Slashdot Mirror

People, ridicule, religion, because, people, like, you, defend, it, and, sound, like, idiots, saying, stupid, things. Here's, a, little, help, for, you:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu...

Atheism is the absence of belief in a deity. That, by definition, doesn't affirm a deity. So we're back to: religion gets ridiculed because of complete idiots who defend religion with the stupid arguments they put forward.

Passed that grep is slightly incorrect. Jesus didn't speak English, he spoke dinosaurian so his raptor mount could understand him when he said "look out for the damn flood, will you!" It just so happens that English has incorporated all the dinosaurian words into it.... with the obvious exception of the word meaning "huge fucking rock from the sky." That one took centuries to say, leading to an unfortunate side affect.

Fewer what?
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu...

I've always been told it depends on where the period belongs. That is to say if you're quoting an entire sentence (e.g. the end of the quote is the end of a sentence) the period goes inside to denote this, otherwise it goes outside. According to this source, placing the period inside the quote regardless of logic is an "American" thing; though I'm American and follow the logic provided there.

Literally every other source I bothered to look at (all American style guides) say the period (or comma) goes inside the quote unless there is a parenthetical citation, in which case it follows that. After a dozen or so sources, I gave up on trying to find one representing a country other than the US; if anyone can provide me one or more, that would be greatly appreciated.

I would say you need to return to grammar school.

Do you think it happens only in tech?

In this use, "only" is an adverb. Thus it modifies the verb "happens" in the question. Note that the word "only" may appear immediately before or after the verb and still be an adverb. If it appeared before a noun, it would be an adjective describing the noun.
The phrase "in tech" is a prepositional phrase.
See: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams2/one_pager1.htm #16 for other examples.

Hate to disappoint you, but names of vessels are italicised.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu...

Cheers.

makeing so that the car fails or goes into some kind of limited safe mode is successful hack?

Yes, if the goal is just to prove the thing can be hacked.

What if goes into a mode there you need to do a dealer only restore that they will not let anyone do other then the dealer and only after they verify that the owner is there to pick up the car when it is done. and that restore may come with a new $1000+ CPU / ECU with $250+ labor to install it?

OK, first thing - meet your new friend, the comma. Learn to understand one another.

Second, you're moving the goalposts. Stop that.

Third, to restate my point, if the idea is to find a flaw and exploit it, than any result other than "no flaw found/exploited" would be a successful one.

And the one that taught you that the punctuation mark goes outside the quotation marks.

There are global differences:
"Instructors in the U.S. should probably take this into account when reading papers submitted by students who have gone to school in other parts of the globe." stolen from:
        http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu...

I hate being a grammar nazi but, this Stross guy being a writer, I think it's warranted. Lack of mastery in his own craft makes me distrust his research a bit, even if it's a bit of an ad hominem on my part.

to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions, as seen both in TFA and the Slashdot summary, lacks possessives and looks just plain bad.

Bull

The only time that rule is valid is when you are writing for a class and your teacher insists on it.

http://grammarist.com/grammar/conjunctions-to-start-sentences/
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm
http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/conjunctions
http://www.writersrelief.com/blog/2010/01/how-and-when-to-start-a-sentence-with-a-conjunction/
I could keep going for a long time...

Did you make it to fifth grade where they teach you not to use parentheses in a proper sentence?

Apparently you didn't. From a grammar nazi site:

Use parentheses [ ( ) ] to include material that you want to de-emphasize or that wouldn't normally fit into the flow of your text but you want to include nonetheless. If the material within parentheses appears within a sentence, do not use a capital letter or period to punctuate that material, even if the material is itself a complete sentence. (A question mark or exclamation mark, however, might be appropriate and necessary.) If the material within your parentheses is written as a separate sentence (not included within another sentence), punctuate it as if it were a separate sentence.

Thirty-five years after his death, Robert Frost (we remember him at Kennedy's inauguration) remains America's favorite poet.

Thirty-five years after his death, Robert Frost (do you remember him?) remains America's favorite poet.

Thirty-five years after his death, Robert Frost remains America's favorite poet. (We remember him at Kennedy's inauguration.)
If the material is important enough, use some other means of including it within your text—even if it means writing another sentence. Note that parentheses tend to de-emphasize text whereas dashes tend to make material seem even more important.

Is the rule where you don't use parentheses in a proper sentence in the same rulebook where you use an apostrophe to denote a plural, such as "radish's for sale"? Tell me, your ignorance, if you don't use parentheses in a proper sentence, where, exactly, DO you use them?

Sheesh.

