Posted by Stealth on Tuesday February 9, 2010 @ 03:49pm
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I ain't to proud to admit that I learned something new!

Posted by unicron on Thursday February 11, 2010 @ 09:52am
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I ain't to proud to admit that I learned something new!

Time will tell if you retain this information for any length of time.

Posted by voltaic on Wednesday February 3, 2010 @ 12:58pm
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Punctuation is definitely more flexible than grammar, syntax, and spelling. Some languages (Thai comes to mind) don't even use punctuation.

I use punctuation as a way to be more careful about structuring thoughts together. For me, a sentence represents a complete thought. Sometimes that thought has multiple parts though, each of which are built as a "complete sentence"; in that case, I use a semi-colon to tie the two complete sentences together into one thought. It allows me to write simpler sentences instead of building crazy predicates and subordinate clauses and shit. Then I string a bunch of sentence thoughts together into a paragraph, which for me is a way to wrap together related thoughts.

I use more commas than some, but not egregiously. For example, when I list things like in the first sentence of this post, I use a comma before the "and" even though this is unconventional. The argument is that sometimes you put the comma there for clarity, so I figure it's best to always try and be clear! :) I also use them when stringing together clauses into a single sentence thought, such as in this sentence.

Apostrophes are a horrible challenge for many English speakers nowadays though, and I don't know why. Apostrophes are very, very simple. Are you making a single word into a plural, e.g. "book" into "books"? Then keep your goddamn hand off the goddamn apostrophe you goddamn nitwit. I suppose apostrophe confusion is why people have so much trouble with contractions as well. I mean, I don't get why the words "you" and "are" become a serious challenge when combined into "you're". Perhaps people are so busy using apostrophes on plurals that they run out when "you're" comes up, so they type "your" instead.

Posted by Krux on Wednesday February 3, 2010 @ 02:42pm
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Punctuation is definitely more flexible than grammar, syntax, and spelling. Some languages (Thai comes to mind) don't even use punctuation.

I use punctuation as a way to be more careful about structuring thoughts together. For me, a sentence represents a complete thought. Sometimes that thought has multiple parts though, each of which are built as a "complete sentence"; in that case, I use a semi-colon to tie the two complete sentences together into one thought. It allows me to write simpler sentences instead of building crazy predicates and subordinate clauses and shit. Then I string a bunch of sentence thoughts together into a paragraph, which for me is a way to wrap together related thoughts.

I pretty much never use the semicolon. Well that's not quite true. I use it a lot when programming, but I don't think I've ever used it in a sentence.

I use more commas than some, but not egregiously. For example, when I list things like in the first sentence of this post, I use a comma before the "and" even though this is unconventional. The argument is that sometimes you put the comma there for clarity, so I figure it's best to always try and be clear! :) I also use them when stringing together clauses into a single sentence thought, such as in this sentence.

I always tend to put a comma before the "and" as well, since that's how it was ingrained in me back in high school. I also use two spaces after sentences, even though, with the advent of HTML and ignoring extra white space, the practice has been phased out in favor of a single space. Morgan who was the paper/thesis writing machine in college use to always yell at me for using two spaces at the end of sentences. I've been doing so for years though, so I doubt there is any changing for me.

Apostrophes are a horrible challenge for many English speakers nowadays though, and I don't know why. Apostrophes are very, very simple. Are you making a single word into a plural, e.g. "book" into "books"? Then keep your goddamn hand off the goddamn apostrophe you goddamn nitwit. I suppose apostrophe confusion is why people have so much trouble with contractions as well. I mean, I don't get why the words "you" and "are" become a serious challenge when combined into "you're". Perhaps people are so busy using apostrophes on plurals that they run out when "you're" comes up, so they type "your" instead.

Yea that annoys me greatly. The whole "it's" and "its" thing as well. I mean it's simple. Use "its" for a possessive... i.e. "The dog wagged its tail." And use "it's" when you mean "it is". The next time I see someone type " its' " I swear I'm going to go into a murderous rage, since there is no god damned plural of "IT".

Posted by Caliber on Wednesday February 3, 2010 @ 05:55pm
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Punctuation is definitely more flexible than grammar, syntax, and spelling. Some languages (Thai comes to mind) don't even use punctuation.

I use punctuation as a way to be more careful about structuring thoughts together. For me, a sentence represents a complete thought. Sometimes that thought has multiple parts though, each of which are built as a "complete sentence"; in that case, I use a semi-colon to tie the two complete sentences together into one thought. It allows me to write simpler sentences instead of building crazy predicates and subordinate clauses and shit. Then I string a bunch of sentence thoughts together into a paragraph, which for me is a way to wrap together related thoughts.

