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| bio | website | jamesbeldock.com |
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| location | ||
| age | ||
| visits | member for | 1 year |
| seen | May 6 at 4:50 | |
| stats | profile views | 15 |
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May 10 |
awarded | Yearling |
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May 6 |
answered | “worse” vs. “less better” |
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Apr 25 |
comment |
Ability in past for positive and negative sentences I'm sorry to say I just don't understand your question. |
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Apr 10 |
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Non-rhotic dialects and intrusive r @livresque EXACTLY! |
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Apr 8 |
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Capitalization of biological abbreviations at the beginning of a sentence Apparently, the Chicago Manual of Style's 16th edition includes a new provision permitting sentences beginning with a brand name (e.g. iPad, iPod) which starts with a lowercase letter to retain the lowercase letter: chicagomanualofstyle.org/about16_rules.html. This might be analogous. |
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Apr 8 |
comment |
Capitalization of biological abbreviations at the beginning of a sentence Wikipedia, at least, seems to use the lowercase letter at the beginning of a sentence, for example see the article on mRNA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA |
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Apr 8 |
comment |
Un-(adjective) but In-(noun) — does it ever go the other way? I believe one of the reasons one does not see many adjectives with in- prefixes for negation is that there is the confusing alternative of in- as an emphasizing (morphological) unit. For example, both inflammable and flammable describe something which is capable of burning, the former more so than the latter. |
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Apr 8 |
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Non-rhotic dialects and intrusive r @Ben Lee, it really depends--although I have no official source either. I have certainly heard highly rhotic Staten Islanders (if one can use the adjective that way :-), but I believe I've also heard some who don't make that insertion. There are some famous studies from the '50s and '60s of New York accents showing that things like rhotic r*s and word-final *-ing are highly correlated to class and especially education (also correlated to education). Hate to use a word like "class" in the 21st century, but I didn't write those studies. :-) |
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Apr 8 |
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Semicolons after ages Further evidence of the semicolon delimiter abounds (for example, here at Purdue's OWL: owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/…). (They use the same type of example I did, with a list of cities and states.) But nobody seems willing to START a sentence with such a list.... |
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Apr 8 |
comment |
Semicolons after ages I was dissatisfied with my own GrammarBook reference (not a site whose authority I am willing to vouch for :-), so when I got to the office I checked the Chicago Manual. 14th Ed'n 5.94 states "when the items in a series are long and complex or involve internal punctuation, they should be separated by semicolons for the sake of clarity," but the examples given show the list either as a direct object as a full-fledged tricolon of clauses. I'm inclined to agree with John that using a semicolon-delimited list as a subject is unwise, but can't find a definitive source prohibiting it. |
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Apr 8 |
comment |
Conversion into passive voice and order of the words Agree about that gun to your head! But if strictly necessary (or just to satisfy the OP :-), I think your first form is slightly--just slightly--more euphonious. |
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Apr 6 |
reviewed | No Action Needed Bracketed Capital Letter |
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Apr 6 |
reviewed | No Action Needed tom todger meaning |
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Apr 6 |
reviewed | No Action Needed “Smooths” versus “Smoothes” |
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Apr 6 |
reviewed | No Action Needed What’s the etymology of “beholden”? |
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Apr 6 |
answered | Semicolons after ages |
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Apr 6 |
awarded | Commentator |
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Apr 6 |
comment |
Semicolons after ages Strange, John. I've always used semicolons as list separators when the list items contain commas. I don't have a Chicago manual handy to check, but I'm fairly certain this is a standard use. Certainly the online sources agree: e.g. grammarbook.com/punctuation/semicolons.asp |
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Apr 5 |
answered | Etymology of the word “remove” |
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Apr 3 |
comment |
Non-rhotic dialects and intrusive r Don't have a source for this, but as a native New Yorker, I heard many intrusive r s in the "classic" New York accent even though the dialect is definitely not non-rhotic. Idear and its friends were common. There are many New York City accents, and the one that I recall having the most intrusive *r*s was Irish Bronx. (It's not what you think--that's probably Italian Bronx, as in "Two tree times a day I go tuh duh batroom."). By the way, here's something fun about my NY accent: jamesbeldock.com/2007/08/05/… |
