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Post by Verbivore on Sept 1, 2019 21:08:33 GMT
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Post by Twoddle on Sept 1, 2019 22:40:30 GMT
I (skim) read them both, although I didn't need to . The first was rubbish, written by an idiot; the second was praiseworthy. Semicolons and hyphens are the very essence of writing. |
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 2, 2019 2:45:09 GMT
[...] The first was rubbish, written by an idiot; the second was praiseworthy. Semicolons and hyphens are the very essence of writing. Agreed, Twod. And now the AP Style Guide is trying to kill the hyphen! Alors! (Mind you, Americans have never seemed comfortable with hyphens and appear generally to have avoided their use for a long time.) |
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Post by Dave Miller on Sept 2, 2019 5:21:41 GMT
I’m with Twod. The first sample is in the camp “I don’t get it ... so I want to ban it”.
There’s great danger in thinking that different marks mean different lengths of pause. A magazine to which I subscribe obviously has an editor who believes that, as each edition contains a good dozen errors of this type:
“German manufacturer, Knaus, has announced four new models ...”
and
“Company spokesman, Robert Melling, confirmed that ...”
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 2, 2019 8:02:41 GMT
Another "agreed", Dave.
Regarding the examples you gave, my paper (i.e. I) would dispense with those bracketing commas to give this:
“German manufacturer Knaus has announced four new models ...”
and
“Company spokesman Robert Melling confirmed that ...”
but would render them thus if the order were reversed and an article were present:
“Knaus, the German manufacturer, has announced four new models ...”
and
“Robert Melling, the company spokesman, confirmed that ...”
I once tried reading Vonnegut but found him not to my taste, so I'm quite unlikely to take his opinion on semicolons seriously. OTOH, I respect David Crystal – even though I sometimes disagree with his dicta.
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Post by Dave Miller on Sept 2, 2019 12:09:13 GMT
Idly, while scoffing some lunch, I re-read the first of Vv’s linked articles.
Two thoughts arose:
If the semicolon is so unnecessary, what’s that comma doing in the title?
And is a semicolon actually part of “grammar”? (I’d say not, as all of grammar is already involved in spoken language - or am I out on a personal limb, there?)
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 3, 2019 1:24:54 GMT
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Post by Dave Miller on Sept 3, 2019 7:07:10 GMT
Mmmm. Articulate, but illogical, that one.
The author gets lost between the concepts of “it doesn’t mean kill” and “it doesn’t mean one tenth” - giving examples of the former doesn’t support the latter! His edited-by-Dickens example actually emphasises the one-tenth meaning.
I know that decimate is often used where devastate would work, but I try to keep away from doing that. I’m perfectly happy, though, to involve crops or houses or profits, rather than soldiers, in what is being reduced by one tenth.
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 3, 2019 11:18:12 GMT
Mmmm. Articulate, but illogical, that one. [...] Yes. Should I bother telling Mr Webb yet again that we disagree? P'raps pointless. |
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 3, 2019 12:27:10 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Sept 3, 2019 15:30:10 GMT
Decimate. It’s difficult to know what to think about this. Most regular visitors to this forum know perfectly well the Roman military origins of the word and historians of the Roman period will know so too and will not be confused by those who use the word to mean catastrophic loss of life. Decimation, in the historical sense, has been rare since classical times; a search through Google provides only half a dozen possible examples. No-one is likely to misunderstand the meaning of a report of the decimation of a population as a result of a natural tragedy.
Most of will agree, and even welcome the phenomenon, that languages evolve and will be able to discover many examples of words that have acquired new meanings over the centuries. To resist acceptance of the “new” meaning of decimate is to try to reverse an occurrence that has already occurred and is doomed to failure. Most dictionaries now give priority to the new meaning and we pedants can only use “better” alternatives in our own usage — and, perhaps, devote our energy to protecting the semicolon.
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 4, 2019 7:59:54 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 8, 2019 0:17:17 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Sept 8, 2019 10:39:19 GMT
And to top those: Mr Cannon returned home on Sunday to discover his home had been completely decimated. |
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Sept 9, 2019 0:10:22 GMT
Decimated again.
Oh dear!
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