Help punctuating this sentence please?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by JwkOKC

He may well have been; I never met him although I did get a personal rejection letter from him once (and never submitted anything to Astounding/Analog again).

All of us who get involved with writing and editing have to be somewhat arrogant to expect payment for what another friend once described to me as "a skill learned by the third grade." In Campbell's case, I think his comment had more to do with Wayne's payment schedule of $20/published page which led Campbell to submit first drafts rather than take the time to polish anything at all.

However his rejection letter was rather acidic -- although directly to the point -- and at the time I was far too inexperienced (and too arrogant myself) to realize what it meant to get more than a printed rejection form, especially from the top editor in the genre.

You know the best compliment I ever received, I didn't realize how big until years later. It was when a woman told me she didn't have to edit what I had turned in for the newsletter. She could use it exactly as it was.

Hey arrogant is one thing and I agree with you there. The problem is too many wannabe authors are another word that ends in ant. They think because "big name" does something, (be it em dashes or serials) they think they can do it too without actually looking at how the other person did it.
Heck, I ran across an "author" one that thought because HH did serials, he could too.
Only a few problems with that,
1. They wrote in different genres. Sci-fi and Fantasy is not one genre.
2. He thought serials just ended on cliffhangers with no resolution whatsoever.
3. Lastly he had no concept of proper grammar use.
Oh and no, he had not actually even looked at a serial.

By the way welcome to Mobileread.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I honestly don't see why it's any more difficult to write grammatically correct, correctly-punctuated and correctly-spelled text than text with poor grammar, incorrect punctuation and poor spelling, with the possible exception of someone writing in a language that's not their native language. We're all (presumably) taught the rules of grammar, punctuation and spelling at an early age. I'm constantly amazed by the number of presumably well-read people here at MR who don't appear to know that "it's" is not a possessive pronoun.

English-speakers are not taught much grammar or punctuation in school because the language is written the way it is spoken, and it's a pretty simple language. There are few conjugations and no genders or cases.

Compare this with a language like French where to say one is able to write it well is a badge of academia.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Rizla

English-speakers are not taught much grammar or punctuation in school because the language is written the way it is spoken, and it's a pretty simple language. There are few conjugations and no genders or cases.

I can still diagram a sentence with the best of them.

English pronouns have cases.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rizla

English-speakers are not taught much grammar or punctuation in school because the language is written the way it is spoken, and it's a pretty simple language. There are few conjugations and no genders or cases.

Compare this with a language like French where to say one is able to write it well is a badge of academia.

Originally Posted by issybird

I can still diagram a sentence with the best of them.

English pronouns have cases.

I can assure you of one thing, Rizla--correct fiction and non-fiction writing is most certainly NOT written the way that English is spoken, and proof of that is no further away than the nearest digital Indy eBookstore. In fact, this entire thread has been a display of that very aspect of the language. The way Gregg wants to write it is the way someone might say it, if they were musing aloud, to themselves, or thinking it. However, reading it that way is at best clunky. And nobody would say the sentence that way, certainly not in the company of someone else within earshot.

The whole POINT of learning to write dialogue properly is to avoid this very issue. If we wrote dialogue the way people speak (replete with the uhrs, ums, and y'knows), nobody would read that crap.

You're correct in that we don't have gender issues (in the mother tongue, that is); but the English language is tricky in many other aspects (homonyms, for example, which trip up so many non-native speakers). There are many things that are abused--the ubiquitous over-done comma, for example. The Oxford comma. The Serial comma. AP Style list. People who think that semi-colons, emdashes and ellipses are all interchangeable, or worse, people who think that an emdash indicates a trailing off in speech, whereas the ellipses means to break off abruptly (the topic of a 10-page thread at the KDP, believe it or not); I could go on for ages.

@issybird: hmmmm...not sure if I still could diagram a sentence. A simple one, yes. Very complex...I'd have to give it a go. More power, you!

Hitch

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by issybird

I can still diagram a sentence with the best of them.

English pronouns have cases.

You are in the minority about diagramming. Not many people learn that stuff now.

Thanks for the point about cases. Still, my point holds, I think. English is, as European languages go, not a complicated language. No gender and very little conjugation, and sentence order for the most part is simple and rigid. Mind you, the commas can be fiddly.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Rizla

You are in the minority about diagramming. Not many people learn that stuff now.

Thanks for the point about cases. Still, my point holds, I think. English is, as European languages go, not a complicated language. No gender and very little conjugation, and sentence order for the most part is simple and rigid. Mind you, the commas can be fiddly.

English is the most complicated language. It is also backwards to most other languages.
Also most students are still taught grammar.
I do know of some schools that don't teach anything.
I mean bored and board are the same anymore.

[Cinisajoy]

Hey Rizla,
Where are you from?

[JwkOKC]

Originally Posted by Hitch

The way Gregg wants to write it is the way someone might say it, if they were musing aloud, to themselves, or thinking it. However, reading it that way is at best clunky. And nobody would say the sentence that way, certainly not in the company of someone else within earshot.

The whole POINT of learning to write dialogue properly is to avoid this very issue. If we wrote dialogue the way people speak (replete with the uhrs, ums, and y'knows), nobody would read that crap.

