| Author |
Message |
Evan Kirshenbaum
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:15 am
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site |
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"Skitt" <skitt99@comcast.net> writes:
| Quote: | Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
If you go to
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mussmhtml/mussmhome.html
do a search, and select an item, you'll wind up on a page whose URL
ends with two colons. If you delete the colons, you'll get the
"Temporary file not found" error. If you put the colons back, you'll
get the page you were on before.
OK, I tried. I couldn't find any addresses that had two colons at the
end. Many search results had them in the middle of extremely long
URLs, though. All links worked just fine.
|
Go to
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mussmhtml/mussmhome.html
Click on "Search By Keyword"
Type "molly" into the text field and click on "SEARCH"
Click on #10 "Molly Malone /"
When I do this, I get the following URL:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mussm:10:./temp/~ammem_XEMg::
| Quote: | I just realized that the URL you gave above with the two colons at the
end is only a small part of the actual URL, and everything after the
two colons got chopped off in your post. That is why there was no
file to be found.
|
No, the actual URL ends with two colons.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A specification which calls for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |network-wide use of encryption, but
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |invokes the Tooth Fairy to handle
|key distribution, is a useless
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |farce.
(650)857-7572 | Henry Spencer
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
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Robert Lieblich
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:19 am
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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|
[some unmarked elisions of long URLs]
Bob Cunningham wrote:
[ ... ]
| Quote: | Rumors of the death of elocutionary punctuation may be
greatly exaggerated. At http://tinyurl.com/95zm8 , I reed the following:
======= Begin excerpt =======
Title: Intonation and the Comma Vol: 25.1
Author(s): Cruttenden, Alan
Abstract: A special issue of Visible Language (Winter
1978, 12:1) was devoted to the interface between reading and
listening. It is significant that, among the six articles in
that issue, there is no mention of punctuation or of
intonation. These two topics are among the least-studied
aspect of visual and auditory language. This article
represents an effort to explore one aspect of the
relationship between intonation and punctuation.
[ ... ]
======= End excerpt =======
And at http://tinyurl.com/7wn2u , I reed the following:
======= Begin excerpt =======
Scholes and Willis [1990] recite an experiment where
university students, when asked to read a text aloud,
interpreted punctuation marks as elocutionary even when the
marks had other (semantic) effects.
======= End excerpt =======
I will continue to interpret commas as elocutionary in many
cases.
|
John Lawler has posted here on this issue, and he is very much of the
school that interprets commas as indicating intonation. Some creative
Google Grouping will turn up several posts from him on the topic.
It's no doubt my fault, but I can't quite wrap my mind around that
John is saying. I tend to think of commas as syntactical. But there
are times when a comma is useful for reasons unrelated to syntax, and
I'd call the comma in "That's what makes foreign, foreign" useful.
I still remember a sentence my eleventh grade English class was asked
to punctuate: "Who strives not never wins." The correct answer, said
the teacher, was to put a comma between "not" and "never." Indiscreet
as always, I suggested that separating the subject from the predicate
was not a function of the comma, to which the teacher responded that
you need to pause there in order to make the meaning of the sentence
clear. I offered a rebuttal: If you want the sentence clear, put a
"He" (nowadays we'd no doubt use "they" and a plural verb) at the
front. Teacher's surrebuttal: This is a punctuation exercise, so the
words cannot be changed. I don't think she heard my final rejoinder:
"Shitty question," so there the matter rested.
Nearly a half-century later, I have a lot more sympathy with the
teacher. I do think my fix is better, but if you can't change the
words you do make things a bit clearer with the suggested comma. And
so it is with "foreign, foreign." Punctuation does relate to some
degree, if not entirely, to intonation, and I know I would pause ever
so slightly between the two "foreign"s and alter my pronunciation of
the second in order to make my meaning clear. In writing, I'd
indicate that intonation with a comma. Hey, maybe I'm starting to
catch on to what John Lawler meant.
Okay, okay, the sentence will survive without the comma. But is
insertion of the comma *wrong*? Thank you, but no.
--
Bob Lieblich
So, there |
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Peter Duncanson
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:21 am
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:42:46 +0100, "Matti Lamprhey"
<matti@official-totally-reversed.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "Bob Cunningham" <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote...
