Sunday, September 26, 2010

Grammar

When it comes to grammar, I'm a conservative revolutionary. That is to say, I prefer to keep rules as they are unless they don't make logical sense, in which cases the rules need be reformed.

I'm wondering if I'm egotistical enough to write a guide for my version of English grammar.

I just may be.

4 comments:

  1. please start with "i" before "e" except after "c"...

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  2. There's one "rule" that I consistently and deliberately break (though I suppose it's more a punctuation rule than a grammar one).

    There, see, I just did it. I put the period after the closing parenthesis (and I do the same with quotes).

    To me, a period (also known as a "full stop") is the final terminating mark of a sentence, and a parenthetical (or a quote, in most cases) is a sub-phrase of the sentence, and should be included in its entirety (parenthesis and all) within the sentence, before the terminating period.

    (Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes, for example, a parenthetical will contain multiple sentences. In those cases, it seems more logical to me to include the period of the final sentence within the parenthesis.)

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  3. i am also tired of the serial comma before "and". i knew when one of my professors brought out that old saw on my thesis, we had descended into "and that's the best criticism you can come up with it..."

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  4. Hmm.. I actually like the comma before "and", because it separates the final two items in the list better than the "and" by itself does.

    Example: I like ice cream, cheesecake, cookies and pudding.

    Does that mean the cookies and pudding go together (as a single dessert item)?

    In my mind this is more clear: I like ice cream, cheesecake, cookies, and pudding.

    ReplyDelete