ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

Re the winning margin in a horse race: "two and three-quarters lengths" or "two and three-quarter lengths"? Converting to numerals is not an option, alas.

Latter is more popular on Google, but the former feels more correct, since it's basically "two lengths and three-quarters of a length," right?

or three fourths, yes.

Maybe it just looks jarring to people because of the two plurals right next to each other.

Oh wait, new alternative:

Results 1 - 10 of about 3,050 for "two and three-quarters lengths". (0.12 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 66,300 for "two and three-quarter lengths". (0.15 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 249,000 for "two and three-quarters of a length". (0.14 seconds)

three quarter-lengths

the only thing I can think of is that horse racing may have special conventions for stuff like that ...but on the other hand ... would you say three-quarters pound burger or three-quarter pound burger?

xxp Never mind, that's Google up to its old tricks, where it says "249,000 results" and then you click to the second page and find out that it's "omitted" some "similar" entries and that there are really only 17 hits.

xp Neither, I'm a pescatarian.

Quick question on US style re: quote marks and punctuation (that old chestnut). Does the "punctuation inside" rule apply even with things that aren't direct quotations, as in:

The film tells the story of the "People's Princess".

or

The film tells the story of the "People's Princess."

?

Yes.

I know it's hard to believe but in American English I don't really think there are any exceptions to putting periods and commas inside quotation marks.

Thanks.

Someone who is not my friend but whose comments I can see on facecase just wrote: "I was in main and got to see the wales to." It's like a perfect shitstorm of eye-stabbing.

I would friend that person just to berate them, then unfriend.

Corduroy wales, surely.

"to" is Welsh for "roof" and "main" is Welsh for "lean" -- maybe it's a complicated pun

facecase!

facecase.

Supposed to edit the questions for a multiple choice test. For the answer choices, complete sentences end with a period, fragments/numbers/etc. don't end with punctuation. What about choices such as "Yes" and "No"?

Have any of you ever heard or used the word "timeously"?

Not until just now. Seeing as it's just about universally defined as the exact same as "timely," perhaps you can be one of the last speakers of English to help euthanize it.

I just came across it in a translation. "Timely" has the problem of being an awkward adverb. I always end up using "in a timely fashion" (in contracts and official documents).

oh right, that's completely true -- that's a big point of utility for it. (and makes defining it as just "timely" sort of ... bad, actually.)

I thought it was even more wussy than "timorously."

so you know how everyone has that one grammar thing that they can't ever get right? your/you're, who/who, it's/its etc. well mine is effect/affect. can someone help me 2 understand :-/?

ha - who/that**

WHO THAT

affect is usually a verb, ie "[x] affects [y]"
effect is usually a noun, ie "[x] has an effect on [y]"

that's the simplified version i guess

Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends, we that

thank u kev

it gets really fun when you realize that "to effect" can be a transitive verb meaning "to bring about" ie "obama hopes to effect change..."

also forms of "affect" can refer to emotions, ie someone's "affective state"

UH so i'm doing a GROUP PROJECT *searches desk drawer for bullets* and this girl sent me this part of the project that she was responsible for. and it included this sentence (the project is about urban legends, ours is the bermuda triangle) (college!!):

Our conclusion is that the Bermuda triangle could be a supernatural but then the events having occurred in other similar areas is either aliens also or they shake the foundations of the legend.

like....whaaaaatttttttt

for the record: i am in college

That's fucking poetry.

college as in university?

Don't edit any of that. Just pass it in as is.

xpost

http://www.killahbeez.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/miss-teen-south-carolina.jpg

yes, as in, you had to apply and be accepted to be allowed to take classes

The semester before I graduated one of my friends and I found a draft of a paper written by a group of business majors that literally consisted of them outlining the manner in which they completed whatever set of tasks they were assigned to do. So there were entire paragraphs that consisted of shit like: "Then we sent each other the information over Facebook and decided to meet up. Jonny led the meeting and emailed us the minutes afterward. This was good. The project went well. Then AIM crashed and we lost half of the work so we had to talk over Facebook some more. That was bad."

man i wish i posted here when i was in freshman english - so many lolsome (but very, very depressing) peer review papers

scratch that, i'm glad i didnt post here when i was a freshman tbch

You'd be surprised how many *English majors* can't even write well.

( The English major thing came to mind b/c of this thread I'm posting to concurrently: The Useless College Degree )

I am one of these but it's really because I can't force myself to write perfectly when I realize that I'm posting to *ILX*

http://twitter.com/fakeapstylebook

Here's something I've long been stymied by. (Fine, "by which I've long been stymied.")

We use a comma in "The millionaire wanted to ski, but he didn't have the proper apparel" because "he didn't have the proper apparel" can stand alone as a complete subject-verb sentence, right?

And, conversely, we don't use a comma in "The millionaire wanted to ski but didn't have the proper apparel" since "but didn't have the proper apparel" is all part of the same predicate beginning with "wanted."

But what if I were to say "The millionaire wanted to ski but not before noon"? Or "The millionaire wanted to ski, but not in the traditional sense of the word"? There's no subject following the "but," but there's also no verb. I feel like I probably punctuate these on a case-by-case basis, depending on how long or complex the sentence is (i.e., what's most readable). Anyone know if there's a rule, though?

Aw, such a good candidate for the comma roundtable

I've noticed that in the UK the comma is usually left out of ALL of these. Why I'm not sure. ("Why, I'm not sure.")