Posts tagged as:

punctuation

Tragically Exclamatory!!!!!

March 29, 2010

Image by tgbarrett via FlickrMy pseudonym is M. Jaynes and I have a problem! I’ve pontificated on punctuation previously. My sojourn into the comma conundrum was cathartic. This time, it is my over-use of the exclamation point in casual correspondence that has become increasingly disturbing to me. Oh, it started innocently enough. I joined Facebook [...]

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My Comma, My Problem

August 4, 2009

Something happened when I turned thirty-six. No, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream didn’t immediately show up on my thighs ten minutes after I ate it. That happened when I turned thirty (and I’m still a little upset about it). For some inexplicable reason, during my thirty-sixth year comma usage became an enigma. As an English [...]

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Keyword Exercise (Colon)

November 6, 2008

In David Foster Wallace’s article entitled “Tense Present:  Democracy, English, and the Wars Over Usage,” the late novelist, essayist, and part-time college instructor asks:  “Did you know that probing the seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography reveals ideological strife and controversy and intrigue and nastiness and fervor on a nearly hanging-chad scale?”  Foster was himself a [...]

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Comma Chameleon

June 6, 2008

Yes, the title is reminiscent of the only song by Culture Club that I can stand, but it fits the topic so….thank you Boy George? Part of the beauty and frustration of the English language is that it is constantly changing. Not only does this relate to morphemes and phonemes but it applies to punctuation [...]

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