Anton Shepelev - Ardith Hinton <0@6.221.2> writes:

Ardith Hinton:

Hmm. Peter Taylor may have considered it acceptable to
introduce a tense change at the beginning of a new
paragraph, but I don't see what purpose it serves here.

Furthermore, he has done it in mid-paragraph too! As to
Taylor's purpose in a narraion, I think a brief lapse into
the Present is a kind of emphasizing device -- like zoom and
slow motion in cinematograph (think "Keoma") -- that, if
employed sparingly, can for a short duration intensify the
concentration of the reader through increased "presnece".
Such, at least, is my impression.

I see your use of commas match my intuition about them, but I, so far,
have not found an English grammar, or any book, that would clearly spell
out these rules to me.

If I may, let me ask some questions. My intuition says I should always
isolate a vocative in between commas. ``Hi, Anton.'' However, I pretty
much never see anyone writing that way. Isn't that a grammar rule?

You wrote ``furthermore, [...]''. That also matches my intuition. But
I often see people ignoring this comma. Perhaps this is an optional
comma. Is it? What is the book you go to to cite such rules?

Thank you.

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi Wayne -- on Aug 02 2020 at 23:40, you wrote:

If I may, let me ask some questions. My intuition says I should always isolate a vocative in between commas. ``Hi, Anton.'' However, I pretty much never see anyone writing that way. Isn't that a grammar rule?

The vocative comma use varies with formality. For a good explanation,
see https://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/hello-vocative-comma -- but the quick and dirty explanation is that in informal writing it's optional.
IMO, the only time it absolutely must be used (in order to ensure clarity) is in a
sentence such as "I'm fighting John" which is different from "I'm
fighting, John".

Gmail seems happy to fill in (autofill) text (at least in the Windows
version on a PC). If I address a message to Frank, and begin typing
Hi<space> it writes "Hi Frank", but if I type Hi,<space> it leaves the
text alone. Make of that what you will! :-)

You wrote ``furthermore, [...]''. That also matches my intuition. But
I often see people ignoring this comma. Perhaps this is an optional
comma. Is it? What is the book you go to to cite such rules?

This is called a conjunctive adverb, and the rule seems to be that you
always have a comma after a conjunctive adverb.

The books Ardith and I use most are the 2000 "New Fowler's Modern
English Usage" and the 2016 "Garner's Modern English Usage". Fowler's
tends more toward British usage and Garner seems more American. Here in
Canada, of course, we're bilingual. :-)


Cheers... Dallas

--- timEd/NT 1.30+
* Origin: The BandMaster, Vancouver, CANADA (1:153/7715)

Wayne Harris to Anton Shepelev:

I see your use of commas match my intuition about them,
but I, so far, have not found an English grammar, or any
book, that would clearly spell out these rules to me.

I have never consulted grammar books about punctutation, but
I recommend to you the following books from my definitive
list of manuals of English Grammar:

1. The Grammar of English Grammars,
by Goold Brown

2. Manual of English Grammar and Composition,
by John Nesfield

If I may, let me ask some questions. My intuition says I
should always isolate a vocative in between commas. ``Hi,
Anton.'' However, I pretty much never see anyone writing
that way. Isn't that a grammar rule?

Of course, your intuition is both logical and grammarical.
Nesfield, for example, says under rule 214 (c) for the
placement of the comma:

After the Nominative of an address--
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

You wrote ``furthermore, [...]''. That also matches my
intuition. But I often see people ignoring this comma.

I put that comma because I should pause there were I
speaking.

Perhaps this is an optional comma. Is it? What is the
book you go to to cite such rules?

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

After an adverbial phrase at the commencement of a
sentence (Here, however, the use of the comma is
optional):
In fact, his poetry is no better than prose.

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

I wrote:

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi Dallas!

Hi Wayne -- on Aug 02 2020 at 23:40, you wrote:

If I may, let me ask some questions. My intuition says I should always isolate a vocative in between commas. ``Hi, Anton.'' However, I pretty much never see anyone writing that way. Isn't that a grammar rule?

The vocative comma use varies with formality. For a good explanation,
see https://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/hello-vocative-comma -- but the quick and dirty explanation is that in informal writing it's optional.
IMO, the only time it absolutely must be used (in order to ensure
clarity) is in a
sentence such as "I'm fighting John" which is different from "I'm
fighting, John".