When you refuse to pay for movies, you're casting a vote against fun, big-budget movies that are made for the purpose of getting lots of people to come see them and enjoy them, and instead voting in favor of excruciatingly boring low-budget films that are made primarily so that the director could whine that the cheese-puff-snarfing American public wouldn't know great art if it bit them on their big bloated behind and subsequently didn't even buy enough tickets for the director to pay off the lien he took out on his Honda Civic to get the movie produced.

Firstly, this.

Secondly, I'm casting a vote against not being able to use the media I purchased in the manner I want, on whatever device I want for as long as I want.

I buy DVDs (okay, usually on sale) and rip them, because all of the legal digital versions available suck lame sauce in terms of DRM crap. If I'm feeling too lazy to rip it myself, I have no compunctions about grabbing a torrent.

In conclusion, I would like to refer you to this handy illustrated guide.

Oh, and this one too.

Why do you feel entitled to other people's stuff because they wont license it to you on your terms? Why not refuse to pay AND refuse to watch it, that's a crazy idea right?

To me this sounds a lot like a land owner offering to let you hunt on his land with an exception - only if you do not drive motorized vehicles over it - and then your response being to plow through it with ATVs doing whatever the hell you want without compensation because "he didn't let me do what I want", "it's not stealing", or "it doesn't cost him anything so it should be free".

When you refuse to pay for movies, you're casting a vote against fun, big-budget movies that are made for the purpose of getting lots of people to come see them and enjoy them, and instead voting in favor of excruciatingly boring low-budget films that are made primarily so that the director could whine that the cheese-puff-snarfing American public wouldn't know great art if it bit them on their big bloated behind and subsequently didn't even buy enough tickets for the director to pay off the lien he took out on his Honda Civic to get the movie produced.

Firstly, this.

Secondly, I'm casting a vote against not being able to use the media I purchased in the manner I want, on whatever device I want for as long as I want.

I buy DVDs (okay, usually on sale) and rip them, because all of the legal digital versions available suck lame sauce in terms of DRM crap. If I'm feeling too lazy to rip it myself, I have no compunctions about grabbing a torrent.

In conclusion, I would like to refer you to this handy illustrated guide.

Oh, and this one too.

No, he had it right.
'nor' is used as an 'or' of a negation.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm
Look up the line ">It can be used with other negative expressions:"

Let's hope that this time you're telling the truth when you say that.

By the way, here's some actual cites showing that you're wrong. Notice how you don't have to read every second letter of a Wikipedia cite on a Tuesday to understand what they're trying to say:

http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic14784.html - "To form the plural of a lowercase letter, place 's after the letter."

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/communications/style-guide/editorial - "A's and B's: When referring to grades, use apostrophes"

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/apostrophe.htm - "An apostrophe is also used to form some plurals, especially the plural of letters and digits"

But let me guess, these cites are worse than your numerological reading of the citations to a Wikipedia article that explicitly contradicts you. Question: Is your inability to admit that you're wrong evidence of some sort of psychological issue?

That's not a run-on sentence. It's just way too long.

"Attorneys General" is correct. This is because English is f'd up.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/compounds.htm

Really? I thought it was " Jobs' " was the correct possessive (example) of anything ending in "s".

[facepalm] How do people get through elementary school without learning this? That form is correct only for *plurals* ending in "s". The possessive of Jobs is indeed Jobs's. The possessive of lawyers is lawyers'. An exception is made for words ending in a "z" sound, as that is rather hard to pronounce.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm It appears the first rule is consistency. I agree with the apostrophe "s" for names ending in "s", as that is how their are pronounced, and like a good descriptive linguist, I ascribe to following the actual speech rather than arbitrary rules. However, the arbitrary rules (the same ones that dictate the spelling "mnemonic") are such as they are.

As another note, what exception are you even talking about in this matter for words ending in a "z" sound? "Lawyers" ends in a /z/, "Hippos" ends in a /z/, "Leaves" ends in a /z/, "Dads" ends in a /z/. Yet, "Laughs" ends in /s/, "Hats" ends in /s/. In fact, the only words that end in /s/ instead of /z/ in the regular plural, and singular possessive are those that end in an unvoiced plosive.

Seriously, WTF is wrong with people's grammar these days? Collective nouns such as company names are almost ALWAYS considered to be singular. Yet I have seen a rash of idiotic grammatical errors due to someone trying to be cute and different with subject-verb agreement.

Look it up.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm
(under "Collective Nouns, Company Names, Family Names, Sports Teams")

So just in case you could not figure out the proper subject-verb agreement, it is "Apple is..." in your last sentence.