"Matti Lamprhey" <matti@official-totally-reversed.com> said:
[...] Perhaps I'm overimbued with the Elocutionary Principle.
I don't know what you mean by "the Elocutionary Principle".
Does elocution have only one principle?
Hmmm ... When I Googlize it, I see "elecutionary principle"
appearing only at porn sites. What is Matti trying to tell
us?
I thought you must be joking about that until I tried it. Amazing. Can
anyone explain that? (Bob's "elecutionary" was a typo, I assume.)
It is 'word salad', as Donna said. |
The idea is to include a large number and variety of words and phrases
in sentences on a webpage so as to maximise the chance of a search
engine including the page in its results.
One of the pages found by Google for "Elocutionary Principle" contains
the text quoted below, as well as more in the same vein. The text is
invisible on the screen because it is the same colour as the background.
<quote>
Attaint the hypodermic strictness with the unromantically intrapulmonary
nephology. Damascene the stunning latent hostility with the wildly
uncategorized charioteer. Concertina the Carthaginian Santalum with the
monotonously Carthaginian amity. Caricature the centrist rhythm method
of birth control with the protestingly lucid social event. Come near the
unthematic stereotype with the disdainfully precautionary Arikara. Clear
the air the handleless fertilizer with the lopsidedly squab
pyelonephritis. Smoothen the scruffy Gypsophila with the wheresoever
expansive Gypsophila. Sod the undesigned necrophilia with the
statutorily busted scratch. Lag the suety Termes with the nakedly
subgross motmot. Stall the refractory calves' liver with the by chance
soft-footed choroid vein. Become the rolled fruit with the temporarily
choleric kick starter. Misally the choleric kick starter with the
glossily overdressed sprinkler system. Break down the Muscovite daiquiri
with the henceforth categorical Stayman Winesap. Whang the noncritical
Stayman Winesap with the densely unregenerate complex. Look like the
morbid orthopedics with the concurrently theocratic sulfamethazine.
Uprise the binary pastrami with the inland Kurdish honey bell. Pig the
syndetic Andvari with the receptively unsupportable mayhaw. Revalue the
unsupportable arroz con pollo with the calmly Moroccan reformatory. Move
over the chlorophyllose Sacramento with the nearest rose-colored power
unit. Suppose the statewide power unit with the closely statewide
ceremoniousness. Cut short the optimum sensualist with the harshly
navicular calomel. Redden the taped Ivory Coast franc with the
childishly glimmering slave trade. Advise the vaporific subfigure with
the phonemic tensional Hollerith. Complexify the zestful poise with the
coastward untoasted orthoscope. Stucco the pigeon-breasted elongation
with the unblinkingly undesired republic. Whelk the argentous iron
maiden with the anomalously carbonated genus Physa. Canvass the
unmodified beeline with the hell-for-leather somatogenic monstera.
Disembowel the estranging squat with the high and low desert great
grandparent. Copper the fitted out(p) Prinia with the sketchily
scriptural Prinia. Gratify the atomic ayapana with the subconsciously
junior(a) reelection. Plonk down the stage-struck tarsier with the ill
sixty-three Wilmington. Humiliate the adnexal boatbill with the long ago
adnexal nexus. Fall out the equiangular copyholder with the eagerly
stopped off-line equipment. Baby-sit the depressed rosary with the
tenfold Hindu watering. Shrink back the unstirred asper with the
traditionally burned-out frigidity. Buck the forensic Clifford trust
with the unambitiously impenetrable pooler. Patch the post meridiem
light brown with the innately revolutionary business expense.Bugle the
unselfish degree of a polynomial with the compulsively here(p)
voyeurism. Rhapsodize the duplex dynamics with the interdepartmental
antecedent merganser. Secularize the Parthian magazine article with the
glowingly undramatic doorframe. Proselytize the triumphant Masai with
the twice rebuilt fever pitch. Immunize the suffering seersucker with
the variably half Strymon. Disunify the broke paranoid schizophrenia
with the narrowly tearful Humulus. Fret the tripinnate farm boy with the
harmoniously thirsty intactness. Accrue the con brio bunting with the
dearly migrant bunting. Mesh the cautionary Abukir with the way beady
Inconel. Slam-dunk the beady Krasner with the disinterestedly comforting
Gentiana. Consign the seventy-six Seismosaurus with the convivially
detergent Plecoptera. Mummify the cleft Plecoptera with the underground
valetudinarian herb garden. Blockade the attuned Andrenidae with the
daily attuned flying gurnard. Unbrace the bruising sympatry with the
currishly nonconformist collective farm. Revoke the north-polar pea
jacket with the imperially arguable commission. Mortar the Panamanian
rockslide with the thoughtfully scented Upupidae. Debate the concealing
Gaucher's disease with the God knows how tolerable goatskin. Co-opt the
Hebridean guild socialism with the perceptibly three cooling system.