One of the most effective attacks on a redneck state legislator that I ever saw, back in the McCarthy era, was based on this very fact.

The legislator, a major power in state politics at the time, had attacked a popular journalism professor and subpoenaed him to appear before an investigative committee. Since the professor was a close friend of most of the reporters covering the occasion, one of them was inspired to hire a court reporter to attend the hearing and take notes. The reporter also alerted the professor to his plan.

Next morning, the account was spread across all eight columns of the state's leading newspaper, in Q&A format. It began with a verbatim quote from the legislator:

"Where at was you all borned at?"

The professor's replies were all carefully crafted to make perfect reading, rather than being normal speech.

The investigation ended right there. And it was the legislator's final term in office.

Back to the point of this thread: I think one of the best ways to learn good writing is to study the works of those who already know how. In the present case, I think one of the best examples of dealing with what might be considered "internal dialog" is to be found in the several Liaden Universe novels that deal with Daav yos Phelium and his late lifemate Alleiana Caylon. Lee and Miller never leave you in the slightest doubt about what's going on, and their grammatical accuracy never makes itself obvious.

[Rizla]

I'm from Canada, Cinasjoy. And I have to disagree that English is the most complicated language. Do you speak any other languages?

What grammar did you learn in school? We focused on spelling and basic punctuation. That was all that was needed. Maybe other levels were taught other stuff.

[JwkOKC]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I'm from Canada, Cinasjoy. And I have to disagree that English is the most complicated language. Do you speak any other languages?

What grammar did you learn in school? We focused on spelling and basic punctuation. That was all that was needed. Maybe other levels were taught other stuff.

The teaching of grammar in U.S. schools tends to be, like math, quite variable from year to year. I'm not a good source for comments, though, since I attended many different schools between the ages of 6 and 17, and skipped a full grade in which the basics of grammar were imparted. I originally learned mostly from being a voracious reader, from the age of four to the present day.

I first became aware of verb conjugation in high school, when I began learning Spanish. Then many mysteries about English began making themselves clear to me.

My wife, who is six years younger than me, had a completely different treatment of the subject. And our sons had it different from either of us.

Today's approach, it appears, doesn't attempt to teach it at all. Apparently youngsters are expected to learn it from TV and the Web. And most do, to at least an acceptable level, but with no rigorous foundation for it.

I don't consider Canada to be speaking a foreign language unless we're referring to Quebec. I find the dialects of the deep south USA to be much less comprehensible!

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by JwkOKC

I first became aware of verb conjugation in high school, when I began learning Spanish. Then many mysteries about English began making themselves clear to me.

Conjugation in English is pretty much limited to adding -ed or -s. We virtually use infinitives. Hence my statement that English is simple for an European language.

[Cinisajoy]

At Rizla,
In high school, we spent one semester each year working on grammar. Spelling was covered mostly in elementary school. Matter of fact, it was most important in 5th, 6th and 7th grades.

The reason I say it is the most complicated is because one word can have many meanings. Also because it is backwards to most other languages.

As to other languages, I can make myself understood part of the time at the local Spanish grocery store.


At JwkOKC,
I will try to keep my southern to a minimum.

[JwkOKC]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I will try to keep my southern to a minimum.

I've not detected any yet; I really don't find it in written communication. However it took me days to learn to understand English as spoken in the Carolinas.

Texas isn't southern, anyway. It's Texas. Most of my forebears lived there from just after San Jacinto until the end of the 19th century, when my grandparent moved his family up across the river to The Nations. There's a stadium in College Station named for a (quite) distant relative.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I'm from Canada, Cinasjoy. And I have to disagree that English is the most complicated language. Do you speak any other languages?

What grammar did you learn in school? We focused on spelling and basic punctuation. That was all that was needed. Maybe other levels were taught other stuff.

I am rusty on other languages now, through lack of use, but I've been fluent in 3, and roughly competent in two more, for whatever that is worth. I'd say that the "roughly competent" have gone by the wayside entirely; I can probably still get by in two. MAYBE. I'd be more comfortable saying that if I had a two-week immersion in hand.

As far as being taught, my instructors spent a boatload of time going over it all: everything from splitting infinitives to dangling participles to you-name-it. Conjunctions, punctuation, clauses, et al. Of course we had spelling and fundamental punctuation, but that was all over in grade school. Issybird's comment about diagramming sentences made my knuckles ache, as I recall a knuckle slap or two when I was still wrapping my head around same. Even some 50+ years later.

Once you move away from fundamental punctuation (relatively simple sentence structure, that is), English is NOT that simple. There are many grammar rules that ought to be followed, which are not, or are, mostly through accident or rote repetition of what's previously been heard/read.

Offered solely FWIW.

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by JwkOKC

I've not detected any yet; I really don't find it in written communication. However it took me days to learn to understand English as spoken in the Carolinas.

Texas isn't southern, anyway. It's Texas. Most of my forebears lived there from just after San Jacinto until the end of the 19th century, when my grandparent moved his family up across the river to The Nations. There's a stadium in College Station named for a (quite) distant relative.

You are so right. Texas has at least 6 distinct accents.
Oh if you want to talk about English being complicated just start talking food.

Now back to the original topic,
Commas are sometimes your friend and sometimes your worst nightmare.