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by Purpelia » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:00 pm
by Purgatio » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:04 pm
Purpelia wrote:Is this one of those strange quirks of the english language nobody but linguists from england care about?
by Greed and Death » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:14 pm
Page wrote:Ethel mermania wrote:
Either way, it's going to be a hell of a party.
Comma placement is very important as well. For example.
Help uncle Jack, off the horse.
Or
Help uncle, jack off the horse.
Big difference between the two.
I'm now contemplating how exactly the request made in the second sentence would help Uncle.
by Northwest Slobovia » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:21 pm
Greed and Death wrote:Victorious Decepticons wrote:I absolutely prefer the Oxford comma, and use it unless some paying client explicitly insists on not doing so.
How to Butcher Your Own Writing so it's Ugly and Ungraceful, also known as the AP Stylebook, attempts to disagree. So do those who slavishly insist on writing that follows its ugly dictates. I think both of those have no taste or sense.
Language is about more than raw meaning. It should flow well and be pleasant to read.
I am not a fan of the APA either. Generally I find any "rule book" on writing to be more of a series of guide posts rather than rules. In that regard I am a fan of Strunk's writing guide.
by Eahland » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:33 pm
Ethel mermania wrote:Comma placement is very important as well. For example.
Help uncle Jack, off the horse.
Or
Help uncle, jack off the horse.
Big difference between the two.
by Rojava Free State » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:34 pm
Rojava Free State wrote:Listen yall. I'm only gonna say it once but I want you to remember it. This ain't a world fit for good men. It seems like you gotta be monstrous just to make it. Gotta have a little bit of darkness within you just to survive. You gotta stoop low everyday it seems like. Stoop all the way down to the devil in these times. And then one day you look in the mirror and you realize that you ain't you anymore. You're just another monster, and thanks to your actions, someone else will eventually become as warped and twisted as you. Never forget that the best of us are just the best of a bad lot. Being at the top of a pile of feces doesn't make you anything but shit like the rest. Never forget that.
by Purpelia » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:48 pm
Purgatio wrote:Purpelia wrote:Is this one of those strange quirks of the english language nobody but linguists from england care about?
I'm not a linguist from England, but I will say when I was a student from Oxford the professors there really did insist on the Oxford comma in all essays. Not that it was an issue, the Oxford comma is just grammatically correct.
by Kowani » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:59 pm
Greed and Death wrote:. Language is not nor has it ever been a st of rules.
by Greed and Death » Sun Dec 01, 2019 1:23 pm
Northwest Slobovia wrote:Greed and Death wrote:
I am not a fan of the APA either. Generally I find any "rule book" on writing to be more of a series of guide posts rather than rules. In that regard I am a fan of Strunk's writing guide.
There's a big difference between style, which is a matter of taste, and grammar, punctuation, and spelling, which are not. I note that despite denying language is a set of rules, you're playing by all the strange ones English has about grammar and spelling.
by US-SSR » Sun Dec 01, 2019 1:57 pm
by Xmara » Sun Dec 01, 2019 3:53 pm
by Bear Stearns » Sun Dec 01, 2019 3:54 pm
by Necroghastia » Sun Dec 01, 2019 3:57 pm
Bear Stearns wrote:One thing that always took me awhile to adjust to is that the Oxford comma is not used in business writing.
by Sverigesriket » Sun Dec 01, 2019 6:21 pm
Eahland wrote:I normally use the Oxford comma when writing. It can reduce ambiguity, and there's very little downside to using it. A lot of AP's recommendations are aimed at the specific requirements of print newspapers, where you want to save as much space as practical, because column-inches are precious. I don't have those concerns - an extra byte here and there isn't going to break my bandwidth budget, and, due to the way computers store files, it's likely to make literally no difference in on-disc storage size.
I usually don't use it in machine-generated text, though, because it requires an extra test to distinguish between a list of two items and a list of more than two items. Without the Oxford comma, you can just always omit the comma before the last list item.Ethel mermania wrote:Comma placement is very important as well. For example.
Help uncle Jack, off the horse.
Or
Help uncle, jack off the horse.
Big difference between the two.
It's as much a capitalization issue. There's a significant difference in meaning between:
Help your uncle jack off the horse. (Your unnamed uncle requires assistance in masturbating a horse.)
Help your uncle jack, off the horse. (Your unnamed uncle requires some assistance in operating a lifting mechanism, also put down the horse.)
Help your Uncle Jack off the horse. (Your Uncle Jack requires assistance either in getting down from the horse, or killing it.)
Help your Uncle Jack, off the horse. (Your Uncle Jack requires assistance in some unspecified task, also put down the horse.)
Help your uncle, jack off the horse. (Your unnamed uncle requires assistance in some unspecified task, also masturbate the horse.)
by Nuclear Wastelands » Sun Dec 01, 2019 6:24 pm
by Northwest Slobovia » Sun Dec 01, 2019 6:35 pm
Sverigesriket wrote:I have never heard the word off used to describe euthanasia.
by Purgatio » Sun Dec 01, 2019 10:50 pm
Purpelia wrote:Purgatio wrote:
I'm not a linguist from England, but I will say when I was a student from Oxford the professors there really did insist on the Oxford comma in all essays. Not that it was an issue, the Oxford comma is just grammatically correct.
I am not sure how those two are different. I mean, basically the british upper class cares about this sort of stuff and the rest of us in the world don't even know it exists. At least that's my impression. Than again english is only like #5 from the top on my list of languages in order of quality of my knowledge (not that you should be able to tell hopefully) so I might be wrong.
by Cetacea » Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:11 am
Ethel mermania wrote:
Either way, it's going to be a hell of a party.
Comma placement is very important as well. For example.
Help uncle Jack, off the horse.
Or
Help uncle, jack off the horse.
Big difference between the two.
by Page » Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:38 am
by The Archregimancy » Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:38 am
by The Blaatschapen » Mon Dec 02, 2019 2:18 am
The Archregimancy wrote:I would like to dedicate this post to my parents, Max Barry and God.
by Sapporo Hyperspace Riftgate Laboratory » Mon Dec 02, 2019 2:29 am
"For a vast majority of its existence, mankind dreamed to reach the stars. Yet today, reaching the stars is made a reality through joint endeavor."
- Operations Director of the T.I.A., Hilbert Lachlan Silverwell
by The Free Joy State » Mon Dec 02, 2019 2:31 am
by The Blaatschapen » Mon Dec 02, 2019 2:39 am
The Free Joy State wrote:
Very phallocentric to assume God is male.
There are times when the Oxford comma may be needed to ensure clarity (and, if that is the case, I will use it), generally it's a stylistic choice and in most cases it's not absolutely needed.
With the sentence: "Bring me my notebook, a pen and my cat." no clarity is lost with or without an Oxford comma.
With Arch's sentence, a serial comma might avoid confusion.
But avoiding confusion is significantly less funny, so YMMV.
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