spelling, punctuation and grammar

[stationtostation]

As I'm sure some of you ladies and gents have observed I don't have exactly what you'd call the most solid mastery of above mentioned facets of our fine language (yes yes Johnny and Johnnette Foreigner in your case my language) this area of ineptitude troubles me deeply, in fact reading back my old posts on a lazy Saturday morning actually makes me want to poke my own eyes out with chargin and more significantly for some one with what you might call literary aspirations it simply won't fucking do.

So I started this thread on the pretext that perhaps other people might need a wee bit of help with this (though it has to be said I rarely find mistakes in other peoples posts and believe me though paranoia and insecurity I actually do look!) and also I know we have a couple of proper grammar heroes (I'm waving at you Trussler and Chaos..) who actually enjoy chewing the cud about these matters.

I don't bang on about being Dyslexic as much as I do about being Dyspraxic (oh yes I collect mental defects!) cos well as we all know "I'm Dyslexic!!" is the intertubes war cry of every fourmer too lazy to check their posts with hurt pride. But yeah. I'm dyslexic and I'm not sure how this interlinks and intermingles with my dyspraxia but after 12 years of education, 7 of hardcore interneting, and fairly regular reading as well as writing, things like their/there/they're just WON'T fucking stick in my head for whatever reason. I can know the theory but when it comes to it I still have to stop and think for 30 seconds upwards every time theres a grammar decision to make in any writing I do. As you can image in the urgency of wanting to get my thoughts and ideas down with varying levels of contraction I make a lot of slips and I was wondering is there any methods I could use to fix these things more concertedly into my head to save me the mortification? Ha this isn't even mentioning my frankly bizarre constant typos (missing out words, being pretty much vowel blind, writing down completely different words to the one I thought of and intended)

What this thread is NOT for as for people to whine about how annoying they find people with poor spelling/punctuation/grammar are. Look I'm a very anal person, I understand. But this is a thread to help people like myself with problems with this stuff feel better, not worse.

[stationtostation]

Rignt punctuation question..

What exactly is the difference between , and ;? You see I'm horribly uneducated, most of my education is self-education and when I read I sort do have inklings of the rhythm of language punctuation enhances. So yeah I THINK I know though instinct where and when its acceptable to use ; but I'm still frightfully worried I'm using it all wrong. I wikkied it but found the description on there difficult to distinguish from a comma.

[sarah]

in a list, a comma is used to seperate single objects and a semi-colon is used to seperate numerous objects, like so:

a cup, a plate, a fork, a knife

a cup and a plate; a fork and a knife

this website explains its other use, which i myself don't exactly understand
chuma.cas.usf.edu/~olson/pms/semicolon.html


on the subject of grammar, my friend tried to teach herself "proper" grammar (aka totally anal grammar that no one really uses), she sent me a wordfile called "GRAMMER." which was obviously copied off a website, with many gramatical mistakes

i found this highly entertaining as not only is it spelt wrong, but it is gramatically incorrect, you can't put a full stop after the end of something in all upper case because you are exclaiming it, you have to put an exclamation mark at the end.

i wouldn't've found this funny if she weren't trying to learn it, i'm not too fussy about it really

[ihaveanego]

I'm not good enough to explain the comma. But a semicolon ( is used to bring two or more sentences together.

Example:

I'm not good enough to explain the comma; but a semicolon ( is used to bring two or more sentences together.


As for the comma.. I was taught that it's supposed to indicate a slight pause before continuing on, to avoid run-on sentences, making lists, et cetera.

[birdwhistle]

2) As Supercomma

SUPERCOMMA

Well, that's made my day.

[stationtostation]

birdwhistle said:

2) As Supercomma

SUPERCOMMA

Well, that's made my day.

Wow Meryl I hereby proclaim that your Superhero name.

[Rhiflect]

I always think of commas as either pauses, listers or mini-brackets.

Eg

Mini-brackets: The man walked his dog, whom he called Buster, to the park.
Lists: There were knives, spoons, forks and the occasional cup
Pauses: Look, i need to talk to you.

Also: Apostrophes, when talking about the letter 's', are only needed when replacing the word 'is' or when it belongs to someone.

