I actually got into a huge disagreement re: this with some senior partners at a law firm where I worked. They took the "two spaces" side of the argument and wouldn't acknowledge that the standard has changed in the last 20 years.

In my experience, older people and people who aren't too tuned in to technology continue to double-space after periods.

I still double-space after periods. I've been doing it since I was taught that way in like, 5th grade. I'm so used to it by now, it's almost involuntary. Then again, I am also old and not too tuned in to technology, so yeah, what he said.

This one is probably not common enough to bother most of you, but I work for a university and hear it almost daily. It drives me insane (literally).

"We have a very important alumni visiting today."

Yeah, I was taught in school to double-space after periods. Always thought it was stupid, though, and stopped long ago.

If your parenthetical remark is its own separate sentence, then start it with a capital letter and put the punctuation inside. (Because that's what the rule is.)

If your parenthetical is within another sentence, then start with a small letter (again, because that's what the rule is), and punctuate around it.

A special case is when the parenthetical contains an exclamation (holy crap!), or a question (isn't this easy?). (No.)

(Another thing I do on special occasions is break out the brackets within parenthesis [because it seems logical and less confusing maybe?] whenever I have a parenthetical inside a parenthetical.)

But whenever that's happening--as with all convoluted punctuation in general--there's probably a better way to write the whole goddamn sentence.


There are a few good books on this stuff, but my favorite is "Woe is I" by Patricia O'Conner.

I was just handed a stack of letters to proofread, and I was reminded of the final line of some other letters I was recently asked to proof:

Best wishes and many thanks for a wonderful holiday season.

uugghhh

Thanks.

"What's the past tense of 'scam?' Is it 'scrumped?' Liz Lemon, you just got scrumped!"

I saw this today at the place where I get my hair cut.



One thing I should note is that I live in Costa Rica and this was probably not written by someone who speaks english as a first language, so some of the mistakes are excusable. But I still LOL'ed when I saw the quotes around price increase. Obv had to take an iPhone pic for this thread.

Subject lines from today's inbox at work:

- India Rec's have arrived
- Reminder--Custodian Rec's for November
- Final Class Level NAV's and Distribution Rates
- <insert company name here> NAV's

It could be worse

"we have two very important alumnuses visiting today."

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...ffalo%20stance

Its also an adjective per nena cherry

Surprised no mention of daylight "savings" time yet. I won a bet on that one once.

It's supposed to be just "daylight time" right? That's way too nitty even for me.

Might as well throw in "driver's" license if we're going there.

No, daylight saving (no s) time.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/daylight_time.php

People here use double negatives a lot which really gets on my nerves.

"I don't know nothing!"

thats just dribble <--another classic... or a whole nother classic

from wikipedia, the universal source of knowledge "In the normative form, daylight saving time uses the present participle saving as an adjective, as in labor saving device; the first two words are sometimes hyphenated, as in daylight-saving time. Daylight savings time, daylight savings, and daylight time are common variants, the savings by analogy to savings account.[96] Willett's original proposal used the term daylight saving, but by 1911 the term summer time replaced daylight saving time in draft legislation in Britain.[97]

I think it's funny how we all learn proper grammar in grade school and we all hate it and question it profusely ("When is this ever going to matter?!"). And here we are with the nittiest (but awesomest SFW thread) on the face of the planet.

Our 3rd grade English teachers would be proud!

[QUOTE= Are this many people randomly using completely pointless quotes? [/QUOTE]

Misuse of the word random is one of my grammar pet peeves. I think arbitrarily fits better here.

haha too funny. ketties

Meh.

Unless the person means that they know nothing, which is pretty annoying, I think that while this is against the rules it is fine. To me it's like the whole debate about quotation marks and where the punctuation goes if you are an American.

I think there is a difference in sentiment between the statements "I don't know nothing!" and "I know something!" particularly if you are saying them in response to something someone else said.

I would venture a guess that he's referring to "Don't know nothing" to mean "I don't know anything."

Judges who are reading your briefs are very likely to be old and crusty. Just saying...