(no subject)

[rivka]

[Poll #193026]

Comments

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

I just had to share that at Taste of D.C., one of the restaurants had a sign that said: This is the source of that great "smell"! That cracked me up. Sadly, I was not able to convey to Trina why it was so funny. Wish you'd been there!

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

A standing joke amount my group of friends has to do with election posters. Someone from our college was running for education board or some such thing, and her gazillion posters said

"Elect"
Missy Stupidpants

(Names changed to protect the snippy.)

It, of course, annoyed all of us. So one day we ran into her at the dining hall, and asked why the quotes. She looked extrordinarily annoyed that mere non-office-holding peons like us were speaking to her, and informed us that not only did she not see what was wrong with quotes around "Elect", but that it wasn't like she had looked at the plans for her 5000 signs before they were printed.

I don't think she understood that while a grammatical error could be forgiven, abrogation of responsibility is not the way to commend one's self as an elected official.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

*cackle!* Oh, that's funny.

I wish I had been there, but I wound up sleeping all afternoon last Sunday, so if I had been there I probably would've been cranky.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Excellent poll; but I need an "all of the above" option!!!

Are those inappropriate quotation mark's? I'm never sure...

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

You slay me.

[brooksmoses]

And I wasn't reading supergee's answer before I answered, either.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Actually I rather like semicolons and could wish more people had been taught to consider them as I was in school.

[ For breathing purposes:
, is one beat
; is two
: is three
. is four
and if people constructing long run-on sentences would occasionally give thought to their readers' need for oxygen as well as to style, they might betimes trade local optimality for improved out-loud legibility.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, I'd go so far as to say the last semicolon in your example was entirely justified.

I mostly use ellipses to capture the rhythm of speech. As in:

"Using metaphors with me this early in the morning is like... never mind."

So much punctuation abuse, so little time

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I voted for the poor, abused apostrophe, but the "quotation" "marks" were so close as to be tied.

There's a restaurant here that boldly advertises:

Mexican "Food".

I will not eat there.

Re: So much punctuation abuse, so little time

[supergee.livejournal.com]

It could be better than "Good" "Food"

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

What disturb's me most is... I am often guilty of "misusing" most of these!!!!!

But semicolons do, indeed, rock.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Oh, one other thing. May I link to this poll?

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I, too, need an "all of the above" option.

By the way, Rivka, how did you manage to type those without hurting yourself? Ghu knows it hurt me to read 'em!

[brooksmoses]

I would say that both of the semicolons in the example were cases where the use of more than a comma was entirely justified (although the first one depends somewhat on the inflection of "Dude", which is to say it could be nearly anything); the question in my mind would more be one of whether they should be full stops instead.

My personal rule is that having two semicolons in a sentence that short (or, for that matter, most any sentence) looks horribly wrong, and so I will generally try to convert at least one of them to a full stop, rewriting if necessary -- although I'll occasionally change one to an em-dash if it seems to work better that way. In the example, I'd probably leave the last one, and change the first one to an exclamation point.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Of course! I'm glad you like it.

Re: So much punctuation abuse, so little time

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Our fish is "fresh!"

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, I'd go so far as to say the last semicolon in your example was entirely justified.

I think so too; but then again, I've always been inordinately fond of semicolons. As, apparently, are 44% of my readers.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Surely, if there had been a "none of the above" option, everyone would've taken it. (Except the people who wouldn't want to deny that semicolons rock, which they totally do.) I thought it would be more fun to force people to make a choice when each item was more horrifying than the previous one.

By the way, Rivka, how did you manage to type those without hurting yourself? Ghu knows it hurt me to read 'em!

It was a major challenge! Thank you for recognizing my pain.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

Surely, if there had been a "none of the above" option, everyone would've taken it.

*None* of the above? What kind of losers are you hanging around with? I'm deeply, deeply disturbed by this. ;-)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Eeek! I meant "all." Really I meant "all."

Sadly, I think I've made this exact same mistake before.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

The first four are all Eeeevil: and 'Sir, there is no disputing the precedence betwixt a louse and a flea'. A suitable system of escalating punishments should immediately be put in place for offenders in all categories.
But yay! semi-colons; support your local semi-colon now; semi-colons, the COOOOL punctuation mark.

[ororo.livejournal.com]

I'd like to as well. I think the members of dot_pedantic would get a kick out of it.

[jargon.livejournal.com]

I know I did! Lord knows I've seen all of those mistakes -- and I use semicolons in my own writing a lot (to the extent where I've been mocked for using them in MSN conversations) -- but I think those most widespread and agregious (sp?) problem is the apostrophe problem.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

parentheses (for making linear thought (which isn't really a thought in the first place (it is more related to the presentation than the content)) look (at least to practical appearances) like a lost (assuming we ever had it) art (not that it was an art in the first place))

you rock

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

most polls suck the chrome off every old bumper in sight. this poll shines. :)

[erin-c-1978.livejournal.com]

Similarly, a restaurant near me puts "homemade" in quotes throughout their menu. Not *quite* the impression they were going for, methinks. :-)

[renne.livejournal.com]

I think overuse of "quotation marks" in both writing and "talking" offers the greatest "threat". Not to mention making "you" look like a bit of a "twat". The other thing that "bothers" me, is people who use them and don't use "other" punctuation properly in "conjunction."

