
Quote:
Originally Posted by atakdog
I don't think it does achieve exactly the same effect.
- seemed kind of cumbersome. I'm not sure why. At first I thought it was the "does achieve" but now I think I would have written it, "I think it doesn't achieve exactly the same effect".

meh.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 08:10 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Didace
I understand the usage. But somehow this -
- seemed kind of cumbersome. I'm not sure why. At first I thought it was the "does achieve" but now I think I would have written it, "I think it doesn't achieve exactly the same effect".

meh.
So, we have a sentence that starts out slow and stately:

Code:
 


˘   /    /    ˘   /   

I don't think it does
Now one could argue, here, that the following part breaks out in accidental doggerel (it's largely iambic), undercutting the strength of does' stress, giving the impression of a sentence going on for a bit too long, echoing Kevin B's unnecessary-modifier-laden sentences ("Why don't you like this two-time award-winning script that could help the poker industry.").

Code:
 


 
    ˘   /   ˘ / \   ˘   /   ˘  /
 
   achieve exactly the same effect.
For example, in the metrically equivalent nonsense sentence, "I don't eat the rape believe completely the whip surprise," it feels as if the sentence wants to end at "rape believe," as if "completely the whip surprise" seems like a bit of an afterthought. And maybe the part you saw as awkwardly phrased is bearing the brunt of cumbersomeness allegations that other parts of the sentence rightly deserve? Idk, maybe--the sentence didn't seem cumbersome to me at all.

Last edited by ToTheInternet; 10-06-2011 at 08:32 PM.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 08:43 PM
shouldn't it be "critics, like Ronald Bailey blah blah..."
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 10:01 PM
I just got called a grammar nit for correcting someone who used the word fabrication to mean crappy.

I'm not even really sure how to respond to that.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-06-2011 , 10:04 PM
I'm trying to imagine how that conversation could possibly have gone. Nothing's coming to mind.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 12:00 AM
Yeah, sounds fabricated.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 12:13 AM
it's funny that "fabric" and "fabricate" have diverged so much in meaning


fabric
late 15c., "building, thing made," from M.Fr. fabrique (14c.), from L. fabrica "workshop," also "an art, trade; a skillful production, structure, fabric," from faber "artisan who works in hard materials," from PIE *dhabh- "to fit together." Sense in English evolved via "manufactured material" (1753) to "textile" (1791).

fabricate
mid-15c., "to fashion, make, build," from L. fabricatus, pp. of fabricare "make, construct, fashion, build," from fabrica (see fabric). In bad sense of "to tell a lie," etc., it is recorded by 1779. Related: Fabricated; fabricating.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 01:02 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JStunna
Ty. The fact that the semicolon suggestion came from a chick has lead me to conclude that women don't know grammar.
Led
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 01:08 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by atakdog
I'm not sure what I think of this. You're completely correct that it is both acceptable and sometimes good writing to begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction. But (ducwidt?) I'm not sure it follows that it is just as acceptable to do it when linking clauses with a semicolon; I don't think it does achieve exactly the same effect. Maybe it's just me, but while "Sometimes this thread makes me feel better. But mostly it just makes me feel sad" looks fine, doing the same thing with a semicolon in place of the period doesn't.
Yes, I said I was picking nits, in that my point was simply that it's not automatically wrong to put a semicolon in front of "but" or "and."

But you're quite right to say that it is almost always better to use a comma (or a period).

Some complex sentences, however, can benefit from the semicolon to separate the clauses, even when the second clause begins with a conjunction; and it's easy to see why.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 01:12 AM
Language nittiness - visualized! http://www.anti-wit.com
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 01:46 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by SGT RJ
I'm not even really sure how to respond to that.
I think your avatar says it all.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 10:26 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by atakdog
I'm trying to imagine how that conversation could possibly have gone. Nothing's coming to mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by garcia1000
Yeah, sounds fabricated.
You guys clearly don't hang out in NVG enough.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-07-2011 , 11:57 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omaha Chris
Language nittiness - visualized! http://www.anti-wit.com
Hahaha.

I liked this one: http://www.anti-wit.com/pages/grammar-nazi.php

"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-08-2011 , 04:07 PM
I think the new phones are making me worse at spelling. I use swype and of you forget the precise spelling you can just wiggle your finger and the right word chimes out.

F,ine it's not always perfect
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-08-2011 , 06:56 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RussellinToronto
Led
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-09-2011 , 10:45 PM
10-10-2011 , 02:01 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by SGT RJ
Also misspelled Erick.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-10-2011 , 04:49 AM
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...6&postcount=31

Quote:
Originally Posted by aejones
how could it be anything but positive for their short term bottomline?

creating and starting games is exponential. starts with one person, two people, bot, two bots, all of the sudden instead of a half dozen games at midstakes on ipoker there are two dozen, other regs see the action and get money on there, even more action, more games, the donks that find their way in to the games and the weak regs get wacked by the bots, rinse, repeat.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-10-2011 , 10:46 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by private joker
Also misspelled Erick.
I've probably just trained myself to ignore misspellings at this point.
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-10-2011 , 11:14 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by private joker
Also misspelled Erick.
I before E except after C.

So it should be Ireck?
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote
10-10-2011 , 07:03 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by SGT RJ
Since linking to this thread spurred my first NVG post in 7 months, I got curious about my posting history there. It's interesting to see how blase about punctuation I was back then and ironic that the worst occurred in what was supposedly my best NVG post.

Wtf was I smoking: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=72
"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! Quote

      
m