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Eats, shoots and leaves.

XerXesXu said:
You raise an interesting point. The book's still in copyright. Is this Fair Dealing within S29 the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is like porn to me.
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Comshaw
 
joy_of_cooking said:
I forgot what an acerbic style that book had. Delightful! The only grammar book I've ever read cover to cover voluntarily for fun.
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There's another one that Athalia turned me on to: Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer. He was the copy chief for Random House. It's geared mainly to nonfiction writers, but there's stuff in it for everybody. There's a laugh on nearly every page.

Example from the "Notes on Frequently Misspelled Words"

REMUNERATIVE
Not "renumerative." I tend to avoid "remunerative" altogether, not only because I can't remember how to spell it but because I can't pronounce it without choking on it, and so I'd rather go with "lucrative."

Dreyer also realizes that as the language ages, it changes, and that there are some hills that are no longer worthwhile to die on. He gives authors a lot of latitude in matters of style.
 
jehoram said:
There's another one that Athalia turned me on to: Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer. He was the copy chief for Random House. It's geared mainly to nonfiction writers, but there's stuff in it for everybody. There's a laugh on nearly every page.

Example from the "Notes on Frequently Misspelled Words"

REMUNERATIVE
Not "renumerative." I tend to avoid "remunerative" altogether, not only because I can't remember how to spell it but because I can't pronounce it without choking on it, and so I'd rather go with "lucrative."

Dreyer also realizes that as the language ages, it changes, and that there are some hills that are no longer worthwhile to die on. He gives authors a lot of latitude in matters of style.
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I read his, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
jehoram said:
Dreyer also realizes that as the language ages, it changes, and that there are some hills that are no longer worthwhile to die on. He gives authors a lot of latitude in matters of style.
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Now here is an editor a writer can work with. The guy knows all the rules but also knows when to say fuck the rule as long as it doesn't break the story. Very rare indeed.
 
TxRad said:
Now here is an editor a writer can work with. The guy knows all the rules but also knows when to say fuck the rule as long as it doesn't break the story. Very rare indeed.
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It's a really interesting point, the 'what breaks a story?'. For me (editing or writing) I prioritise readability and flow above all else. If it's awkward to read, jarring or immersion-breaking, it doesn't matter how grand the lexicon or how exciting the premise. If reading it is a battle then, quite simply, many simply won't.

But beyond that - sure. Whatever. Wouldn't it be dull if we all wrote the same way? Vive la difference.
 
jehoram said:
There's another one that Athalia turned me on to: Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer. He was the copy chief for Random House. It's geared mainly to nonfiction writers, but there's stuff in it for everybody. There's a laugh on nearly every page.

Example from the "Notes on Frequently Misspelled Words"

REMUNERATIVE
Not "renumerative." I tend to avoid "remunerative" altogether, not only because I can't remember how to spell it but because I can't pronounce it without choking on it, and so I'd rather go with "lucrative."

Dreyer also realizes that as the language ages, it changes, and that there are some hills that are no longer worthwhile to die on. He gives authors a lot of latitude in matters of style.
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I have a copy of his book and keep it close at hand. He cares about punctuation and style a great deal, but he's a pragmatist, which I like.
 
MillieDynamite said:
Couldn't've a fucking triple contraction.
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Oh, they're out there...
You-all-Yall-Are-not-Aint-Yall-aint-Yaint-meme-5428.png
 
Our classic examples from Intro to Linguistics (we do it by sound to illustrate the importance of suprasegmental phonemes, but punctuation does it as well):

What are we having for dinner, Mother?
What are we having for dinner? Mother?

What do you do with a stiff neck?
What do you do with a stiff? Neck?

And "Waiting with 'bated breath" means holding one's breath in anticipation. "Waiting with abated breath" is the unabbreviated version.
 
Tio_Narratore said:
Our classic examples from Intro to Linguistics (we do it by sound, but punctuation does it as well):

What are we having for dinner, Mother?
What are we having for dinner? Mother?

What do you do with a stiff neck?
What do you do with a stiff? Neck?

And "Waiting with 'bated breath" means holding one's breath in anticipation. "Waiting with abated breath" is the unabbreviated version.
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And the Monty Python bit, "What's that in the road? A head?"
"No, no! It's 'What's that in the road ahead?'!"
 
And then I once had a student whose first essay exam answer started:

"The Yanomamo, live, in, the jungles, of Venezuela."

It continued like that for the rest of the exam. I asked him about it when I returned the tests, and he explained that his high school English teacher had taught him to insert a comma whenever one would pause when speaking.
 
Tio_Narratore said:
And then I once had a student whose first essay exam answer started:

"The Yanomamo, live, in, the jungles, of Venezuela."

It continued like that for the rest of the exam. I asked him about it when I returned the tests, and he explained that his high school English teacher had taught him to insert a comma whenever one would pause when speaking.
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I'm now imagining how hard it would be to follow a conversation between Christopher Walken and William Shatner.
 
Bamagan said:
I'm now imagining how hard it would be to follow a conversation between Christopher Walken and William Shatner.
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That gremlin, on the wing. It's only ripping, the wing to shreds, because it's had a watch up, its ass, for the last five years. Bones, do something.
 
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