A piece that references all the big boys and concerns itself with punctuation! I swoon.
Oh, shit. There's more inside.
It would be nice if everyone writing about punctuation could actually use it properly.
Lovely; post, quid?
Oh yes, please post.
An electrical storm and a punctuation debate; I'm in heaven.
You know, I was seriously disappointed when I found out the ritzy new mobile phone I bought last December had no semicolon, parentheses or ampersand in its text-messaging bit. It's been like having my linguistic hands tied. O the angst.
;)
Gosh, Pallas, that's terrible - I use them in my texts, and I've only got a battered old Nokia. One thought - if I insert a full stop and then cycle through the options, I only get offered a limited range of punctuation. But if I do options, insert symbol, there's a much bigger range. This probably bears no resemblance to your phone, and you have probably explored all these possibilities anyway.
Interesting in several cases, thought-provoking. And of course bound to bring self-avowed nutjobs out of the woodpulp to voice reactions.
Can certainly see the utility of some way to indicate sarcasm in online or even email contexts, where the want of such leads to continual confusions. Don't know if punctuation mark is the right way to go, though -- because ye can ask a question and be sarcastic as well as making a sarcastic statement or even a sarcastic interjection, I suppose (All hail, mother of fools!). <==note here deft sequence of three signs
The interrobang seems redundant. Certainly multiples of punctuations marks occur in modern informal use:!?!
The quartercolon tries to be too many things to too many men, and I have yet to encounter a piece of writing using it. When ye need a manual or a reference sheet to figure it out, the fine sheen of instant comprehendabilty vanishes. For the nonce, it seems a failed thing, regardless of what august body approved it.
Will not torment ye further now with splutterings as to whether a period is the same thing as a stop. ;]
I once passed up on a job because of the semicolon. I had an interview with the bos of a firm that did what I suppose could be described as freelance writing and he said 'send me a writing sample, to make sure you are litterate and don't have any bad habbits like the use of the egregious semicolon.' I was so enraged by this that I made sure I included a sentence which absolutely, positively -needed- a semicolon. He never called back.
I have yet to encounter a piece of writing using it
Umm, I'm not entirely sure that each of the neopunctuators listed was proposed with infinite seriousness.
;)
I rely upon the semicolon. People who don't see it as useful, or indeed - *choke* - those who regard it as egregious, must have imposed serious limits on their range of expression; they are dolts.
I love the semicolon; I use it often and without reserve.
As opposed to good habits, such as gratuitous doubling of interior consonants, I suppose? You were lucky that you did not get a call back.
Here's a side note to the discussion about punctuation, its use and misuse: the first grapholect to employ vowels, ancient Greek, at first had no spaces or punctuation between words. As literacy in Greek society spread from the upper classes, the introduction of spaces between words allowed craftsmen to better understand written instructions (Eric Havelock, cited in Richard Lanham's The Electronic Word). From there, a short leap to introducing the full stop and the comma to indicate pauses.
We Men of Law absolutely rely upon the semicolon. It's a tool required to keep up the charade that the many varied items are actually all part of one sentence. One sentence beyond all human comprehension, sure, but one sentence nevertheless.
As opposed to good habits, such as gratuitous doubling of interior consonants, I suppose? You were lucky that you did not get a call back.
Must we spell-check our comments? I thought this was a grammar thread!
Damn you spelling regularisers of the 18th century! Curse you and your whole enlightenment!
**Eats shoots and leaves**
Somebody needs a semicolonoscopy!
You want the pandacam thread, mercurious. Aisle 9384.
;
Forget colons, complete or semi; elipsis, those I love...
Well, I don't keep up on the grammar/punctuation gossip, but I love the semicolon and use it all the time (properly)! The semicolon is one of my favorite punctuations, in fact. Its beautiful, why wouldn't anyone like the semicolon?
;. ;. ;.
;; ;; ;;
;; ;; ;;
;; ;; ;;
;. ;. ;.
Are those BIG bananas, or simply semibananas?
I'm lucky to have at least one market fr my writing that is tolerant of my digressionary style and heavy use of semicolons, parentheses an em-dashes; I have nothing more to say.
Of course, if there is one punctuation rule I'd like to impose, it would be banning hyphenated words from the BlogStop game (I'm looking at YOU, beeswacky).