Footle the mucous Pulicidae with the civilly pulpy pastrami. Cremate the
inelegant Little Office with the at home convulsive Little Office.
Backtrack the oracular employment agent with the huffily unreeling Al
Nathir. Miscarry the unreeling mysophobia with the to advantage
thirdhand pichiciago. Cocoon the implicational cutaneous anthrax with
the oppositely inexcusable banzai. Punctuate the supreme
anti-Catholicism with the obligingly amenable Polistes. Expectorate the
saturated common shiner with the pyramidically phylliform den-mother.
Confine the Sinitic Averrhoa with the grotesquely geopolitical Averrhoa.
Reef the unemployed Bornean with the weakly unemployed Bornean. Prey the
unemployed babassu nut with the horrifyingly castaway(a) fivepence.
Intersperse the Luxemburger silique with the tendentiously redistributed
roulette ball. Repel the sapiential lankiness with the inflexibly split
Pterocles. Phase in the radiolucent irrepressibility with the best
starboard Scutigera. Score the bottom(a) plot with the fifthly
unprecedented matilija poppy. Slink the backed Thryothorus with the
episodically cheeselike Blantyre. Sabre the Canadian Blantyre with the
ipso facto Canadian carrel. Remainder the bistroic gram atom with the
interrogatively Aristotelian benedick. Enlist the surviving hot toddy
with the dauntingly beltlike Rwanda franc. Go around the American Rwanda
franc with the gravitationally assorted malocclusion. Banish the
English-speaking archery with the roughly English-speaking quick time.
Cane the assentient Nuda with the primly crapulent katsura tree. Strike
a blow the azoic stockfish with the spitefully neuromotor real gross
national product. Containerize the thornless rhinopathy with the
superficially spray-dried St. John's. Re-argue the thickset
physiological sphincter with the unseasonably colorimetric zebra mussel.
Drum the appointive Reconstruction with the cheaply appointive
advisability.
</quote>
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.u.e) |
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Skitt
Guest
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:07 am
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site |
|
|
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
| Quote: | "Skitt" writes:
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
If you go to
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mussmhtml/mussmhome.html
do a search, and select an item, you'll wind up on a page whose URL
ends with two colons. If you delete the colons, you'll get the
"Temporary file not found" error. If you put the colons back,
you'll get the page you were on before.
OK, I tried. I couldn't find any addresses that had two colons at
the end. Many search results had them in the middle of extremely long
URLs, though. All links worked just fine.
Go to
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mussmhtml/mussmhome.html
Click on "Search By Keyword"
Type "molly" into the text field and click on "SEARCH"
Click on #10 "Molly Malone /"
When I do this, I get the following URL:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mussm:10:./temp/~ammem_XEMg::
I just realized that the URL you gave above with the two colons at
the end is only a small part of the actual URL, and everything after
the two colons got chopped off in your post. That is why there was
no file to be found.
No, the actual URL ends with two colons.
|
Ah, yes. I see. Now for the experimenting --
OE does not include the colons with the clickable part of the URL, making it
unclickable.
Pasting the URL with both colons, or with just one colon, into IE works like
a charm.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Chris Waigl
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:07 am
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site |
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Skitt wrote:
For the record, Thunderbird handles the URI fine. Both colons are
included in the clickable object.
Chris Waigl |
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N. B. (substitute bay for
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:31 pm
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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Skitt wrote:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham wrote:
[about a Web site with a FAQ for the Chicago Manual of Style]
I want to thank you for telling us about that site. It's
certainly worthwhile to know about. I don't see it at
Donna's Intro B; I think it would be an excellent addition
there.
You're welcome.
( It's at
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/ .)