That above being a "classic" example. It's not speech. The "full stop" should be outside the "quotation marks".

Yes, I am "pedantic".

[brooksmoses]

Yeah, semicolons rock;;;;1;

*g, d, & r*

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I do that. I admit it.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Yay for the em-dash — my favourite mark!

Re: you rock

[rivka.livejournal.com]

*preen*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

egregious.

[kiya]

Bad Man.

I love you.

[kiya]

I, also, am inordinately fond of semicolons; ellipsis misuse edged them out, though. (I am perhaps scarred by usenet on this subject at the moment; the number of trolls on asbb-r who misuse the ellipsis is truly stunning. I am probably not quite as driven mad as the English teacher who used to have ellipsis misuse correction as his pet project.)

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

That seems a topic of much debate, with at least some sources saying that periods should always be within the quotation marks. Some references (I've underlined the particularly pertinent bit):

PUNCTUATION AND QUOTATION MARKS
APA
Periods and commas should be placed within the quotation marks. Other punctuation should be placed inside only if they are part of the quoted material.

Chicago
Declarative and imperative sentences enclosed in quotations shall take the period within the quotation marks. This also applies to commas used after the quotation but not at the end of the sentence – the comma is placed within the quotation marks.

“The question seemed relevant at the time.”

“It did not seem irrelevant,” said Dr. Lenin.

Unless confusion or misinterpretation is likely, then quoted words and phrases at the end of sentences can take the period within the quotation as well.

Question marks and exclamation marks should be included within the quotation marks only if they belong to the quoted material.

MLA
Commas and periods directly following the quotation go inside the quotation marks.

Example: The last thing we heard her say was “use your common sense.”

If a quotation ends in a period, the period is outside the quotation.

Example: He described it to us later “ She walked off the road and into his arms”.

References taken from http://www.ss.ucalgary.ca/ces/contributors_style_sheet.htm.

[renne.livejournal.com]

Erm.

I obviously did not make what I said clear enough. I wasn't talking about the use of quotation marks/punctuation in speech or when quoting from text. I was talking about using quotation marks to place "emphasis" on words and their relationship to punctuation.

And when I mentioned talking I was talking about actual, real life talking out your mouth; you know, when people make the "quotation maks" gesture with their hands to emphasise the word?

Everything you reference in your comment is in direct discussion about quoting or written speech, there is no actual referral to using quotation marks as emphasis.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

I would interpret the underlined bit of my cite as including the use of quotation marks for emphasis at the end of a sentence.

It's hard finding examples that are specific to the use of punctuation for quotation marks used for emphasis (probably because sources pretty much agree that using quotation marks for emphasis is a bad idea). I imagine Chicago addresses it explicitly, but I don't have a copy of the actual book, and what's available on line is limited. Here's what I could find:

http://www.tc.cc.va.us/students/resources/writcent/HANDOUTS/punct.htm
WITH COMMAS AND PERIODS

There are two styles for periods and commas with quotation marks. Most widespread in the United States is the inside method, which always places those marks within the quotation marks.

Each country has "rights," and each seeks "justice."

http://oii.net/Journal/dec97/writegud.htm
There is one other thing you need to know about using quotation marks - where to put the punctuation before and after a quote. This is the most common error people make when using quotations. (Use the previous example of the old man's statement as a guide.) Place a comma and then a space before the opening quotation mark. The same is true for the quote within a quote. At the end of the quotation, place your punctuation (e.g., period, comma, etc.) then insert the closing quotation mark. Do not include a space between the punctuation and the closing quotation mark.

When using quotation marks for special emphasis words, the same rule applies regarding punctuation at the end of the word. Remember to put the punctuation right after the word, then insert the closing quotation mark(s).

[renne.livejournal.com]

Eh.

Whatever.

Since I'm not from the US and I have been studying writing full time for three years I think this is probably one of those things that is just going to bubble down to what might be done one way in one country might not be done that way in another. It's like the whole British/American spelling thing, where if I had a dollar for every time I've seen an American jump on their high horse and insist that something spelt with "-ise" instead of "-ize" is OMGthatzsowrong!!!11!! only to be smacked down with by the person they're attempting to chastise by being told that the person they're talking to isn't actually American, I would be able to repay my loan far, far quicker. Some people need to learn that not everyone online is American! Sheesh.

BUT that's a different rant completely and I refuse to go into it. :) Cause I'm rambling like usual. :X

Anyway, the point I was attempting to make before I went off on a tangent was that perhaps this is just a case of the US doing things differently to the way we do it where I come from.

So yeah.

Eh. Whatever. :)

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

After I hit post on my last reply, I realized that I should have added "all of this applies only in America, of course." But by then it was too late.

It's been a recent point of discussion in developing a style and convention guide at my work, so I'm rather hyper-aware of this particular issue.

[renne.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, and understandable too! ;)

[lerryn.livejournal.com]

I didn't really have an opinion, so I asked aladriana, since she has an English degree.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Better that than extranious use of commas in a futile attempt to avoid parentheses without restructuring the document.

[melanie.livejournal.com]

it was tough to pick just one of those - but i run across the apostrophe's most often.


~alt, probably making you cringe from her resentfulness of those goody-goody capital letters.