ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

I think it's a matter of emphasis. Semi-colons suggest separate-but-related thoughts occuring to the writer after the fact, like someone spinning out an improvisation. A colon implies the entire sentence has built to the following list. And merely using commas throughout would read slightly unbalanced, uncontrolled.

It wouldn't read unbalanced or controlled to me (your last sentence doesn't, and it deploys commas in the exact same situation); it'd read like a list of three things with the "and" omitted for style/flow. She seems:

- more ready to break things
- more cynical
- angrier

Grimly, one reason for "more cynical" to come before "angrier" (apart from the order the writer wanted the ideas in) is that it keeps the two "more X" constructions together.

Yes, absolutely: my problem with that was only when I was misreading the first semicolon as a colon.

that sentence is horrible

I am oddly satisfied that my discomfort has been legitimized by the fine jury of this thread.

This construction I find more and more grating as I get older:

Just because X doesn't mean Y.

What's most grating is that I've caught myself saying it a few times. It's wrong, and it's wrong in neither a cute nor a literarily defiant way.

Huh. I don't really identify that as a problematic wrongness, to be honest, but I've never thought much about it either way. "Just because I gave you a present doesn't mean you have to open it now" -- this seems so wound into people's everyday speech that I have trouble considering it "wrong," as opposed to maybe "colloquial."

I mean, I see the wrongness you're pointing to, but the construction itself is pretty well recognized in its standard meaning.

"Problematic"? English pedantry threads aren't kept lively by doe-eyed future educators, you know.

Traditionalists would see this as a garden variety list or series, to be punctuated according to rule as: "more ready to break things, more cynical, angrier."

Because punctuation should be maleable to the writer's purpose and was originally designed to guide and assist readers rather than impose fast and hard rules, I can accept the semicolons as indicating slightly longer pauses, and therefore greater emphasis, than commas.

This New Yorker sentence simply represents a variation on Madison Avenue adspeak, which is notoriously where the following sort of useage was first introduced: "Buy Trojan(tm) condoms. They're better. Stronger. More colorful. Always ribbed -- for her pleasure!"

Doe anyone know if there's a word for a sentence that starts and ends with the same word? the internet is being unhelpful in this regard.

googled: sentence begins ends "same word"

the answer: epanadiplosis

Crikey! Thanks.

This sentence from a story in The Guardian about Chris Hoy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/dec/15/chris-hoy-bbc-sports-personality) is troubling me:

The six-year-old, who fell in love with cycling after watching the movie ET, began competing on the track only at 18.

I don't like the first comma. It seems to suggest that Chris Hoy is actually only six years old now.

Yeah, that's a problem. But just omitting the commas (it'd have to be both) turns it into a strange and different construction with a different thrust -- not so much wrong as just strange and presumption -- so it'd seem to call for reframing the sense of the thing entirely.

Hoy, who fell in love with cycling at the age of six after watching the movie ET, began competing on the track only at 18.

This is an exact syntactic paraphrase of a sentence I am editing:

Our company through its partners have most efficient possible production than any most suppliers to offer the necessary support.

(I'm pretty sure this was written by a British person.)

^ That's not a grammar question, I'm just taking a whine break from many, many pages of similar stuff

The six-year-old, who fell in love with cycling after watching the movie ET, began competing on the track only at 18.

Urgh, no, no. He's six! He can't be 18 as well!

^^ you've lost touch with your inner child

gl with that stuff nab, looks like hell

"special in her own way" -- I can almost see how you can be special in someone else's way, but it seems unnecessarily qualified

I just want to apologize for suggesting that British people were responsible for the thing I was (and still am) complaining about. It was Australians wot done it.

"special in her own way"

yes! i hate this.

"in its own special way," too.

"And if you're one of the many, many people who've been following the perky pair's post-Big Brother career with interest..."

This is right, isn't it? To my tired eyes, "who's" doesn't work - but I think this might be one of those either/or taste-based issues.

Your sentence shouldn't be right, but it is.

Who have -> who've ... it's an ugly contraction, but it is right, yes.

Sentences like that have always confused me, i.e. "One of (x) have" rather than "One of (x) has". I'd have thought the skeleton of the sentence is "(singular subject) (verb)", and I'd have thought that verb would agree.

Oh: it would have helped if I'd read the entire sentence. Didn't actually look at the "one of" bit at the beginning. In which case: my gut instinct would be to stick with "have", because although the subject is "one", it's not really like we're talking about one single person; the subject is arguably the more awkward concept "one of the many". The Guardian, IIRC, uses this model, eg "One in three ILX0rs have posted to the Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends thread", which I think makes sense from a semantic point of view because, again, we're not talking about one person; we're talking about 33% of ILX0rs.

My paper, though, would go with "one of (x) has"; a style I don't agree with (except in the situations where it really is talking about one person and one person only) but obviously adhere to when I'm at work.