[stationtostation]

Can I just confirm to everyone, I do actually understand what a comma is, I'm not quite that inept, not QUITE.

[Rhiflect]

Wanna bet?

Note: this is a joke, i am too skint due to xmas shopping to bet on anything.

[stentorsrevenge]

What a very progressive idea! I will revise your papers for cash.

=]

[sarah]

would you perhaps like some guidance on how to use full stops? they can be very tricky

[abolishconfusion]

Wow, this thread got patronising fast.

[Rebekah]

Everyone skips out on words sometimes. I do it quite a lot. And if I'm not really paying attention to what I'm typing, I'll say the wrong word too. One time, I was rereading a math proof I did, and I apparently wrote down "Addition is combative in the integers" instead of "Addition is commutative in the integers". They're two COMPLETELY different words, and I didn't catch it until much later. I found that rather amusing.

I assume you've figured out how to use semicolons by now? I always learned that when in doubt, just use a comma. It'll work just the same.

I kind of like grammar, but I'm probably terrible at it. I tend to overuse commas. And also talk in fragments. :-\

[lazy poet]

it amuses me that you haven't spelled the title of the thread with a capital letter

[pigeon song]

I find it intriguing how young children pick up basic grammar naturally without ever have been taught it, simpy by hearing language used.

[Iyley]

This is a bit off-topic, but in primary school I was always told that 'commas' and 'ands' didn't like each other but when I got to secondary found that this was not true! THEY LIED!!!! LIED!!!

[Iyley]

thealchemist said:

iyley said:

This is a bit off-topic, but in primary school I was always told that 'commas' and 'ands' didn't like each other but when I got to secondary found that this was not true! THEY LIED!!!! LIED!!!

on my first day at uni i learnt that they had lied in secondary school as well! *pfft some kind on education! *

I totally need to make up a conspirasy theory about all this! I tell you Brown will be informed!

[Debs]

stationtostation said:

As I'm sure some of you ladies and gents have observed I don't have exactly what you'd call the most solid mastery of above mentioned facets of our fine language

pfft. Your language skills are fine. Stop fishing.

Internet messageboards, where you're typing as quickly as you'd speak, aren't really the places to worry about your grammar being 100% all the time. It's akin to talking to someone in a pub, in that it's informal and colloquial.

Save your strong language skills for work. I'm a manager in a very large PLC - some of the written documentation sent to me from directors and more senior managers is shocking. This bothers me as it looks unprofessional - outside of work I couldn't give a monkey's.

[Debs]

Bugger. Now you've got me stressed out about it. 'You are' and 'You would' in the same sentence. AAARGH.

[Clare]

CLARE'S DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO SEMI-COLONS VERSUS COMMAS.

[May contain pretentious wittery.]

When you're speaking out loud, a lot of us tend to run our words together and speak quickly. However, if you're speaking slowly, stop to consider where you pause for a moment, pause for a slightly longer moment and finally end your sentence. The first pause is a comma - it's short, used to indicate a very brief pause in the sentence - not nearly enough to end the damn thing, but enough to make you go "whoa nelly!" and tug the reigns a little. The end of the sentence is obviously the full stop.

The semi-colon! It is like the bastard child of the comma and the period, the mule of the punctuation world. It creates a pause longer than the comma, but not enough to end the sentence. Yes, it is used in some lists with multiple items*, and also to bring two sentences together (joined by conjuction, normally). However! These are not nearly as important as the way it affects the stresses of the sentence, unless you find writing lists and joining sentences thrilling. Otherwise, check out fine literature, it'll give you plenty of reading examples.

Points to consider:

* When trying to figure out where a semi-colon should go, try not to stress over it too much. It sounds awfully pretentious, but just try to feel, from the material of the sentence, where that slightly longer pause should go.
* If in doubt, a comma is never really wrong. Sometimes it is a little clumsy, but, unless you ever insert too many (a difficult task), it's never really wholly incorrect.
* The comma is used everywhere, being one of the most common punctuation marks. However, the semi-colon has connotations of being a little more formal; and works well in pieces like dissertations.

I hope that was all clear, although I'm happy to explain more clearly if I was foggy. Hope it helps!

*See later diatribes for a guide to lists and the Oxford Comma.