Comments on: I Love (Not Just Like) Parentheses

By: a random John

a random John — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:03:52 +0000

Rusty,

At least you don’t have Guy Noir commenting here. He’d cure you of your love of strange punctuation in a hurry.

By: Mark D.

Mark D. — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:14:40 +0000

The need for semicolons in serious writing is so rare that any use (let alone abuse) stands out like a red flag. My feeling is that they should be used about as often as exclamation points, i.e. almost never.

By: bfwebster

bfwebster — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:38:23 +0000

Re: #26 (Bookslinger)

Actually, the issue about whether to use a comma (the “serial comma”) before the conjunction at the end of a list of items remains controversial. I don’t consistently follow one practice or the other — when I stick that final comma in, it’s usually because I want a bit more psychic separation between the next-to-last and last items. Or I’m just not paying attention.

There’s another reason I often put that final comma in: because I usually leave the ‘and’ out altogether in a list following a colon. For example:

I’m fond of other forms of punctuation: dashes, colons, semi-colons.

The ‘and’ in such a list seems superfluous. MS Word yammers at me every time for leaving it out, but I just ignore it and write as I choose. ..bruce..

By: Bookslinger

Bookslinger — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:52:41 +0000

One of my grammatical peeves is when people use “like” instead of “such as.”

One of my sins is that I sometimes revert back to the pre-HTML days and use _underscores_ around a word instead of HTML italic tags to save on typing.

Bfwebster: In your sentence: I’m also very fond of dashes, colons, and semi-colons.

What’s the rule on the comma before the “and?” My understanding is that a comma separates the items in a list, but that the conjunction “and” or “or” does not need the comma before it.

Does anyone use the Chicago Book of Style (or other style books)?

By: Researcher

Researcher — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:49:29 +0000

You’re right, Kullervo, that you don’t use spaces around an em dash. However, I’ve noticed in typing on blogs that if you use an em dash, it is almost indistinguishable from an en dash or hyphen unless you put spaces around it. This is particularly a problem if you use two hyphens to make an em dash. A normal word processing program can handle this. Somehow a blog editor can’t. Look at:

when I lived at home — many years ago now —,

vs.

when I lived at home–many years ago now–,

I tend to casually split infinitives all over the place, but use an hyphen when I should be using an em dash? Never!

By: Kullervo

Kullervo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:52:13 +0000

I use em dashes. But I’m sure–pretty sure, at least–that you don’t use spaces.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:37:51 +0000

Researcher,
Nothing like a good “fi”!

By: Pam W.

Pam W. — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:16:22 +0000

I’m a copy editor who also adores parentheses, em dashes and semicolons (mainly in my personal, not professional, writing). I had an 8th-grade English teacher who told the class simply not to use semicolons. Period. As if we wouldn’t be able to comprehend the rules for using them? It still irritates me; it makes me want to sprinkle semicolons everywhere.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:13:56 +0000

I wanted to note (after my silly comment this morning) that the other punctuation-related thing that I enjoy is ligatures. Just love ‘em. I don’t have much need for them anymore, but back in my typesetting days, there was nothing quite like a well-designed ampersand or graceful ligature to separate the sheep from the goats.

By: Sue

Sue — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:46:14 +0000

And I like to start sentences with the word And. Also, with the word also.