XP: Written Word/English Language&Reading Material

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Really? You can't tell the difference between something that will inevitably happen, sooner or later, and something that will always happen every time? If so, we should give it up. In any case, my original claim stsnds. Using commas when one feels there ought to be a pause will lead to unnecessary ambiguity, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life, even if not for every sentence you write during the rest of your life.
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Really, I cannot tell the difference HERE. If by "pause commas inevitably lead to ambiguity" you mean that while a particular example may not lead to ambiguity today (which any number of examples proves), it will inevitably do so in the future, you are engaging in linguistic futurology, saying that language will eventually change in a way that you happen to be privy to, and become such that what is not ambiguous today will become so in the future. Does a doctorate in literature come with a crystal ball? How can you possibly know the future of language? Of all the lame attempts to defend a mistake, something you are always, and notoriously, (see, no ambiguity generated by these pause commas, but, who knows, maybe, someday, they will) loath to own up to (though, I admit, it has happened, or I admit it has happened), this speculative punt into the future is the lamest.

While it is a fact that pause commas are grammatically incorrect, they cannot be incorrect because they will "inevitably lead to ambiguity" because that is unknowable. Even by you. Perhaps they are incorrect because they serve no grammatical purpose. Perhaps they are incorrect because they only exist to further the writers wish to control cadence, and grammar does not look kindly on control freaks. But they cannot possibly be wrong because of what is going to inevitably happen to language in the future.
 
If by "pause commas inevitably lead to ambiguity" you mean that while a particular example may not do so today, it will inevitably do so in the future, you are engaging in linguistic futurology, saying that language will eventually change and become such that what is not ambiguous today will become ambiguous in the future.

The conclusion you draw so obviously does not follow from the meaning you propose that it is pointless to comment on it as it will only lead to further misconstructions. But, alas, I'll try. It should be obvious that predicting something will happen, so far from predicting it will happen because conditions will change, actually depends on conditions not changing. If the rules of punctuation change, let's say to eliminate commas entirely (I have heard such predictions), then any prediction I make about what the misuse of commas will lead to will be meaningless.

What I said is no different than saying, "If you don't look both ways before you cross the street, sooner or later, you will inevitably be hit by a car." Just substitute "use commas to indicate pauses" for "look both ways" and "write a needlessly ambiguous sentence" for "be hit by a car."

And, once again, none of this belaboring of the obvious changes my original point, which is that if you use commas to indicate pauses, sooner or later, you will inevitably write a needlessly ambiguous sentence.
 
You guys are plainly talking past each other. It stems (sorry to say it Jonathan) from the ambiguous sentence : “f you place commas to indicate verbal pauses, you will inevitably create ambiguity in sentences that don't need to be there.“

This could be read as a statement about each sentence that uses a comma to indicate a pause (likely unintended meaning) or that the practice will ultimately but not necessarily in each instance lead to a sentence that is ambiguous (likely intended meaning).

Jonathan, you really should be more careful. 😀
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
You guys are plainly talking past each other. It stems (sorry to say it Jonathan) from the ambiguous sentence : “f you place commas to indicate verbal pauses, you will inevitably create ambiguity in sentences that don't need to be there.“

This could be read as a statement about each sentence that uses a comma to indicate a pause (likely unintended meaning) or that the practice will ultimately but not necessarily in each instance lead to a sentence that is ambiguous (likely intended meaning).

Jonathan, you really should be more careful. 😀
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Stipulating for the moment that the sentence can be read that way (and I find the construction strained), we had clearly worked out my intended meaning and Oswaldo, in his last post, was objecting to that one.

What shocks and appalls me as I reread the sentence is the verb "don't," which can only be the verb for the subject "sentences" and not for the intended subject "ambiguity." That conjugation error creates a truly bizarre sentence that you, Oswaldo, and anyone else, have full right to give me endless shit for. People making pendantic points about commas really should be able to conjugate their verbs.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
You guys are plainly talking past each other. It stems (sorry to say it Jonathan) from the ambiguous sentence : “f you place commas to indicate verbal pauses, you will inevitably create ambiguity in sentences that don't need to be there.“

This could be read as a statement about each sentence that uses a comma to indicate a pause (likely unintended meaning) or that the practice will ultimately but not necessarily in each instance lead to a sentence that is ambiguous (likely intended meaning).

Jonathan, you really should be more careful. 😀
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Stipulating for the moment that the sentence can be read that way (and I find the construction strained), we had clearly worked out my intended meaning and Oswaldo, in his last post, was objecting to that one.

What shocks and appalls me as I reread the sentence is the verb "don't," which can only be the verb for the subject "sentences" and not for the intended subject "ambiguity." That conjugation error creates a truly bizarre sentence that you, Oswaldo, and anyone else, have full right to give me endless shit for. People making pendantic points about commas really should be able to conjugate their verbs.
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Good catch!
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen: Apologist has been co-opted through the natural evolution of language (and to the dismay of linguistic conservatives) to meet the wine geek need, just as (I believe) I am co-opting the word co-opt in this sentence as compared to its traditional usage.
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Jayson, interesting posit.

I just can't visualize how/why apologist might have been "co-opted through the natural evolution of language ... to meet the wine geek need".

What might be the circumstances so that this scenario might come about with the "wine geek need"?

. . . . . Pete
 
... There are thousands of individual rules for proper grammatical use of any given language; mostly, these are created, and then taught, in order to maximize understanding and minimize confusion. But the English language prohibition against “preposition stranding”—ending a sentence with a preposition like with, at, or of—is not like this. It is a fantastically stupid rule that when followed often has the effect of mangling a sentence. And yet for hundreds of years, schoolchildren have been taught to create disastrously awkward sentences like “With whom did you go?”

The origins of this rule date back to one guy you may have heard of. Of whom you may have heard. Whatever. His name was John Dryden.
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. . . . Pete
 
Is it anyone's opinion that having the word “subsequent” pronounced as “sub-see-quent” becoming some kind of standard?

. . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
originally posted by Peter Creasey:

Is it anyone's opinion that having the word “subsequent” pronounced as “sub-see-quent” becoming some kind of standard?

. . . . Pete
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No !
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I haven't heard this either. Maybe it's a Texas thing like the way Bush fils pronounced nuclear.
 
That's hardly something that Texans would embrace.

Actually, I'm hearing about this pronunciation from some North Easterners.

. . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:

That's hardly something that Texans would embrace.

. . . . Pete
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They didn't embrace nucular for nuclear? Why did he pronounce it that way? Or do you find something unTexan about the pronunciation of subsequent you are asking about and if so what?

You seem to have a distinctive circle of Northeasterners down there.
 
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