Sorry for not reading the thing properly first time round. Charlie: I think that if you don't have a house style, stick with "who've". Or recast the sentence completely: "And if, like many, many others, you've been following ..."

xpost
Nah, but the verb isn't connected to the "one", it's:

If you're one of <the many people who've been following them>

if that makes sense..it's the same construction as:

If you're one of <the New York football Giants>

i.e., what I've put in brackets is a stand-alone group of which the full sentence is discussing membership.

One in three ilxors hasposted to the thread.

but

If you're one of the three ilxors who have posted to the thread...

fuck. has posted

Eh? Those two sentences mean totally different things, obviously ... not sure I get your point.

I do.

Your example:

One in three ILX0rs have posted to the Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends thread.

is a different construction from Charlie's original, which was:

If you're one of the many, many people who've been following the perky pair's post-Big Brother career with interest..

I'd disagree with have in your example, because one is the singular subject for that verb. But I'd keep have in Charlie's example, because it rightfully belongs to the plural people. xpost

Oh, right, I see ... but nah, I still think the same rule applies to both, for the reason I stated above: "One in three ILX0rs" doesn't mean "one ILX0r". I mean, if it was "two in six ILX0rs", we'd say "have" ... and, er, that's exactly what it is saying.

The problem is that the syntax is trying to do something different from the underlying grammatical structure; I'd argue that the Guardian/Grimly solution, although wrong from a purely grammatical point of view, would make sense to more readers.

Grimly -

If you're one of the three ilxors who have posted to the thread...

= equivalent to Charlie's original question, which I agree with G00blar is best treated as "one of <the three ilxors who have posted to the thread>"

One in three ilxors has/have posted to the thread.

= The kind of issue you are talking about, treated differently by The Guardian and your newspaper. A red herring, when it comes to Charlie's question.

[xpost]

Yes, Gooblar explained that. I get the distinction you're trying to draw, but I think it's the same fundamental issue, ie the grammatical subject "one" meaning -- fundamentally -- more than one person.

Actually, we're parsing Charlie's sentence in ever-so-slightly different ways, I think (which don't actually matter when it comes to meaning): I can see why we're disagreeing, but I'm not sure I have the functional language to explain it any more. This is where I'm really tempted to produce two different sentence trees to explain it, but that would take me a long fucking time, and time is something I really don't have right now :)

Ah, I see now; the "one in three ilxors" doesn't necessarily mean "one ilxor", it's a ratio, and suggests many people...my point about the difference in subjects in the two constructions stands tho!

xpost to self ... which doesn't actually matter? Depends on whether "different ways" or "the fact we are parsing in different ways" is the subject. Christ.

But Charlie's question is talking about "you", as in the reader, the one person being addressed by the author. That's not more than one person, in this sense at least. Not to me, anyway. Not that it matters in this particular instance, because the HAVE that he's querying relates to "the many people giving a shit about some BB contestants", not to "you" the reader and your place within that.

(btw, my work style guide has a misplaced apostrophe in one of its descriptions, which doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence)

This all reminds me of an old chestnut, "none" being singular or plural.

My paper's style guide flatly tells me that it is singular, but I think my sympathies lie with:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-non2.htm

Not that it matters in this particular instance, because the HAVE that he's querying relates to "the many people giving a shit about some BB contestants", not to "you" the reader and your place within that

I was going to argue that you could parse this differently, and for a while there I was convinced you could. Now I'm not so sure. Fucking hell. This is why I hate grammar.

But Charlie's question is talking about "you", as in the reader, the one person being addressed by the author. That's not more than one person, in this sense at least. Not to me, anyway.

Yeeees ... but it's still fulfilling the semantic role of meaning "loads of people", isn't it?

Either way: I think you've summed it up better than anyone else has so far, ie with the comment I quoted at the top.

better than anyone else has so far

(Especially me.)

How can a word denoting nothing at all possibly be plural, logically speaking? Just asking, like...

"None of us speaks French" = right but uncommon ("None" = contraction of "not one")

"None of them know how to get home" = wrong but widespread (Recast as "Nobody knows how to get home" and it's obvious)

How can a word denoting nothing at all possibly be singular, either?

xpost to Charlie

1. For the same reason I've failed to explain properly above ... because "none of us can" effectively means "we as a group can't". From a psycholinguistic point of view, I'd suggest there's a good reason why your second example is wrong but widespread: because it "feels" right that the group is still the subject (and hence takes a plural verb form).

2. Is the concept of zero singular or plural anyway? Discuss :)

How can a word denoting nothing at all possibly be singular, either?

Ha, I like the fact we both came up with that notion. This is why you should stay and be part of the glorious group-production future, Alba: we can spend all day arguing about this shit.

Umm. That's really not going to convince you, is it?