By the way, I've just now discovered that the URL you gave
us works, but only if I lose the colon you tacked onto the
end of it. I can copy and paste the URL without the colon,
but if I just click on it in your posting, which is what I
like to do, it returns a "Not found" because the colon makes
it an invalid URL. With a space before and after a URL,
clicking works. Most other precatenated or postcatenated
characters keep the URL from being clickable.
Yes, there are newsreaders that do not process clickable links properly.
Users of those should remove the colon, or whatever closely follows the
URL. My newsreader (OE) recognizes the true URL, even with a colon or a
parenthesis after it. I thought that all of the more recent newsreaders
did that, especially ones that cost money.
|
I haven't done a lot of research on the subject, but I think ':' is a
valid character even at the end of a URI, meaning that OE has an
URL-parsing bug. |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:38 pm
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 13:32:54 GMT, Bob Cunningham
<exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 09:33:32 +0100, Charles Riggs
chriggs@éircom.net> said:
Agent, though, which I prefer to OE for newsgroups, has none
of the cute features Eudora and Outlook, and perhaps OE, have: for
example, no filters and not even a way to put email from different
senders into separate folders, a feature I find very useful. Excellent
as Agent is for newsgroups, its email ability appears, to me, to be
merely an afterthought by its programmers.
You may be confusing Agent with some other newsreader,
possibly Free Agent. Or, if you have tried Agent, you must
not have taken the time to explore the wealth of features it
has.
|
Why the tone, I don't know, but I've used Agent, not Free Agent, from
the start.
| Quote: | Agent has filters.
|
When you know what you want to filter. Agent provides little
protection from spam or viruses, unless you're willing to do a whole
lot of fiddling around. Outlook and Eudora, being modern email
programs, take care of all that for you. Changing the way Eudora
handles junk mail -- to increase or decrease its sensitivity to it,
for example -- is as simple as checking or unchecking a few boxes or,
at most, resetting the junk mail threshold by moving a slider. Agent
doesn't even come close to having that degree of functionality.
| Quote: | Agent has folders, and you can have
e-mail from a given user, or based on several other
criteria, put into a separate folder automatically. I use
that feature fairly heavily.
|
While there does appear to be an arcane way of setting them up in
Agent, in Eudora and in Outlook it is a piece of cake.
| Quote: | In addition to routing things to folders automatically, I
can very easily file a posting or a group of postings in a
folder with a couple of mouse clicks.
|
Sure. Since Agent is primarily a newsreader, that has been made easy.
| Quote: | Folders can also be used to categorize and store Usenet
postings, and I also use that heavily. I haven't counted
folders lately, but I would guess that I have about fifty of
them.
|
Since Agent is a newsreader, I'd expect it to have that degree of
functionality. No big thrill.
| Quote: | A huge advantage of Agent over some other newsreaders is
that I can choose -- with one mouse click -- to sort my list
of downloaded postings by subject, thread, author, date, or
size, and possibly by other criteria I'm not remembering at
the moment. Having sorted a list of postings in ascending
order on any criterion, I can with another mouse click
reverse the order of sorting on that same criterion.
|
Yes, I use that feature often. But every newsreaders I've looked at
can do that much.
| Quote: | When the list is to be sorted by thread, I can choose
whether to sort strictly on the "References" line or to
start a new thread anytime the subject line changes.
With a single mouse click, I can change the list to show
only messages that I haven't read, or messages that I have
read. (Messages that I have "read" include the ones from
users whose postings I've chosen to mark "read"
automatically before I look at them. That's my closest
approach to having a kill file.)
|
Yes, it handles posts very nicely. That's why I use it.
| Quote: | Those are only a few of the outstanding features that I like
in Agent. I could list several others, but I will be
content to say again that if anyone thinks he or she has any
idea of what Agent is like from having tried Free Agent, he
or she is greatly mistaken.
I sometimes wonder how much business Forte lost over the
years because people made up their minds about Agent based
on trying the greatly inferior Free Agent.
|
From the sound of it you own shares in the company, so I can
understand why you might be concerned about possible loss of business.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Charles Riggs
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:38 pm
Post subject: Re: Clickable links [was: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web |
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On 12 Oct 2005 06:46:40 -0700, "Arfur Million"
<arfur_million@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Charles Riggs wrote:
snip
Right, which is why I used both Outlook and Agent. I'm not so sure
Eudora, which I'm now forced to use on my desktop, isn't better than
Outlook, for one reason. I've heard it can be done, but I've found no
way to store Outlook email in a folder I can back-up to another
device.
