Hot answers tagged punctuation
10
From a linguistic and literary point of view, Prof. Lund's position is wholly absurd. It amounts to saying that the clause in question has no connection at all with what follows, which immediately raises the question "What's it doing there, then?" In literary studies, and in ordinary personal intercourse, too, one always assumes that what is written means ...
4
Burchfield's 1998 edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage says under hyphen, listing its uses:
6 To represent a common second element in all but the last word of a list, e.g. two-, three-, or four-fold.
This usage is perfectly acceptable; and in some cases it's really essential as Edwin Ashworth has commented:
We really have to prepare the ground- ...
3
Let me try to answer this without getting into a discussion of my own opinions about gun control. :-)
To an extent I'll agree with StoneyB: If the words have no meaning, than why did the writers put them there? But judges will sometimes declare that some of the text in a legal document is what is legally called "surplusage", that is, words that have no ...
3
Semicolons replace periods (end stops, the "dot" you refer to), so it doesn't matter grammatically because in both cases, the sentences are grammatical.
The syntax and semantics, however, need work. The last clause is out of order, or else the punctuation has to be changed, as well as some other things.
I'd rewrite this sentence as:
A. Alex feels pain ...
3
Omitting because in the sentence
I think I should because it's important for all of us
produces two clauses each of which can function as a sentence:
I think I should.
It's important for all of us.
Combining those with just a comma produces a "comma splice", and is wrong.
* I think I should, it's important for all of us.
If you ...
3
Uncle and Jack are two nouns in apposition.
In a non-restrictive appositive, the second element parenthetically modifies the first without changing its scope and it is not crucial to the meaning of the sentence. In a restrictive appositive, the second element limits or clarifies the foregoing one in some crucial way. For example in the phrase "my friend ...
2
The quotation is in apposition with slogan.
In a non-restrictive appositive, the second element parenthetically modifies the first without changing its scope and it is not crucial to the meaning of the sentence. In a restrictive appositive, the second element limits or clarifies the foregoing one in some crucial way.
If the quotation were merely a ...
2
Answering per OP's request:
This is an antiquated style of punctuation, seen primarily in pulp fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a kind of parenthetical intensifier. Or you could call it an inline aside. Nowadays, such a thing would probably be rendered in parentheses complete — "... and (alas!) the very diablerie of the woman" — or ...
2
It's just to clarify that the term (alas, in this case) should be stressed.
Other ways to achieve the same result are:
(alas!)
alas (!)
Here's another example:
The huge crowd (1337 persons!) gathering in my front yard wasn't really that friendly looking.
Here, the "(1337 persons!)" stress the fact that it was indeed a huge crowd to be gathering ...
2
When a colon introduces more than one sentence, capitalize all of the sentences. For example:
To get rich quick: Invent a time machine. Use the machine for day trading. Beware of future versions of yourself (and other stalkers). Profit.
Some style guides (for example, AP but not Chicago) recommend capitalizing any complete sentence that follows a ...
1
My feeling is that it is not untrue to Shakespeare to repunctuate congruent with your purpose. It seems to me that excerpted quotes which are required to stand alone due to context, in this case a plaque, can legitimately take a period as a reflection of the fact that they must, indeed, stand alone. This quotation is valid on its own when excerpted this way, ...
1
Rather than address the contentious political writing, I'll address the hypothesis. Is orthography language or isn't it?
In one sense there is the trivial 'of course they're not the same' since one is a transient physical expression the other a permanent visual representation of the former (that was worded specifically to put things like sign language with ...
1
If the "once" is an example, it should be introduced with a comma rather than a colon. If you want to list all the cases, a colon would be legitimate, e.g., "It happened only a handful of times in my lifetime: once when I went to the store, once when I was conga dancing, and once when I was watching Plan 9 from Outer Space." "Once when I went to the store" ...
1
The colon is incorrect here.
There are three main uses of the colon:
Between two main clauses in cases where the second clause explains or follows from the first:
That is the secret of my extraordinary life: always do the unexpected.
To introduce a list:
The price includes the following: travel to London, flight to Venice, hotel ...
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