How many spaces do you add?

flowerbug said:
i do not use the Oxford comma as i see it does not reflect how i would say it, no pause, no room for that and it is a waste of such a huge effort...
Click to expand...
Its purpose is not to indicate a pause in the spoken sentence, but for clarity in the written word.

"I'd like to thank my parents, Jane Carter, and Alex Macintyre." makes it clear that the speaker is thanking 4 individuals, whereas "I'd like to thank my parents, Jane Carter and Alex Macintyre." is ambiguous. Are Jane and Alex the speaker's parents? Or are they just unrelated persons?
 
Several years ago, I had to look up the meaning of an Oxford comma.

Oh! Not needed? Okay, I can see that for a list of single words: simpler with one, two, three and four. Not confusing. Phrases are something else: blah-blah-blah, yada-yada-yada, yackety-yack-yack, and so on.

BTW, it wasn't difficult giving up treating "etc" as an abbreviation with a period. I'm prepared to use it as such if et cetera actually enters English as something of broader use ;). And spaces? It's a little difficult for me not to use 2 (and a capital) after a colon :D.

Steve, who could really use some help with scrambling and spelling!
 
digitS' said:
Several years ago, I had to look up the meaning of an Oxford comma.

Oh! Not needed? Okay, I can see that for a list of single words: simpler with one, two, three and four. Not confusing. Phrases are something else: blah-blah-blah, yada-yada-yada, yackety-yack-yack, and so on.

BTW, it wasn't difficult giving up treating "etc" as an abbreviation with a period. I'm prepared to use it as such if et cetera actually enters English as something of broader use ;). And spaces? It's a little difficult for me not to use 2 (and a capital) after a colon :D.

Steve, who could really use some help with scrambling and spelling!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I gave up the period after "etc" too. I think texting generated a lot of dropped punctuation marks (although I don't even have a phone with texting, so go figure).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Sister Sites

BackYardChickens.com
BackYardHerds.com
SufficientSelf.com
Back
Top