How's this for punctuation?

S

Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
I was reading an article in The Independent, a UK newspaper. This sentence appeared:

"Richard Nixon is the only US President in history to have resigned before his certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal."

Made me kind of chuckle at the thought of all the other US presidents who did not resign before their certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal.

I've noticed, though, a certain stripping-down in British written English. No periods after abbreviations ("Mr Smith") and the like.

I guess if meaning isn't impeded, we shouldn't grouse?
 
To shift slightly, what do you make of the capitalization of "US President"? I mean, "president" is a common noun.

The capitalization makes it sounds so fancy and science-fictiony.
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Hi, comma friend!
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Hello! Commas are important, and should be used sparingly when needed!
Click to expand...

Have you noticed—and I've even slipped and begun to do this at times—that commas are introduced where historically unwarranted?

"She took the books back to the library, and checked out three others."

Ya don't need it!
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
To shift slightly, what do you make of the capitalization of "US President"? I mean, "president" is a common noun.

The capitalization makes it sounds so fancy and science-fictiony.
Click to expand...

The title of U.S. president is only capitalized when used as an honorific for the current officeholder, or as a courtesy for a former officeholder. So one would say "former President Obama," but "Obama was a two-term president."
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by Chris Coad:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Hi, comma friend!
Click to expand...

Hello! Commas are important, and should be used sparingly when needed!
Click to expand...

Have you noticed—and I've even slipped and begun to do this at times—that commas are introduced where historically unwarranted?

"She took the books back to the library, and checked out three others."

Ya don't need it!
Click to expand...

Comma before "and"? No, you don't need it. "And" serves all by itself.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:

I've noticed, though, a certain stripping-down in British written English. No periods after abbreviations ("Mr Smith") and the like.
Click to expand...

I always thought the Mr thing in the UK was some sort of rule that one used a period at the end of an abbreviation, but not when the final letter of the shortened form is the final letter of the word. From the web "British usage favours omitting the full stop in abbreviations which include the first and last letters of a single word, such as Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr and St".
 
Even if you divided off the independent clause with a comma, in this case it would still be a misplaced modifier and still cause the problem Sharon pointed out. Nor can it be fixed with grammatical fiddling. The problem is that Richard Nixon is the only President who resigned, tout court. The modifying information tells us why he resigned, and not some of the conditions as to why he was unique in that (in other words, if he had resigned because a sore toenail was making him too miserable for him to feel he could serve any longer, he would still have been the only one to resign), and needs either to be in a separate sentence, or fit into that sentence accordingly.
 
Just before his near-certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal Richard Nixon became the only US President in history to have resigned.
 
"to resign" seems better to me than "to have resigned" because it keeps the time-sense of "became" -- we are in the moment of the transformation -- rather than jumping to some omniscient post-facto stance.
 
On that note, can we discuss the failing use of the pluperfect?

"He told me he went to the store" is a fairly typical type of phrase I see now.
 
Absent further context, there is nothing wrong with that sentence. Now if the sentence were "He told me he []to the store before he called me," then the conjugation would be "had gone," but there is nothing about reported speech that necessitates it.
 
originally posted by kirk wallace:
And let's hope we can edit that to "first" soon.
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we do, of course, have the actual impeachment of one, a mr. bill clinton of recent memory.

in his case, lying about a blow job constitutes--as we have learned from our righteously moral bretheren of the republican persuasion--'high crimes and misdemeanors'.

those were the days--now lying is just an expression of 'alternative facts'.

(any punctuation errors herein i offer to mr. loesberg for correction.)
 
I was referring to resignation. Ryan could impeach DJT anytime he wants and he would do so only if senate conviction were in the bag. Right now, Ryan (and McC) either fears trump's supporters or find him useful, or both. If Rs get their tax cut through, DJT's usefulness to them may be outweighed by the international problems and his vast general unpopularity. See, e.g. Issa, Graham.
 
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