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Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

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Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#41

Post by talideon »

Bud wrote: post #32
lambda wrote: post #13

Ouch. Fairly nicely written piece about punctuation, and generally nicely formatted with justification, properly indented paragraphs, use of em dashes, and so on; and then it uses straight quotes everywhere. While I'm generally used to straight quotes everywhere on the web, the additional standard set by the rest of the typesetting and the topic meant that their omission here was that much more glaring.

The piece also asserted that "word" and "whirred" are "pronounced exactly the same". They aren't. The first consonant is different; IPA [w] vs. IPA [hw].

In a good number of English dialects [w] and [hw] have collapsed together.

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#42

Post by redwood »

saurik wrote: post #2

> An Oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice, it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea. I am more than happy to truly believe this premise (and if you read some of the things I write, and how I use punctuation, I hope the reader will agree ;P), and can come up with situations where the extra comma "breaks the rythm" and cases where it "makes the sentence". > Momentum, syncopa…

I read it as "rhythm AND pattern", e.g a more excited voice. A nice notion

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#43

Post by YokoZar »

lmkg wrote: post #18
saurik wrote: post #2

> An Oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice, it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea. I am more than happy to truly believe this premise (and if you read some of the things I write, and how I use punctuation, I hope the reader will agree ;P), and can come up with situations where the extra comma "breaks the rythm" and cases where it "makes the sentence". > Momentum, syncopa…

Without the commas, it sounds to me like the author is excited and animated about his topic, tumbling forward. I imagine him gesticulating wildly. I guess you were imagining more of a measured pronouncement, with paused emphasis to cause us to carefully consider each element. As he says, the punctuation imparts different styles. I think the tumbling-forward interpretation works better with the list having four elemen…

I've read that sentence a few times now both imposing and not imposing the imaginary comma in my head and it still sounds like either a mistake or a particularly weird choice of rhythm.

Without an oxford comma, a four letter list sounds like "This...that...c and d do that!" -- which in turn sounds like naming two things, then making a completely different sentence about the final two things. People don't talk that way out loud when they mean to include the first two items in the list.

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#44

Post by SheepSlapper »

YokoZar wrote: post #43
lmkg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the commas, it sounds to me like the author is excited and animated about his topic, tumbling forward. I imagine him gesticulating wildly. I guess you were imagining more of a measured pronouncement, with paused emphasis to cause us to carefully consider each element. As he says, the punctuation imparts different styles. I think the tumbling-forward interpretation works better with the list having four elemen…

I've read that sentence a few times now both imposing and not imposing the imaginary comma in my head and it still sounds like either a mistake or a particularly weird choice of rhythm. Without an oxford comma, a four letter list sounds like "This...that...c and d do that!" -- which in turn sounds like naming two things, then making a completely different sentence about the final two things. People don't talk that wa…

I love the Oxford comma, because it leaves no room for ambiguity. I've heard anecdotes of people omitting the comma in contracts and having it come back to bite them in the butt... but who knows if there's any truth in them or not.

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#45

Post by auxbuss »

lambda wrote: post #13

Ouch. Fairly nicely written piece about punctuation, and generally nicely formatted with justification, properly indented paragraphs, use of em dashes, and so on; and then it uses straight quotes everywhere. While I'm generally used to straight quotes everywhere on the web, the additional standard set by the rest of the typesetting and the topic meant that their omission here was that much more glaring.

"use of em dashes"

It's worth pointing out that this is not a universal style choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#46

Post by punee »

Bud wrote: post #32
lambda wrote: post #13

Ouch. Fairly nicely written piece about punctuation, and generally nicely formatted with justification, properly indented paragraphs, use of em dashes, and so on; and then it uses straight quotes everywhere. While I'm generally used to straight quotes everywhere on the web, the additional standard set by the rest of the typesetting and the topic meant that their omission here was that much more glaring.

The piece also asserted that "word" and "whirred" are "pronounced exactly the same". They aren't. The first consonant is different; IPA [w] vs. IPA [hw].

OTOH, that "wh" is pronounced /hw/ only reinforces his main argument.

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#47

Post by nightpool »

Stratoscope wrote: post #40

Most of the time, you can use the Oxford comma, the non-Oxford comma or any other kind of comma, and it just doesn't make any difference. But sometimes you need it. Here's an example: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things, cache expiration, and off-by-one errors." Take out the comma and you ruin the joke - at least to my ears: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things,…

The author addresses this: "contrived sentences that mean different things depending on the placement of commas, because this tactic was so successful in fixing that thing that time."

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#48

Post by cromulent »

Stratoscope wrote: post #40

Most of the time, you can use the Oxford comma, the non-Oxford comma or any other kind of comma, and it just doesn't make any difference. But sometimes you need it. Here's an example: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things, cache expiration, and off-by-one errors." Take out the comma and you ruin the joke - at least to my ears: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things,…

In my natural parsing, if you are enumerating things, once I hit the "and" then I know you have moved on to the next item. So, for me it is not needed - but that may be "British laxness" [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_%26_Leaves#Critici...

Re: Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

#50

Post by Hermel »

Stratoscope wrote: post #40

Most of the time, you can use the Oxford comma, the non-Oxford comma or any other kind of comma, and it just doesn't make any difference. But sometimes you need it. Here's an example: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things, cache expiration, and off-by-one errors." Take out the comma and you ruin the joke - at least to my ears: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things,…

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

"Why?" asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"Well, I'm a panda," he says. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

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