ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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.")

Oh, I forgot about the comma roundtable!

Also btw:

If you’re a fan of my usage tips and Garner’s Modern American Usage…

I have a favor to ask of you as a loyal reader: In the next few hours or days, would you please go to www.amazon.com or www.bn.com and buy one or more copies of the new third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage as holiday presents? In fact, keep this gift possibility in mind through the end of the year, won't you?

I need your help in sending a message to the major bookstore chains: they’re not stocking the book because they’ve told Oxford University Press that they consider usage guides a “defunct category.” It’s maddeningly unbelievable. Please help me show them that they’re stupendously wrong.

Meanwhile, in the coming months you might ask about the book when you’re in a bookstore: ask the managers why they don’t stock copies, and encourage them to do so.

If you’re curious to see what effect you’re having, watch the rankings on Amazon.com or Bn.com in coming days and weeks. We’ll be alerting the major chains to those numbers, and we want to get as close to the top 50 as we can. If you're trying to order and see that the book is labeled "out of stock," order anyway: the effort is also to ensure that the online booksellers keep adequate stocks.

In return for this favor – it’s a grassroots effort – I’ll be happy to inscribe copies that you send to LawProse for that purpose, if you (1) include a filled-out FedEx airbill for returning them to you, and (2) suggest an appropriate inscription.

Thank you for whatever help you can provide in this endeavor to show booksellers that the concern for good English is alive and well.

Bryan A. Garner

Huh.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/adaptiveblue_img/books/140_characters_style_guide_for_short_form/dom_sagolla

The world needs a 208 page style guide on keeping it short.

Twitter exists so people can write books about it right?

When people abbreviate long words because they can't fit in a tweet . . . seriously.

http://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/twitter-wit-20090825-091341.jpg

"How are you going to monetize Twitter?"

"Have the people working for us put out shitty books!"

"Funniest Tweets of All Time"

When people abbreviate long words because they can't fit in a tweet . . . seriously.

srsly