Official Discussion Forum for the works of Stephen R. Donaldson
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Hahaha, me too. My whole life people have been telling me I talk too fast.Syl wrote:Sadly, if there's a fast-talking gene, I have two.
The comma before and is now taught 90% of the time as "acceptable, but archaic/unnecessary"...soon it will be relagated to "wrong."aliantha wrote:Strunk & White agree with you.Orlion wrote:My understanding is that you always put a comma before 'and' whenever the series consists of three or more parts.But as I say, the rule was beginning to slip by the '60s, when I was learning punctuation rules.
Both are rules. And I'm gleeful about breaking both of them whenever I'm able to.Syl wrote:Did you mean ending sentences with them? That is the kind of 'nonsense up with which I will not put!'Rigel wrote:And it bugs me like **** when people begin sentences with prepositions.
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 wrote:Both are rules.
My Strunk & White is at home and I am leaving for there shortly. Will try to remember to look it up tonight...Syl wrote: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 wrote:Both are rules.
I do it too. But for me, it always seems to conform to the rules, rather than break them.Vraith wrote:...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.
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. 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.
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. Which is another mistake I see widely and which makes me want to throttle someone.Under 'Other misuses' at Stone's link, Wikipedia wrote: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.
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.aliantha wrote: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.
The 70's were all about questioning authority, personal expression, and altered perceptions.aliantha wrote:I read Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Stone. It was entertaining.
Oh yeah!Which is another mistake I see widely and which makes me want to throttle someone.Under 'Other misuses' at Stone's link, Wikipedia wrote: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.
Seems you are correct. . . they must have updated the entry since I last ranted about it.Murrin wrote:Isn't that definition 2? Have an impact on?