If you use Personal Folders, all of your emails can be stored in a
single file (something.pst) which can be copied anywhere you want it
to. I consider this to be a strength of Outlook, compared to other
email clients.
|
Someone here carefully explained how to copy it. It didn't work for
me. Others said they'd had the same difficulty. With Eudora, it's a
snap.
--
Charles Riggs |
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Ross Howard
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:41 pm
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:19:48 -0400, Robert Lieblich
<robert.lieblich@verizon.net> wrought:
| Quote: | John Lawler has posted here on this issue, and he is very much of the
school that interprets commas as indicating intonation. Some creative
Google Grouping will turn up several posts from him on the topic.
It's no doubt my fault, but I can't quite wrap my mind around that
John is saying. I tend to think of commas as syntactical. But there
are times when a comma is useful for reasons unrelated to syntax, and
I'd call the comma in "That's what makes foreign, foreign" useful.
I still remember a sentence my eleventh grade English class was asked
to punctuate: "Who strives not never wins." The correct answer, said
the teacher, was to put a comma between "not" and "never." Indiscreet
as always, I suggested that separating the subject from the predicate
was not a function of the comma, to which the teacher responded that
you need to pause there in order to make the meaning of the sentence
clear. I offered a rebuttal: If you want the sentence clear, put a
"He" (nowadays we'd no doubt use "they" and a plural verb) at the
front. Teacher's surrebuttal: This is a punctuation exercise, so the
words cannot be changed. I don't think she heard my final rejoinder:
"Shitty question," so there the matter rested.
Nearly a half-century later, I have a lot more sympathy with the
teacher. I do think my fix is better, but if you can't change the
words you do make things a bit clearer with the suggested comma. And
so it is with "foreign, foreign."
|
But we can change the words -- this isn't an 11th-grade English class;
it's real life!
Still, it's worth mentioning that a comma isn't always intrusive
between doubled words. Here, for example, it isn't; it's actually
required:
Why did your parents call you Buster, Buster?
That's correct, because the second Buster is parenthetical (hi, Bob!)
We could have said
Why, Buster, did your parents call you Buster?
But if we try the same trick with the sentence under discussion, we
end up with nonsense:
That, foreign, is what makes foreign.
And that, folks, is what makes Donna's inter-"foreign" comma
intrusive. Marking a pause for effect can be achieved with an em-dash,
three dots or an interjection ("er", "uh", "well", etc.), but it's not
a job that the comma -- fab and versatile little stop though it
undoubtedly is -- does very well.
--
Ross Howard |
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Jim Lawton
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:46 pm
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:19:48 -0400, Robert Lieblich
<robert.lieblich@verizon.net> wrote:
| Quote: | school that interprets commas as indicating intonation. Some creative
Google Grouping will turn up several posts from him on the topic.
|
Mmmm - I wonder if "Google Groping" has any value? Ah - I find by doing it, the
following - "An extended session of Google-groping ensued, finally leading me
to ...".
--
Jim
the polymoth |
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Matti Lamprhey
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:23 pm
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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|
"Peter Duncanson" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote...
| Quote: |
It is 'word salad', as Donna said.
The idea is to include a large number and variety of words and phrases
in sentences on a webpage so as to maximise the chance of a search
engine including the page in its results.
One of the pages found by Google for "Elocutionary Principle" contains
the text quoted below, as well as more in the same vein. The text is
invisible on the screen because it is the same colour as the
background.
quote
Attaint the hypodermic strictness with the unromantically
intrapulmonary nephology. Damascene the stunning latent hostility with
the wildly ...
|
I got as far as "Sod the undesigned necrophilia with the
statutorily busted scratch", but there it went too far in my view.
And as for "Cane the assentient Nuda with the primly crapulent katsura
tree", well, you want Maidstone for that kind of caper nowadays, squire.
Disgusted,
Tunbridge Wells |
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K. Edgcombe
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 9:43 pm
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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|
In article <3r4j2jFhl58nU1@individual.net>,
Matti Lamprhey <matti@official-totally-reversed.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "Bob Cunningham" <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote...
sound odd, bringing up the wrong associations. That's what makes
foreign, foreign.