I pretty much never use the semicolon. Well that's not quite true. I use it a lot when programming, but I don't think I've ever used it in a sentence.

;)

I use more commas than some, but not egregiously. For example, when I list things like in the first sentence of this post, I use a comma before the "and" even though this is unconventional. The argument is that sometimes you put the comma there for clarity, so I figure it's best to always try and be clear! :) I also use them when stringing together clauses into a single sentence thought, such as in this sentence.

I always tend to put a comma before the "and" as well, since that's how it was ingrained in me back in high school. I also use two spaces after sentences, even though, with the advent of HTML and ignoring extra white space, the practice has been phased out in favor of a single space. Morgan who was the paper/thesis writing machine in college use to always yell at me for using two spaces at the end of sentences. I've been doing so for years though, so I doubt there is any changing for me.

I can't stand the double space sentence enders... I hate you.

Apostrophes are a horrible challenge for many English speakers nowadays though, and I don't know why. Apostrophes are very, very simple. Are you making a single word into a plural, e.g. "book" into "books"? Then keep your goddamn hand off the goddamn apostrophe you goddamn nitwit. I suppose apostrophe confusion is why people have so much trouble with contractions as well. I mean, I don't get why the words "you" and "are" become a serious challenge when combined into "you're". Perhaps people are so busy using apostrophes on plurals that they run out when "you're" comes up, so they type "your" instead.

Yea that annoys me greatly. The whole "it's" and "its" thing as well. I mean it's simple. Use "its" for a possessive... i.e. "The dog wagged its tail." And use "it's" when you mean "it is". The next time I see someone type " its' " I swear I'm going to go into a murderous rage, since there is no god damned plural of "IT".

Bullshit, I saw like 40 its at wal-mart the other day

Posted by formatc on Monday February 8, 2010 @ 02:21pm
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Bullshit, I saw like 40 its at wal-mart the other day

There is no hyphen in Walmart any more. Additionally, there is the whole i before e, except after c, except...(this is where I begin to doze off and think about porn).

Posted by Krux on Monday February 8, 2010 @ 09:12pm
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Bullshit, I saw like 40 its at wal-mart the other day

There is no hyphen in Walmart any more. Additionally, there is the whole i before e, except after c, except...(this is where I begin to doze off and think about porn).

Whatever Wa-lmart b0y.

Posted by voltaic on Friday February 5, 2010 @ 07:27am
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The next time I see someone type " its' " I swear I'm going to go into a murderous rage, since there is no god damned plural of "IT".

Bullshit, I saw like 40 its at wal-mart the other day

Truth. The first thing I thought when I read that was that Krux had lost his flippin' mind! Although I have to agree that it is pretty difficult to think of a sentence in which it would be correct to use the word " its' ".

Posted by Caliber on Friday February 5, 2010 @ 04:38pm
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The next time I see someone type " its' " I swear I'm going to go into a murderous rage, since there is no god damned plural of "IT".

Bullshit, I saw like 40 its at wal-mart the other day

Truth. The first thing I thought when I read that was that Krux had lost his flippin' mind! Although I have to agree that it is pretty difficult to think of a sentence in which it would be correct to use the word " its' ".

I think it really only works with the colloquial use of "it" as a noun denoting a living or animate thing that is neither male or female (as in the example above). I can't think of an outside example

Posted by Krux on Friday February 5, 2010 @ 06:20pm
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The next time I see someone type " its' " I swear I'm going to go into a murderous rage, since there is no god damned plural of "IT".

Bullshit, I saw like 40 its at wal-mart the other day

Truth. The first thing I thought when I read that was that Krux had lost his flippin' mind! Although I have to agree that it is pretty difficult to think of a sentence in which it would be correct to use the word " its' ".

I think it really only works with the colloquial use of "it" as a noun denoting a living or animate thing that is neither male or female (as in the example above). I can't think of an outside example

If you have more than one "it" you use the words "they", "them", or "those", depending on the context.. If you want to use a possessive to describe multiple items you could use "their", such as "put them in their carrier." But I don't think you can use a single word to imply ownership of something by multiple "it"s.

Posted by Caliber on Friday February 5, 2010 @ 06:29pm
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If you have more than one "it" you use the words "they", "them", or "those", depending on the context.. If you want to use a possessive to describe multiple items you could use "their", such as "put them in their carrier." But I don't think you can use a single word to imply ownership of something by multiple "it"s.

maybe in your crazy moon language... but for me, when I see two mustached behemoths walking hand in hand through the dollar store, I'm all like "look at those two its..." not "I'm sure they are well adjusted individuals with good jobs"

Of course, this implies I would be at a dollar store, which I wouldn't be. Not because dollar stores are inherently bad, but because you would find its wondering the place like displaced buffalo