Seriousness What about commas? - Page 4

lene1949 · 10-11-2010, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TGS

What about "My daughters' husbands" in Danish - where you have several daughters and each has a husband - doesn't an apostrophe come in there somewhere?

No, in Danish 'datter', when more than one changes til døtre.

"My daughters' husbands" in Danish - Mine døtres ægtemænd..

lene1949 · 10-11-2010, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

don't all men?

You beat me to it, only I probably couldn't have thought of saying it in just 3 words...

kindlekitten · 10-11-2010, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lene1949

You beat me to it, only I probably couldn't have thought of saying it in just 3 words...

tis' truth!

Sweetpea · 10-11-2010, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Can you tell me what the rule is in this case, please? I would have guessed that either is acceptable though I would likely have left out the comma.

When I learned English grammar, they taught me that in English a comma is always used a conjunction is used. In Dutch some conjunctions don't use a comma.

lene1949 · 10-11-2010, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

When I learned English grammar, they taught me that in English a comma is always used a conjunction is used. In Dutch some conjunctions don't use a comma.

We were taught (in Denmark) to put an 'x' under the nouns and an 'o' under the verbs, and if you had 2 of each in a sentence, you had to put a comma in between.

I my memory serves me right, we did millions of these exercises...

GeoffC · 10-11-2010, 06:31 AM

Strunk & White's Elements of Style seems an excellent resource, but it is obviously tailored towards those who already have a modicum of english grammar understanding. When the second chapter starts mentioning things such as "pronominal possessives", "conjunctions", "non-restrictive relative clauses" and "connectives", I begin to shudder and wonder how I managed to cope when writing work related scripts and managerial documents; wondering how many howlers I made.

Perhaps needing to know the minutiae of grammar is not strictly necessary, but it would have been "a nice to know". And as my formal education ceased decades ago, I fear I missed out on some things....(perhaps!)

Moe The Cat · 10-11-2010, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeoffC

you have more than one head

Kenny is so confused his brother's head exploded!

AprilHare · 10-12-2010, 01:17 AM

In ebooks one can sometimes see crimes against grammar (and spelling) due to OCR.
It isn't necessarily because they're uneducated people - greed overrules the need for proofreading.
And just for the record: I wasn't taught grammar in a traditional sense at (public) school. The New South Wales government thought it would overburden young minds to teach them the tenants of grammar, and thought people could learn grammar by osmosis (or something).
I hope I haven't made too many grammatical errors..

Quote:

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

I've been reading indie books and reviewing them, and there have been at least three I've read in the past few months that have abused and terrorized (or outright neglected!) commas. What is up with that?

While I'm not a high school English teacher, and I do tend to ramble in posts at times (because I write like I think.... I'm much more careful when writing up research and such), I feel I have a fairly good understanding of the English language, commas included.

Is it that schools no longer teach grammar rules? I can attest to the fact that the school where I worked for many years (K-12) did not, in fact, do much teaching in the area of grammar. When I was in secondary school, English and Literature were two different classes. Now they are one, combined and shortened.

After reading this last book, I even looked up every reputable site I could find about the rules governing the use of commas to be sure I wasn't crazy and making up my own rules for those blasted things. I wasn't.

If I'm reading along, trying to enjoy a fairly interesting book, and I see a sentence like this:

I'm thrown off. I'm distracted by the missing commas as well as the misplaced commas. Because of those commas, the cadence of the sentence is wrong, and I'm left to try to discern meaning. All I really end up doing is proofreading it in my head, which takes my time and energy away from enjoying the story. And some of these books are getting 5 star reviews left and right, for the "awesome story" and "what a thriller" plotlines, and I just can't get past the writing.

Is this an insidious phenomena in my very own head? Anyone else noticing this?

Spoiler:

HarryT · 10-12-2010, 02:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilHare

In ebooks one can sometimes see crimes against grammar (and spelling) due to OCR.
It isn't necessarily because they're uneducated people - greed overrules the need for proofreading.
And just for the record: I wasn't taught grammar in a traditional sense at (public) school. The New South Wales government thought it would overburden young minds to teach them the tenants of grammar, and thought people could learn grammar by osmosis (or something).
I hope I haven't made too many grammatical errors..