As opposed to good habits, such as gratuitous doubling of interior consonants, I suppose? You were lucky that you did not get a call back.
Must we spell-check our comments? I thought this was a grammar thread!
Well, shoot. I thought that the hire authority was the one misspelling words, and thus I thought you'd be lucky to not work for the cretin.
I have only one semicolon. I keep it in a glass jar for emergency use only.
Ingests stolons and departs.
Sinc3 this is the second time ye've mentioned it, I now assume ye're serious.
Personally, I find the game lacks challlenge without the option to hyphenate, wendell. But I will henceforth leave it to others to play.
I thought that the hire authority was the one...
Damn it, deconstructo, you made me bite myself. Whether to keep from laughing or groaning I'll leave to your imagination.
**eats, shoots mecurious, and leaves**
beeswacker, maybe I'm getting old and feeble at a frighteningly rapid pace, but I thought you were doing too damn good a job at making the game more challenging, thus, I frequently found myself checking in on the thread and realizing I didn't have the time or intellectual stamina to make a sentence out of "necro-romances"... I don't want to discourage anybody from participating; I just felt kind of discouraged myself. That said:
Some undercover secret persons intentionally carved initials on undergrown sapsuckers!
wendell, I don't wish to make anyone unhappy, least of all yourself. I'm not attached to playing the game, and absolutely don't wish to do anything to make life more difficult for anyone.
My thinking is this: if I've kept you from playing, it's also probable I may have done the same for others.
So, all in all, I think my bowing out for a time is probably for the best. At least until I devise some other novelty or twist. To me, it's all amusement -- I feel very badly about depriving you and anyone else of enjoyment in these too-often-dismal days.
Gosh, chaps, the thread would be, well, threadbare without either of you. How about this - hyphenation is OK (it does increase the scope, IMO), but players, where they choose, may invoke the Wendell rule which permits use of just the second word of the hyphenated pair?
I don't think this is the right time to invoke any Wendell Rules, since, it is rather obvious right now that Wendell Doesn't Rule.
Wendell Rules or Wacky Rules, don't nobody go nowhere! We *hearts* both of you, so no bowing out from anyone, please. It wouldn't be any fun without you!
I warn you, I'll start crying...
And ((( for quiddy. You can have my semicolons when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers.
So now I'm confused. Are any of those weird-looking punctuation marks real, or in any actual danger of getting adopted? I mean, interrobang, sure, we have that one, right‽ We have that "sarcasm point" too, but there's no actual use for that stupid thing ¡ (mostly because it looks like a lowercase "I" even though it's an inverted "!".)
Personally I think we need a "suspishy", to identify a comment that seems fishy ∝
Or how about a smiley face that doesn't discriminate against three-eyed mutants? ∴)
(If the above looks like empty little boxes you're not using a Unicode font...)
If I had a tumour surgically removed from my large intestine, does that mean I have a
... semicolon?
If I had an intestine smaller than usual, would it be a
...
demicolon?
I think my bowing out for a time is probably for the best.
Oh beeswacky, I missed this exchange of comments. Here I have been, patiently for the past couple of weeks, awaiting your next entry into the Most Obvious New Kids Exercise Yet game...
I, for one, have always greatly anticipated your contribution/s to the game. Even a game as such, you manage to weave your magic into it. I quite enjoyed the hyphenated words! A good game cannot be without a challenge, no? Besides that, you have managed to open my eyes to countless new words and/or combinations.
If you continue to take a break from the game, I will surely carry on with using hyphenated words myself... The game wouldn't quite be what it *is* had it not been for your contribution.
*takes a bow*
Yeah! Please come back and play, beeswacky!
*lower lip begins to tremble* I miss bees...sniff
What th' . . . I thought this was quid's thread about . . hell, semicolons or something - now I find . . you . . this . . . Argh! (no, not you Argh) . . well that explains a few things!
Well I tell ya what I'm gonna do . . I'm gonna go post in that thread and I'm gonna play it however I like! Ha! Hyphens? Check out these hyphens, babycakes! semicolons? Captialization? Oh TRY and stop me!
Ha! Ah ha ha ha! HAhahahahAHAHAaaaahahahahah!!
...
semicolon?
lhe Beal* dat duh... dat duh...