"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! - Page 151 - Other Topics Forum - Discuss Pop Culture, Arts and Entertainment

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"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode!

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07-29-2012 , 06:28 PM

#3751

five4suited

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 9,026

Quote:

Originally Posted by private joker

isn't this technically correct?

Quote

07-29-2012 , 07:38 PM

#3752

private joker

Most Definitely

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 25,244

Quote:

Originally Posted by five4suited

isn't this technically correct?

No. Just because the situations don't literally pick you up and heave you across the room doesn't mean there isn't a second definition of throw; thus no quotation marks are required.

Quote

07-30-2012 , 02:44 AM

#3753

ToTheInternet

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 13,876

Quote

07-30-2012 , 02:54 AM

#3754

DiegoArmando

veteran

Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2,737

I feel they're pane.

Quote

08-01-2012 , 06:28 AM

#3755

DiegoArmando

veteran

Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2,737

Here's an interesting study if you're a language geek.

By determining the most common English words and phrases since the beginning of the sixteenth century, we obtain a unique large-scale view of the evolution of written text. We find that the most common words and phrases in any given year had a much shorter popularity lifespan in the sixteenth century than they had in the twentieth century. By measuring how their usage propagated across the years, we show that for the past two centuries, the process has been governed by linear preferential attachment. Along with the steady growth of the English lexicon, this provides an empirical explanation for the ubiquity of Zipf's law in language statistics and confirms that writing, although undoubtedly an expression of art and skill, is not immune to the same influences of self-organization that are known to regulate processes as diverse as the making of new friends and World Wide Web growth.

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08-01-2012 , 09:22 PM

#3756

Hector Cerif

old hand

Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 1,556

Figured this was the place to ask this.

I had stock email templates in my office which were riddled with commas. I fixed the most egregious ones, but I've gone back and forth on the following two. Though I'm fairly sure they don't belong, I've taken out so many commas lately that I'm beginning to second guess myself.

"If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office. If you are receiving reports via U.S. Mail and would like to be contacted via E-mail instead, please make request to this address.

Quote

08-01-2012 , 09:25 PM

#3757

MikeSki

old hand

Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 1,551

love this thread

Quote

08-01-2012 , 10:49 PM

#3758

LKJ

Smugly Contemptuous

Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 93,732

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hector Cerif

I sure can't see anything wrong with those.

Quote

08-01-2012 , 11:43 PM

#3759

private joker

Most Definitely

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 25,244

They're both correct. "If..." is a dependent clause, and when a dependent clause is followed by an independent clause, there's a comma.

I learned it as "D,I" or "ID." Meaning: if the independent clause is first, no comma.

Quote

08-02-2012 , 12:24 AM

#3760

RussellinToronto

veteran

Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 2,243

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hector Cerif

I have no problem with the commas, but "please make request to this address" sounds like English being translated from another language.

Quote

08-02-2012 , 01:21 PM

#3761

mikech

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 3,799

how old's that template, from 1996? update "E-mail" too.

Quote

08-02-2012 , 04:16 PM

#3762

anklebreaker

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 4,551

David Foster Wallace on prescriptive and descriptive usage:
http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/Har...04-0070913.pdf

Quote

08-03-2012 , 03:16 AM

#3763

Kvitlekh

adept

Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 882

"Everybody is not bright." vs. "Not everybody is bright."

Is there any way the two sentences above can be considered to be saying the same thing, logically or grammatically?

Does anything change if the sentences contained the word "everyone" instead of "everybody"?

Quote

08-03-2012 , 05:21 AM

#3764

private joker

Most Definitely

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 25,244

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kvitlekh

"Everybody is not bright." vs. "Not everybody is bright."

Is there any way the two sentences above can be considered to be saying the same thing, logically or grammatically?

No, I mean the first one is a syntactical mess and most directly means that all people are stupid. The second is a little more clear and directly means what it says: not everybody is bright. Some people may be, or nobody may be. It could be that 100% of people are stupid, or 50% or 2% of people are stupid. But it's only ruling out the possibility that 100% are smart.

If the above is what the person who wrote the first sentence means, then they're among the not-bright people.

Quote:

Does anything change if the sentences contained the word "everyone" instead of "everybody"?

No.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 07:48 AM

#3765

Kvitlekh

adept

Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 882

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kvitlekh

I need as many people as possible to share their opinions about this.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 09:11 AM

#3766

Hector Cerif

old hand

Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 1,556

Quote:

Originally Posted by private joker

Thanks, makes sense.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 09:13 AM

#3767

LKJ

Smugly Contemptuous

Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 93,732

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kvitlekh

I need as many people as possible to share their opinions about this.

PJ is right.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 10:02 AM

#3768

GMan42

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 5,329

+1 to everything PJ said. First sentence is awful even if you were trying to say that everyone is dumb (which is what it means).

I take it you need more opinions because someone you know is arguing that the two sentences are equivalent? In that case they're proof of the second one.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 06:01 PM

#3769

DiegoArmando

veteran

Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2,737

PJ nailed it.

example 1 is a complete mess.

and the one v body thing makes no difference but everyone is considered a bit more formal, and more common in written form than everybody.

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08-03-2012 , 06:17 PM

#3770

Online Veteran

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 3,625

Hey guys, in poker is it "two pair" or "two pairs?" Which is correct, and why? Thanks for your help.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 07:55 PM

#3771

private joker

Most Definitely

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 25,244

Quote:

Originally Posted by Online Veteran

Hey guys, in poker is it "two pair" or "two pairs?" Which is correct, and why? Thanks for your help.

Originally the plural of pair was pair, and during that period the game of poker was popularized -- hence the term "two pair."

In the intervening generations, the language evolved to using "pairs" as the plural for the word "pair," so now most dictionaries cite both being correct, though by far "pairs" is more common -- e.g., "She bought five pairs of jeans at the outlet store."

But people still use "pair" in poker because of its inception during the turn of the century.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 08:00 PM

#3772

Hector Cerif

old hand

Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 1,556

As a little sanity check here's one of the commas I removed:

"Please find attached, reports for the above mentioned projects."

?

Last edited by Hector Cerif; 08-03-2012 at 08:00 PM. Reason: Also now I don't know about the sentence above.

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08-03-2012 , 08:34 PM

#3773

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 75,380

"Reports for the above mentioned projects are attached as xxx files."

Quote

08-03-2012 , 09:51 PM

#3774

private joker

Most Definitely

Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 25,244

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hector Cerif

As a little sanity check here's one of the commas I removed:

"Please find attached, reports for the above mentioned projects."

?

You were correct to remove the comma but the resulting sentence is still poorly constructed and probably about 3x longer than it needs to be -- mostly due to the types of unnecessary office-speak euphamism-drenched language that permeates the workforce.

I would say "The reports are attached." I would assume my readers are not so criminally ******ed as to be confused about which reports I'm talking about (duh, the projects I JUST ****ing mentioned), nor would they be so amazingly lazy as to fail to "find" (i.e. download or look at) the reports after I JUST told them said reports are attached.

Quote

08-03-2012 , 10:07 PM

#3775

Hector Cerif

old hand

Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 1,556

I basically work in a science lab so grammar isn't the most important thing to our customers--it's more a matter of me not wanting to look at it all day. I also just started so I don't want to completely rewrite their templates yet.

Also, I don't think I've ever proofread anything I've written as closely as I have when writing in this thread.

Quote

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