I think you may perhaps mean "the tenets of grammar" rather than the "tenants"

.

AprilHare · 10-12-2010, 03:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think you may perhaps mean "the tenets of grammar" rather than the "tenants"

.

You picking apart my government school educated English?

kennyc · 10-12-2010, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think you may perhaps mean "the tenets of grammar" rather than the "tenants"

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilHare

You picking apart my government school educated English?

mrscoach · 10-12-2010, 08:09 AM

AprilHare, it is called the "whole language" approach to English and literature. The thought was that by reading tons and tons you would get all knowledge you needed on how to write and on what good writing was. It fell out of favor many years ago here in the US.

It doesn't make sense to me. I can look at an electrical schematic, and see certain things always seem to go close together, but I wouldn't know why, or how to make my own schematic.

WT Sharpe · 10-12-2010, 05:38 PM

A syllabus written by a certain professor who shall remain nameless about drove me crazy because of the author's constant use of there's with a plural object. Here are a few examples from the syllabus:

.....* These are the kinds of things that we'll get what we think we'll get from them. That there's promises that are understood from allegiance and loyalty to this.

.....* Well, this left him with a perception of life that he didn't have before, a perception of, "Wow, there's people out there that are really suffering."

.....* There's prayers to ancestors asking for assistance on this path.

.....* There's not a lot of stories or a lot of grand legends around his death.

I don't remember a single there are in the entire syllabus.

Catlady · 10-12-2010, 05:47 PM

As a card-carrying member of the grammar police, I am feeling all warm and fuzzy just reading this thread. You care! You really care!, as Sally Field might say.

WT Sharpe · 10-12-2010, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think you may perhaps mean "the tenets of grammar" rather than the "tenants"

.

If someone is speaking about renters who live here, "The Tennants of Grammar" would be correct.

10-12-2010, 05:38 PM	#58
WT Sharpe Bah, humbug! Posts: 39,073 Karma: 157049943 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA Device: Kindle Oasis, iPad Pro, & a Samsung Galaxy S9.	A syllabus written by a certain professor who shall remain nameless about drove me crazy because of the author's constant use of there's with a plural object. Here are a few examples from the syllabus: .....* These are the kinds of things that we'll get what we think we'll get from them. That there's promises that are understood from allegiance and loyalty to this. .....* Well, this left him with a perception of life that he didn't have before, a perception of, "Wow, there's people out there that are really suffering." .....* There's prayers to ancestors asking for assistance on this path. .....* There's not a lot of stories or a lot of grand legends around his death. I don't remember a single there are in the entire syllabus. Last edited by WT Sharpe; 10-12-2010 at 05:44 PM.

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10-11-2010, 06:31 AM	#51
GeoffC Chocolate Grasshopper ... Posts: 27,600 Karma: 20821184 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Scotland Device: Muse HD , Cybook Gen3 , Pocketbook 302 (Black) , Nexus 10: wife has PW	Strunk & White's Elements of Style seems an excellent resource, but it is obviously tailored towards those who already have a modicum of english grammar understanding. When the second chapter starts mentioning things such as "pronominal possessives", "conjunctions", "non-restrictive relative clauses" and "connectives", I begin to shudder and wonder how I managed to cope when writing work related scripts and managerial documents; wondering how many howlers I made. Perhaps needing to know the minutiae of grammar is not strictly necessary, but it would have been "a nice to know". And as my formal education ceased decades ago, I fear I missed out on some things....(perhaps!)

10-12-2010, 08:09 AM	#57
mrscoach Guru Posts: 763 Karma: 4837659 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: San Angelo Texas Device: Samsung Galaxy tab	AprilHare, it is called the "whole language" approach to English and literature. The thought was that by reading tons and tons you would get all knowledge you needed on how to write and on what good writing was. It fell out of favor many years ago here in the US. It doesn't make sense to me. I can look at an electrical schematic, and see certain things always seem to go close together, but I wouldn't know why, or how to make my own schematic.

10-12-2010, 05:47 PM	#59
Catlady Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,345 Karma: 52398889 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite, AGPTek Bluetooth Clip	As a card-carrying member of the grammar police, I am feeling all warm and fuzzy just reading this thread. You care! You really care!, as Sally Field might say.

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