Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language
-
@Eza not in our house and I’ve not heard anyone else using it either.
-
@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
@Matt you’ve played into the problem. Because I know you don’t use an Oxford comma, your intent is ambiguous. Are you saying you invited your parents, whose names are Alice and Bob, or are you saying you invited your parents along with non-parents Alice and Bob?
You’ve just reiterated my point here.
If my parents were Alice and Bob I would have used a colon, but I used a comma correctly instead. Much like I did just now before the coordinating conjunction where it actually belongs.
-
@Eza said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
for the Brits do you call a tv remote a doofer?
In my house, by the time either Mrs H or myself are thinking about watching any TV, we are too mentally drained from jobs and putting Baby H to bed to call any object, person, location, mineral, category, etc, anything other than "thingy".
Example sentences which can be uttered and understood in my house after 8pm:
"Pass me that thingy."
"Next thingy we've got that thingy with thingy and thingy."
"My thingy has been acting up lately, I might make a thingy to see my thingy."When we are mentally cognisant though, no, we don't call TV remotes doofers...
Having said that, I note that it is the top-rated definition for "doofer" on urban dictionary, so there must be some truth to it.
-
@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Can't help but think this is a softball for a joke?
Ambiguous and potentially very concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans and his dog.
Clear but still a little concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans, and his dog.
Again, a colon would clear this up, not an unnecessary comma.
-
-
@Matt said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Can't help but think this is a softball for a joke?
Ambiguous and potentially very concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans and his dog.
Clear but still a little concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans, and his dog.
Again, a colon would clear this up, not an unnecessary comma.
Assuming you mean the punctuation, and understanding that this is a flawed example, how would a colon be helpful in resolving ambiguity here? All that does is introduce the list; any ambiguity from skipping the final serial comma is unresolved.
The point in consistency isn’t that the final comma is strictly necessary to understand a given sentence. It’s that the consistency means that when sentences would become ambiguous without the final comma you know exactly what is meant. That’s why the AP approach of only including the last comma when needed to disambiguate a sentence’s meaning is a flawed approach. A global standard puts an end to the problem.
Think it, be it.
-
@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
A global standard puts an end to the problem.
Fascist
-
The point is that the punctuation is necessary. It’s a single character. The counter arguments are nonsense like “restructure your sentence “ instead of just documenting language as it is spoken in text.
Anyway, I win
-
@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
a colon would clear up confusion about pegging
and pegging your colon could possibly clear up all confusions here
-
@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Assuming you mean the punctuation
I didnt mean punctuation in this case. endo got the double entendre it seems
-
@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
endo got the double entendre
and not even native speaker, such a badass
-
I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we find it very hard not to include the serial comma in corresponding speech: try saying “lock, stock, and two smoking barrels” (which, btw, is not how the fools wrote the title) without corresponding pauses for the commas. You’ll find it difficult and it will sound odd.
That proves my point beyond the unassailable logic offered already—not only does the Oxford comma remove ambiguity, it reflects how the sentence is spoken, which is the ultimate aim of grammatical syntax.
Similarly, “my parents, Alice, and Bob” is spoken differently than “my parents: Alice and Bob” (no pause at the semicolon here) and the syntax should reflect that difference. “My parents, Alice and Bob” doesn’t reflect it and I think that’s why it just looks off to me.
-
I have no idea what an Oxford Comma is, Paule will know, but if I ask her I will get a long-winded answer, my eyes will glaze over and I won't remember a thing she said.
I write like I speak. If I would do a short pause when speaking, I will put a comma there. A long pause gets a full stop. Those are my personal rules, and I am happy with them...(3 or more full stops equals even longer pause of total pause)
Sorry if it makes reading my shite even more shite.
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
-
Yep agreed and that’s the random thought I just added above that sprung uninvited in my insomniac head.
although I think “doofer” could be any kind of object you are trying to think of the name of and have momentarily forgot.. if that makes sense 
