Author Topic: Words and Grammar and Stuff  (Read 126284 times)

St. Martin the Bald

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #190 on: August 22, 2008, 09:55:03 AM »
Good toilet reading, too.

I love that you say this.
Hey, nice marmot!

oneaprilday

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #191 on: August 22, 2008, 01:25:04 PM »
I fell in love with the semi-colon sometime last year.  So much so that I overuse it.  I always have to run a pair of sentences through my head to see if I really should use a semi-colon:  He loved her; she was ambivalent.  If the pair of thoughts I want to put together work with that rhythm, then I'll use it.  Unfortunately, that's how I want a lot of my stuff to be read.  I like the ascending-descending tone it gives to the pair of thoughts.

Alex, that was truly lovely. I especially like that last sentence where you describe semi-colons as giving a sentence "an ascending-descending tone."


My favourite nerd book:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41z5qMUTVLL._SS500_.jpg

That looks great - I'm looking for something to supplement my MLA handbook, which is kind of tedious.

¡Keith!

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #192 on: August 22, 2008, 01:59:49 PM »
I fell in love with the semi-colon sometime last year. 

i just couldn't keep reading after this line.

oneaprilday

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #193 on: August 22, 2008, 02:45:39 PM »
I fell in love with the semi-colon sometime last year. 

i just couldn't keep reading after this line.

You obviously haven't properly met the semi-colon.  ;)

grumm

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #194 on: August 26, 2008, 04:00:18 PM »
Oh I want that book! I love grammar, and I'm joining this thread. I'll try to pop in more often.

Wowser

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #195 on: August 26, 2008, 04:03:46 PM »
Well, if it's grammar your after, I hear this is good, and is on my wishlist:


oneaprilday

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #196 on: August 26, 2008, 05:52:59 PM »
I hear this is good, and is on my wishlist:
[Mind the Gaffe]

I like it already.  :)

Wowser

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #197 on: August 26, 2008, 06:05:19 PM »
 :) There was also a good programme on the radio today about words, grammar, punctuation etc, Word of Mouth, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/wordofmouth.shtml)

Think_Long

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #198 on: August 27, 2008, 09:52:12 AM »
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/22/sign.vandals.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

i assume most saw this little entry into the "world's dumbest ways to get arrested" book (which i am compiling in my head).

some people are morons and have entirely too much time on their hands.  my favorite was how this guy complained in an interview about the terrible use of "they" as a neutered pronoun.  of course, he then used "they" in his next sentence in the exact way he said he hated

alexarch

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #199 on: August 27, 2008, 10:24:18 AM »
I'm all for the spirit of their grammar-policing vandalism.  I'm not for people taking themselves seriously when saying things like:

Quote
Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity, emense, in my train-whistle-blighted dreams tonight.

I was with him until "train-whistle-blighted dreams."  If the error, "emense," was somehow related to train-whistles, I would congratulate him for being clever.  As it is he's just being obnoxiously poetic, like a theater arts grad student.

 

love