A thread for we picki persnippery pedents.
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I would be public enemy #1 if we’re looking at egregious use of commas and run-on sentences. I am unashamed.
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A guy in our writers’ group never used enough commas. We decided to get him a bucket of them.
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FLY-SPECK -n.
The prototype of punctuation. It is observed by Garvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the various literary nations depended originally upon the social habits and general diet of the flies infesting the several countries. These creatures, which have always been distinguished for a neighborly and companionable familiarity with authors, liberally or niggardly embellish the manuscripts in process of growth under the pen, according to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work by a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the writer’s powers. The “old masters” of literature - that is to say, the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes and critics in the same language - never punctuated at all, but worked right along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought which comes from the use of points. (We observe the same thing in children to-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and beautiful instance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces the methods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of races.) In the work of these primitive scribes all the punctuation is found, by the modern investigator with his optical instruments and chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers’ ingenious and serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly - Musca maledicta. In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either making the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine revelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever marks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable enhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work. Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of the obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such assistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to grant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions, in respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory. Fully to understand the important services that flies perform to literature it is only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist alongside a saucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe “how the wit brightens and the style refines” in accurate proportion to the duration of exposure.
Ambrose Bierce
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Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s mispeling.
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Left off the period. Here are some you can use:
………………………… …………………………
………………………… …………………………
………………………… …………………………
There’s no need to return them. My free gift to you.
You’re welcome.
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Someone told me my writing lacked guts, so I’ve been using lots of colons. Do you have any you could spare? I would mention you in the acknowledgements.
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I bet you already have a bunch around somewhere. If you search your house, you might find them. They’re small and hard to see, so you may need to use colonoscopy.
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I’ve found lots of periods. I suspect the top dot of the colon tends to roll off the bottom one.
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On the rare occasion, they’ll fall onto a colon:
Rare though, like a flipped coin landing on it’s edge.
I hope this serious discussion of punctuation is on topic.
ETA: “it’s edge.” See what I did there? Thats definitely on topic.
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Most women these days prefer “ms.pelling”.
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I’m going to have to block this entire thread. It’s going to give me an aneurysm.
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Mr Bilston certainly honed in on the spirit of the thing, and further homed his skills in th’ writin’ of it.
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Must’ve written it after spending a night rollin’ with his homies.
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