That makes a lot of sense. Grammar is meant to put order and
unambiguity. But I'd like to find out the rules from authoritative
references like those dictionaries of English usage you referred below.
(Thanks for the references, by the way. I appreciate that.)

Gmail seems happy to fill in (autofill) text (at least in the Windows
version on a PC). If I address a message to Frank, and begin typing
Hi<space> it writes "Hi Frank", but if I type Hi,<space> it leaves the
text alone. Make of that what you will! :-)

Interesting. :-) Maybe it decides on what's correct by observing
people's wisdom and in this case it can't really make up its mind.

You wrote ``furthermore, [...]''. That also matches my intuition. But
I often see people ignoring this comma. Perhaps this is an optional comma. Is it? What is the book you go to to cite such rules?

This is called a conjunctive adverb, and the rule seems to be that you
always have a comma after a conjunctive adverb.

The books Ardith and I use most are the 2000 "New Fowler's Modern
English Usage" and the 2016 "Garner's Modern English Usage". Fowler's
tends more toward British usage and Garner seems more American. Here in Canada, of course, we're bilingual. :-)

These references seem to be dictionaries of English usage. Pretty nice.
But I'm looking for a respect grammar book. Do you know any?

My preference is for American English. But in the absence of one, I'll
take a British, an Australian, or, of course, a Canadian one! :-)

Thank you!

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Anton Shepelev - Anton Shepelev <0@6.221.2> writes:

I wrote:

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

Is this comma always required? If so, who stated and where it is
stated?

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Wayne -- on Aug 04 2020 at 21:27, you wrote:

Interesting. :-) Maybe it decides on what's correct by observing
people's wisdom and in this case it can't really make up its mind.

It's also possible that it chooses based on my previous habits - I'm
going to make a deliberate attempt to use Hi, name for a while and see
if gmail changes its habits!

These references seem to be dictionaries of English usage. Pretty nice. But I'm looking for a respect grammar book. Do you know any?

I don't think there's much distinction between usage books and grammar
books ... a huge overlap in content and maybe it's just the title that's offputting?

My preference is for American English. But in the absence of one, I'll take a British, an Australian, or, of course, a Canadian one! :-)

:-)

Cheers... Dallas

--- timEd/NT 1.30+
* Origin: The BandMaster, Vancouver, CANADA (1:153/7715)

Hi, Wayne -- on Aug 04 2020 at 21:28, you wrote:

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

Is this comma always required? If so, who stated and where it is
stated?

It's not always (or even often) required. "But" is a conjunction, not a conjuctive adverb and therefore the comma should or should not be there
based on context (cf. Fowlers <g>).

Cheers... Dallas

--- timEd/NT 1.30+
* Origin: The BandMaster, Vancouver, CANADA (1:153/7715)

Hi, Anton Shepelev!
I read your message from 04.08.2020 15:01

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

What about "the" before "comma"?

Bye, Anton!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2020

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Wayne Harris - Anton Shepelev!
I read your message from 04.08.2020 21:28

I wrote:

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

Is this comma always required? If so, who stated and where it is

stated?

In the textbooks on punctuation.

Bye, Wayne!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2020

---
* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Dallas!

Dallas Hinton - Wayne Harris <0@7715.153.1> writes:

Interesting. :-) Maybe it decides on what's correct by observing
people's wisdom and in this case it can't really make up its mind.

It's also possible that it chooses based on my previous habits - I'm
going to make a deliberate attempt to use Hi, name for a while and see
if gmail changes its habits!

Let me make a prediction. It will not change its habits. It will keep
on not making the correction. Otherwise it would never offer good
advice to people with the usual skills. :-)

These references seem to be dictionaries of English usage. Pretty nice. But I'm looking for a respect[ed] grammar book. Do you know any?

I don't think there's much distinction between usage books and grammar
books ... a huge overlap in content and maybe it's just the title that's offputting?

Let's take a look an example (of what I'm talking about) for
concreteness. Have a look at this book.

https://books.google.com.br/books?id=YHoSAAAAIAAJ

Let's take a random example (for concreteness too). Look up page 212,
Rule V.

PRONOUNS must always agree with their antecedents. [...] This is the
friend whom I love;'' ``That is the vice which I hate;'' [...]

Now we know what the rule is. If the writer is considered a great
authority, then we'd be excused by going with his opinion when conflicts
occur (among authorities).

This question of authority happens to be a little relevant in grammar
matters because rules are not all agreed among them all. It's not like mathematics, where truth is mostly implied by the axioms.

