Comments on: Five Punctuation Errors Exploded

By: What Stylebook Should Bloggers Use? | Professional Blog Service

What Stylebook Should Bloggers Use? | Professional Blog Service — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:29:53 +0000

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[...] most of the stylebooks, except on some small ticky-tack stuff, like whether you should use the Oxford comma or whether or not to hyphenate certain [...]

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Cell phone GPS >> Miracles of technology...bring information on ... — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:34:46 +0000

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By: Erik Deckers

Erik Deckers — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:27:32 +0000

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@Jake, you bring up a really good point about about punctuation outside the quote marks. I’m approaching this from the AP style, which — knee-jerk reaction, of course — always puts the punctuation inside the quote mark, regardless of what it does to the meaning of the sentence. Of course, they do the same thing to the Oxford comma, so I can’t just blindly follow them on this rule either. I’ll have to explore this further.

And you’re right about using apostrophes for contractions. I’ll fix that.

By: Five Punctuation Errors Exploded | Professional Blog Service | Learn English Related Pages

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:09:23 +0000

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[...] Original post: Five Punctuation Errors Exploded | Professional Blog Service [...]

By: Jake La Jeunesse

Jake La Jeunesse — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:48:28 +0000

939

Being somewhat of a grammar specialist, I feel that while this post is for the most part correct, there are a few things that raise my eyebrows.

For starters, I think you’re aware of this, but saying “Don’t use apostrophes for anything but possessive” is wrong. In fact, you use an apostrophe in the sentence for something other than a possessive. They’re also used for contractions. But what you really meant to say is “don’t use apostrophes for pluralizing.”

Also, punctuation doesn’t always go inside quotation marks. On rare occasions, it must go on the outside; if the punctuation of the overall sentence does not match with the quoted text. Here’s an example.

Did Bob say, “Let’s meet at the park”?

The quoted text was a statement, but the overall sentence is a question. The question mark belongs on the outside of the quotation marks.

Other than that, good post.

By: Stephan Hughes

Stephan Hughes — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:20:28 +0000

937

My peeve is with the use of commas instead of brackets. I particularly appreciated the explanation on the Oxford comma and the hyphens, the latter being tricky as hell.

By: Olena

Olena — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:55:10 +0000

936

I’m from Ukraine and I’m a teacher of English (a non-native speaker, though); so I’ve always been interested in all its phonetic, grammatical, and vocabulary peculiarities. Unfortunately, when I was a student, nobody taught us to punctuate sentences correctly. It may sound funny, but what most of our teachers used to do was just nodding their head or showing mimically where to insert a comma, a semi-colon or any other punctuation mark.
When I started my teaching practice, I lacked the necessary literature which I could refer to in order to answer the questions of punctuation. In my country, 10 years ago we didn’t have PCs and had no access to the Internet either. In 2003 I went to the USA as an exchange college instructor where I came across English That Works by Ann Honan Rodrigues. That was the kind of book I’d always been in search of. Now we do have on-line resources as well as a lot of books that can guide us whenever we need it. Nevertheless, there are still some controversial issues which remain ambiguous for foreign language learners.
First off, I’m afraid it’s not quite correct to say that we should use apostrophes only for possessives. What about contractions, like don’t, it’s etc? The other day I read the article entitled I’m beginning to hate apostrophes! by Gwyneth Fox in macmillandictionaryblog.com, where the author is indignant about the illiteracy of some shopkeepers who misuse apostrophes in the names of the signs. Actually, the author’s so wrathful that at the end of the article she suggests getting rid of apostrophes at all! I think the question of apostrophe or any other punctuation mark usage is merely a matter of literacy and education. If a person finds it difficult to learn the rules properly, then why not completely reject them? By doing this, we’ll sooner or later be deprived of all the distinguishing features of the English language or any other language at all, the former making each language unique and interesting from a linguistic angle.
I do share your love and respect for the Oxford comma, and I’d rather my students put it down to avoid misunderstanding in similar to the above-mentioned examples in your article. I also agree that sometimes it is very difficult to use a hyphen correctly, so very often I just have to look it up in the dictionary. As a matter of fact, exactly as you’ve mentioned, not all dictionaries can provide you with universal answers.
I’d also like to ask if it is optional to use a comma in the following sentence: When you see your ad in the paper, you will always be impressed with the graphics. I’ve come across a few cases in British editions when there’s no comma after adverbial clauses when they come at the beginning of a sentence. In American textbooks, they make it clear: there should be a comma in case you start with an introductory phrase or a clause, and there is no comma in the reverse case. So, which one is correct?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:35:17 +0000

935

I’m from Ukraine and I’m a teacher of English (a non-native speaker, though); so I’ve always been interested in all its phonetic, grammatical, and vocabulary peculiarities. Unfortunately, when I was a student, nobody taught us to punctuate sentences correctly. it may sound funny, but what most of our teachers used to do was just nodding their head or showing mimically where to insert a comma, a semi-colon or any other punctuation mark.
When I started my teaching practice, I couldn’t find any literature which I could refer to in order to answer the questions of punctuation. 10 years ago we didn’t have PCs and had no access to the Internet either in my country. In 2003 I went to the USA as an exchange college instructor where I came across English That Works by Ann Honan Rodrigues. That was the kind of book I’d always been in search of. Now we do have on-line resources as well as a lot of books that can guide us whenever we’re in need. Nevertheless, there are still some controversial points which remain ambiguous for foreign language learners.
First off, I’m afraid it’s not quite true that we should use apostrophes only for possessives. What about contractions, like don’t, it’s etc? The other day I read the article entitled I’m beginning to hate apostrophes! by Gwyneth Fox on macmillandictionaryblog.com, where the author is indignant about the illiteracy of some shopkeepers who misuse apostrophes in the names of the signs. Actually, the author’s so wrathful that at the end of the article she suggests getting rid of apostrophes at all! I think the question of apostrophe or any other punctuation mark usage is merely a matter of literacy and education. If a person finds it difficult to learn the rules properly, then why not completely reject them? By doing it, we’ll sooner or later be deprived of all the distinguishing features of the English language or any other language at all, the former making each language unique and interesting from a linguistic angle.
I do share your love and respect for the Oxford comma, and I’d rather my students put it down to avoid misunderstanding in similar to the above-mentioned examples. I also agree that it is very difficult at times to use a hyphen properly, so very often I just have to look it up in the dictionary. As a matter of fact, exactly as you’ve mentioned, not all dictionaries can provide you with universal answers.
I’d also like to ask if it is optional to use a comma in the following sentence: When you see your ad in the paper, you will always be impressed with the graphics. I’ve come across a few cases in British editions when there’s no comma after adverbial clauses when they come at the beginning of a sentence. In American textbooks, they make it clear: there should be a comma in case you start with an introductory phrase or a clause and there is no comma in the reverse case.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:20:07 +0000

919

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