Misused Words

[Avatar]

Sadly, if there's a fast-talking gene, I have two.

Hahaha, me too. My whole life people have been telling me I talk too fast.

To make a final point on usage vs rules, I pretty much talk the way I write, and vice versa. So whose usage do we follow? And what concessions does it require?

--A

[Vraith]

My understanding is that you always put a comma before 'and' whenever the series consists of three or more parts.

Strunk & White agree with you. But as I say, the rule was beginning to slip by the '60s, when I was learning punctuation rules.

The comma before and is now taught 90% of the time as "acceptable, but archaic/unnecessary"...soon it will be relagated to "wrong."

And Av, I too write [at least spur of the moment/rough drafts] as I speak [including all the asides, digressions, and pauses]...I basically misuse punctuation quite a lot even though I do know the rules, because, in my head, there's a connection between punctuation and the kind of breath/pause/emphasis/hesitation that would occur if I were saying it aloud. I don't know if that's odd or common, I never asked anyone.
It interests me that it is perfectly possible to utterly misuse/abuse punctuation and still be clearly understood, but also to puntuate/structure precisely and correctly and be completely incomprehensible.
[heh...and don't get me started on "phonics" and silliness like split infinitives rule!]

[aliantha]

I make a habit of breaking the split infinitives rule.

(In Czech, there's a prescribed word order for certain parts of speech, including the little word -- pronoun? article? anyway, it's always either "se" or "si" -- that goes with a reflexive verb. That little word always goes in the second position in the sentence, after the noun, even if there's a bunch of other words between the second position and the verb. Now *that*'s confusing!)

And it bugs me like **** when people begin sentences with prepositions.

Did you mean ending sentences with them? That is the kind of 'nonsense up with which I will not put!' I don't like to do it, but sometimes it's just too painful not to... do so.

Both are rules. And I'm gleeful about breaking both of them whenever I'm able to.

[Vraith]

To, for example, split infinitives and begin and end sentences with prepostions; those I am often guilty of.

The only reason it exists in English [split rule] is because fasco-grammist intellectuals stole it from Latin, in which language it is structurally impossible to split an infinitive and still make sense...as if English, at root, was anything more than tangentially related to Latin. [I TOLD you to leave it alone Ali...at least I didn't do a multi-page or bilious rant on it though].

[Orlion]

Well, if Latin is anything like Spanish... then yes, I'd say it is impossible to split an infinitive, since infinitives are one word, not two. Come to think of it, English may very well be the only language where one could split infinitives!

[[Syl]]

Both are rules.

I can't find any evidence of this, only (scant) caution to avoid it. It appears to be a stylistic issue, not a rule-based one, and only then it seems to be related to using it in excess or perhaps starting a paragraph with one. I don't think you could find a single English writer who hasn't started a sentence with a prepositional phrase, including Bill.

[aliantha]

Both are rules.

I can't find any evidence of this, only (scant) caution to avoid it. It appears to be a stylistic issue, not a rule-based one, and only then it seems to be related to using it in excess or perhaps starting a paragraph with one. I don't think you could find a single English writer who hasn't started a sentence with a prepositional phrase, including Bill.

My Strunk & White is at home and I am leaving for there shortly. Will try to remember to look it up tonight...

[Avatar]

...because, in my head, there's a connection between punctuation and the kind of breath/pause/emphasis/hesitation that would occur if I were saying it aloud. I don't know if that's odd or common, I never asked anyone.

I do it too. But for me, it always seems to conform to the rules, rather than break them.

--A

[aliantha]

After all those years in broadcasting, I too tend to punctuate the way I speak. Which tends to lead me to put in too many commas.

Well, Strunk & White were no help at all. But I realized that I was thinking of the rule about starting a sentence with a conjunction -- which I do all the freaking time. I don't think there's ever been a rule against starting a sentence with a preposition -- otherwise the polka "In Heaven There Is No Beer" could never have come to be, and that would be truly sad.

But yeah, you're not supposed to end a sentence with one. Answers.com provides the following enlightenment on this subject:

USAGE NOTE It was John Dryden who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end of a sentence, probably on the basis of a specious analogy to Latin. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. English syntax does allow for final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or I asked her which course she had signed up for. Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have stilted and even comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying "This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put."

Sometimes sentences that end with adverbs, such as I don't know where she will end up or It's the most curious book I've ever run across, are mistakenly thought to end in prepositions. One can tell that up and across are adverbs here, not prepositions, by the ungrammaticality of I don't know up where she will end and It's the most curious book across which I have ever run. It has never been suggested that it is incorrect to end a sentence with an adverb.

[stonemaybe]

Two of my least favourite phrases, usually uttered by sports commentators....

"It's a big ask...." (It will be difficult)

"On the bounce" (in a row)

Some links to things that may not be widely known outside the UK....

Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Aprostrophe

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

[aliantha]

I read Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Stone. It was entertaining. Granted, some of the things she rants about are Americanisms, but hey, I was able to take it in the spirit in which she intended it.

Oh yeah!

It has become common in the US to see the 1970s abbreviated 70's, when it should be '70s, the apostrophe indicating the missing numbers, not a possessive.

Which is another mistake I see widely and which makes me want to throttle someone.

[Avatar]

After all those years in broadcasting, I too tend to punctuate the way I speak. Which tends to lead me to put in too many commas.

I must admit to loving my commas. Writing content for websites and such helps keep a brake on that though...gotta keep it short because people don't read on the web.

--A

[LaRocca]

You can't, hurt a sentence by putting in, too many, commas. Type, like Captain Kirk, speaks.

[[Syl]]

LOL

[Vraith]

I read Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Stone. It was entertaining. Granted, some of the things she rants about are Americanisms, but hey, I was able to take it in the spirit in which she intended it.

Oh yeah!

It has become common in the US to see the 1970s abbreviated 70's, when it should be '70s, the apostrophe indicating the missing numbers, not a possessive.

Which is another mistake I see widely and which makes me want to throttle someone.

The 70's were all about questioning authority, personal expression, and altered perceptions.
At least the punctuation revolution succeeded.

[LaRocca]

Yep, I read Eats, Shoots and Leaves cover to cover more than once. Grammar Girl's cool too.

And now, back to The One Tree. My copy's so cheaply printed that an occasional word is misspelled, but all the commas and apostrophes are as they should be. Yay!

[Wyldewode]

Isn't that definition 2? Have an impact on?

Seems you are correct. . . they must have updated the entry since I last ranted about it.

I still don't like it, though.

[dANdeLION]

There's this commercial that keeps on playing on the radio, saying "....if you owe more than $10,000 or more in credit card debt....". How in the hell can you owe more than more? I want to smack that idiot, more than a hundred times or more!

[Dread Poet Jethro]

Commercial aimed at
Those poor credit abusers
Who don' know better

If you're literate
You don't need their bogus help
Don't listen further

This pre-qualifies
All their applicants for them
Smart need not apply