Also, it's hard to find the rule you're looking for (whose name one
usually doesn't quite know), so a good grammar book would also be wisely
and extremely well organized so that we may get some help in answering questions that arise. (``What is the right thing to do in this
sentence?'' In other words, ``which rule should I look up right now to
answer the question I have while writing this paragraph I'm writing to
someone important?'' This is often hard to find, which is why we tend
to ask people who know --- or worse, just guess and move. It's a good
skill to know where to look and solve problems by ourselves, but it
turns this is hard in English.) (Also, I find it very ugly to write
correctly without actually knowing the rules and the sense in the rule.
Writing correctly out of habit is not quite proper. If we don't know
the rule, we don't really know how to write.)

Natural languages are (unfortunately) not based on formal grammars. So
the result is a huge set of rules. A mess.

Anyhow, perhaps I'll keep Lindley Murray's ``An English Grammar'' as my
first pick. But I think the subject is much too hard for me to make the choice. I think someone with experience has made their choices and I
should definitely get their advice.

[...]

Thanks! :-)

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Dallas. :-)

Dallas Hinton - Wayne Harris <0@7715.153.1> writes:

Hi, Wayne -- on Aug 04 2020 at 21:28, you wrote:

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

Is this comma always required? If so, who stated and where it is
stated?

It's not always (or even often) required. "But" is a conjunction, not a conjuctive adverb and therefore the comma should or should not be there
based on context (cf. Fowlers <g>).

I see! <g> Interesting! I didn't know I'd find such great information
in there. Now I'm very happy. So, yes, I do need a book like that and Fowler's does seem to be doing a great job. Thank you so very much.

So now I know that /but/ is an adversative conjunction. That's great.

It seems there is a classification of sentences among ``coordinating sentences'' and ``subordinating sentences''. Is that correct?

Is there a rule such as coordinating clauses (in a coordinating
sentence) need not ever be separated by commas? That would imply, for
example, that you never need a comma before a but. But perhaps there's
no such rule.

I would believe that such rules would be spelled out on grammar books,
hence my asking about them in another thread.

Thank you!

--
I'm so obedient! I'm always after the rules! ;-)

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Dallas Hinton! -> Wayne Harris
I read your message from 04.08.2020 12:22

I don't think it optional but Nesfield disagrees:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

Is this comma always required? If so, who stated and where it is
stated?

It's not always (or even often) required. "But" is a conjunction,
not a conjuctive adverb and therefore the comma should or should
not be there based on context (cf. Fowlers <g>).

Is this rule applicable?

-----Beginning of the citation-----
A comma should be used before these conjunctions: and, but, for, nor,
yet, or, so to separate two independent clauses. They are called
co-ordinating conjunctions

https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/Study_Skills/grammar-and-punctuation/index.html#/id/5eaff0d388d7eb04c5efb44f

or

https://is.gd/Kt92EF
----- The end of the citation -----


Bye, Dallas!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2020

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Alexander -- on Aug 05 2020 at 17:11, you wrote:

Is this rule applicable?

-----Beginning of the citation-----
A comma should be used before these conjunctions: and, but, for, nor,
yet, or, so to separate two independent clauses. They are called co-ordinating conjunctions

https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/Study_Skills/grammar-a nd-punctuation/index.html#/id/5eaff0d388d7eb04c5efb44f

or

https://is.gd/Kt92EF
----- The end of the citation -----

There are a couple of problems here: first, I can't go to either of the
links, as they both come up as possible malware sites (meaning that the
address shown doesn't match the address the site itself reports);
second, technically speaking "so" is not a conjunction (based on Miss
Grundy's teaching of 65 years ago!).

Regardless of it's status, I would opt to rewrite the sentence so as to
avoid the issue. e.g.:

A comma should be used before [are you sure you didn't mean to type
"after"? dh] conjunctions. The term "fanboys" is a mnemonic for the
words for, and, but, or, nor, yet, so, which are used to separate two independent clauses. They are called co-ordinating conjunctions.



Cheers... Dallas

--- timEd/NT 1.30+
* Origin: The BandMaster, Vancouver, CANADA (1:153/7715)

Alexander Koryagin to Anton Shepelev:

Speaking of punctuation, I missed a comma before `but'.

What about "the" before "comma"?

Since the misssing comma is not there and exist only in my
mind, it is too abstract to take the definite article.