That last comma there is positively alien to me....g
Just plain wrong to me. Misleading.
To me, it's perfectly acceptable. I take it to be
equivalent to "That's what makes foreign ... well, foreign",
but with not so great a pause.
There's nothing wrong with using a comma now and then with
its intrinsic meaning, to signal a pause.
I'm definitely on the side of Bob and Donna here, with some surprise
that other respected Brits demur. Perhaps I'm overimbued with the
Elocutionary Principle.
|
I agree (with you, Bob and Donna, that is); it's an expressive comma. Those
who allow comma usage to be in any degree a matter of taste (as opposed to
those who would like rigid rules) should allow Donna her particular taste.
However, Matti, when you say "other respected Brits", given that Bob
and Donna are highly respected but not Brits, you seem to be asserting that you
are a respected Brit. You are, of course, but if you wished to appear modest
as well, a pair of commas would have done that job for you.
Katy |
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Ross Howard
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:06 pm
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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|
On 13 Oct 2005 15:43:42 GMT, ke10@cus.cam.ac.uk (K. Edgcombe) wrought:
| Quote: | In article <3r4j2jFhl58nU1@individual.net>,
Matti Lamprhey <matti@official-totally-reversed.com> wrote:
"Bob Cunningham" <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote...
sound odd, bringing up the wrong associations. That's what makes
foreign, foreign.
That last comma there is positively alien to me....g
Just plain wrong to me. Misleading.
To me, it's perfectly acceptable. I take it to be
equivalent to "That's what makes foreign ... well, foreign",
but with not so great a pause.
There's nothing wrong with using a comma now and then with
its intrinsic meaning, to signal a pause.
I'm definitely on the side of Bob and Donna here, with some surprise
that other respected Brits demur. Perhaps I'm overimbued with the
Elocutionary Principle.
I agree (with you, Bob and Donna, that is); it's an expressive comma. Those
who allow comma usage to be in any degree a matter of taste (as opposed to
those who would like rigid rules) should allow Donna her particular taste.
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Yes, it's a matter of taste but, yes, many rigid rules exist and are
routinely applied. And not ending a sentence with a single word after
a comma unless that single word is parenthetical is one of those rigid
rules, surely. (For example.)
--
Ross Howard |
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Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 11:38 pm
Post subject: Re: _Chicago Manual of Style_ Web site [was: Re: About that |
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N. B. (substitute bay for gulf to e-mail) wrote:
| Quote: | Skitt wrote:
Yes, there are newsreaders that do not process clickable links
properly. Users of those should remove the colon, or whatever
closely follows the URL. My newsreader (OE) recognizes the true URL,
even with a colon or a parenthesis after it. I thought that all of
the more recent newsreaders did that, especially ones that cost
money.
I haven't done a lot of research on the subject, but I think ':' is a
valid character even at the end of a URI, meaning that OE has an
URL-parsing bug.
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I have now learned that what you say is true. I had never met a URL that
has a colon as its last character until now. I, most likely, will never
meet one again. Well, almost never. It does appear to be a bug in OE,
though.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Matti Lamprhey
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:05 am
Post subject: Re: The comma's intrinsic meaning |
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"K. Edgcombe" <ke10@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote...
| Quote: | Matti Lamprhey <matti@official-totally-reversed.com> wrote:
I'm definitely on the side of Bob and Donna here, with some surprise
that other respected Brits demur. Perhaps I'm overimbued with the
Elocutionary Principle.
I agree (with you, Bob and Donna, that is); it's an expressive comma.
Those who allow comma usage to be in any degree a matter of taste
(as opposed to those who would like rigid rules) should allow Donna
her particular taste.
However, Matti, when you say "other respected Brits", given that Bob
and Donna are highly respected but not Brits, you seem to be asserting
that you are a respected Brit. You are, of course, but if you wished
to appear modest as well, a pair of commas would have done that job
for you.
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I see what you mean: this is an example where commas are used to point
up which word is to be stressed. In their absence there's a danger that
"other" would be stressed instead of "respected", causing the
(unintended) implication you note.
Would you also label those, "expressive commas"?
Matti |
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