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Dallas Hinton to Alexander Koryagin:

https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/Study_Skills/grammar-and-punctuation/index.html#/id/5eaff0d388d7eb04c5efb44f
or
https://is.gd/Kt92EF

There are a couple of problems here: first, I can't go
to either of the links, as they both come up as possible
malware sites (meaning that the address shown doesn't
match the address the site itself reports)

They both of them refer to a benign page at the University
of Bristol. You need not fear. I have just gone thither
and come back alive.

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Anton -- on Aug 07 2020 at 20:09, you wrote:

https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/Study_Skills/grammar-a nd-punctuation/index.html#/id/5eaff0d388d7eb04c5efb44f

or
https://is.gd/Kt92EF

There are a couple of problems here: first, I can't go
to either of the links, as they both come up as possible
malware sites (meaning that the address shown doesn't
match the address the site itself reports)

They both of them refer to a benign page at the University
of Bristol. You need not fear. I have just gone thither
and come back alive.

Malwarebytes is a bit, um, oversensitive, at times! :-)

Cheers... Dallas

--- timEd/NT 1.30+
* Origin: The BandMaster, Vancouver, CANADA (1:153/7715)

Dallas Hinton:

Malwarebytes is a bit, um, oversensitive, at times!

Well, 'tis better to keep the safe side of storm.

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* Origin: nntps://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Wayne! Recently you wrote in a message to Dallas Hinton:

So now I know that /but/ is an adversative conjunction.
That's great.

Ah, I see you've done your homework. I like that... [chuckle].

It seems there is a classification of sentences among
``coordinating sentences'' and ``subordinating sentences''.
Is that correct?

I think you're on the right track. According to my GAGE CANADIAN DICTIONARY conjunctions may be co-ordinating, subordinating, or correlative.


"And", "but", and "or" (e.g.) are co-ordinating conjunctions.
They join elements which are grammatically equal & they don't
suggest any one is more important than another.

"Because", "whereas", and "although" (e.g.) are subordinating
conjunctions. They suggest one idea... the idea not preceded
by the conjunction... is more important than the other. I am
reminded here of a girl I knew in high school who broke a leg
during the Christmas holidays... when, as she confided to me,
she fell down the basement stairs. She let other folks think
she'd had a skiing accident, because the fashionable crowd at
this school liked expen$ive sports. The main ideas here are,
AFAIC, that she broke a leg & others made assumptions.

Correlative conjunctions, such as "(n)either... (n)or" & "not
only... but also" are used in pairs. Some grammarians regard
these as a variety of co-ordinating conjunctions.


Anything which could stand on its own as a sentence... because it includes a subject & predicate... is regarded as a clause when it's combined with similar elements. I reckon that's +/- what you had in mind there. :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

https://xn--80aa6adkgenj.xn--p1ai/
Почему профессионалы выбирают это
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
* Origin: Darkages BBS | darkagesbbs.com (1:19/25)

https://xn--80aa6adkgenj.xn--p1ai/
-f-+-c-|-+-a -+-C-+-a-|-U-U-+-+-+-#-+-i -#-i-#-+-C-#-A-e -i-e-+
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (1:340/7)

Hi, Алексей! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

-f-+-c-|-+-a -+-C-+-a-|-U-U-+-+-+-#-+-i

-#-i-#-+-C-#-A-e -i-e-+ ---

SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
- Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (1:340/7)

I understand what you & others write in English here, regardless of the character set they use. But if you want to write to me in Russian you must understand I know very little of the language & my message editor doesn't allow for the use of Cyrillic characters... so they look like gibberish on my screen.

If you're feeling uncertain about your ability to write in English, I would suggest you give it a try anyway. That's what we're here for.... :-))




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
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Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 07.10.2020 21:52

-#-i-#-+-C-#-A-e -i-e-+ ---

SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
- Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net

(1:340/7 <mailto:Sysop@f7.n340.z1.fidonet.org>➔ <http://nodehist.fidonet.org.ua/?address=1%3A340%2F7>)
I understand what you & others write in English
here, regardless of the character set they use. But if you want to
write to me in Russian you must understand I know very little of the language & my message editor doesn't allow for the use of Cyrillic characters... so they look like gibberish on my screen. If
you're feeling uncertain about your ability to write in English, I
would suggest you give it a try anyway. That's what we're here for....
:-))

I also would recommend be careful when you go the URLs provided by fidonet freaks.

Bye, Ardith Hinton -!
Alexander Koryagin

english_tutor 2020

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