Let me help you with that post

Seriously, though informative, it was painful to read.

Actually - technically this is not a run-on sentence, although it probably could be formed better. Counting the number of 'ands' is a good benchmark, but isn't a hard and fast rule. Most importantly, none of the "ands" in this sentence serve as strict conjunctions between two sentences or independent clauses - they all serve to group elements together or enumerate a list which form one clause.

To illustrate, if we simply remove "and consulting" and "and support" from the sentence, and then add "and" where it should be to properly complete the list, we have something that is more legible:

It's like creating a world-spanning network with submarine cables, microwave links, fiber-optic everything, satellite dishes, protocols out the wazoo, billions of lines of code, huge multinational telecommunications companies to service it, and employing tens of millions in highly skilled work...just to look at some big titties.

Also, run-on sentences can exist without using the word 'and' at all. Example (courtesy of http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/runons.htm ):

The sun is high, put on some sunblock.

The important aspect of a "true" run on sentence is that it combines two independent clauses (The sun is high) and (Put on some sunblock), but does not resolve the "jump" between the two. In this simple example correcting the error is easy - just add "and". However, in most run-on sentences that overuse "and", more than just "and" is needed to resolve the differences between the two or more clauses. Unless your a serious writer, its often more practical to simply split the clauses into two stand-alone sentences, bridged with a transitional sentence; hence the common practice of counting up "ands" and splitting the sentence up if there are two or more.

I think its interesting to note, perhaps as a result of this practice, that "Run-on" sentence is probably the most-often falsely cried grammar error. It seems to be the de-facto standard for people who realize that a sentence is incorrectly written, but can't vocalize why.

For that, your second example of "He was a flying and purple and people eater." correctly conveys meaning.

It's grammatically incorrect. "He was a people eater" is fine, but you wouldn't say "He was a flying" or "He was a purple". For the "and" to be used correctly, all the statements must stand individually as phrased.

Most of this comes from the fact that you took it out of context. I was modifying the sentence fragment, whilst you are trying to apply full sentence semantics.

Um, not really. It's not a fragment. It has all the parts a sentence ought: a subject (he), a predicate (was), and an object (eater). It is, of course, longer if you add the bit about being one-eyed and one-horned, but it's definitely a sentence as it stands. One-eyed, one-horned, and flying would be diagrammed under "he" because they describe him; purple people would be diagrammed under "eater" because they describe what he ate.

The use of a comma does not mean 'do a dumb replacement with the preceding words into fragments'. "He was a purple"? You're just trying to be silly.

Yes it does (for lists, at least). Google "comma usage". I just did and this was the first hit... check rule 5 if you don't believe me.

"He was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people eater."

Per the rules of comma usage for coordinate adjectives (e.g. lists), the statements must stand on their own:

He was a one-eyed. He was a one-horned. He was a flying. He was a purple people eater.

Not only is the last statement still ambiguous, the other three aren't even grammatically correct. This form, although at least you're probably correct in assuming most people will correctly interpret it, is still grammatically incorrect.

To sum it up, my final rendition from my last post is the best way to phrase that statement that I've seen yet on this thread.

Maybe the submitter doesn't understand the word partisan,...

Another interpretation is that a poster on the internet does not understand quotation marks.

Dude, at least acknowledge the original you borrowed this from (maybe Mark Twain, most likely M.J. Yilz). http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm

The full stop in your final sentence should follow the closing speech marks.

Both /. and this writer are located in the U.S., where this is the correct grammar.

An apostrophe is also used to form some plurals, especially the plural of letters and digits.

> While I fully agree that the rules of English are screwed up, you need to put your trailing comma before the closing quote

That's the rule for American English. British English is often more logical.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quota tion.htm
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/writing-style.html

What are you trying to say here?

That National Health care is always a failure? Most of Europe is laughing at that idea.

That Venezuela is a communist? Nope, a democracy whose current democratically elected leader is Socialist. If he doesn't deliver, the people could vote him out.

PS: the quotes around "quality control" in your post are grammatically incorrect. See http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quota tion.htm

• http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=49 9296
• http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm #word_as_word
• http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/style_manual /a.html#acronym_plural

• The pronoun which refers to things; who (and its forms) refers to people; that usually refers to things, but it can also refer to people in a general kind of way.

Except, you know, my citation tends to show the original had no mistakes. :-)

I can still read ancient Greek and Arabic poetry but I can't play Master's of Orion

(Emphasis mine.) You can read ancient Greek and Arabic, but you misuse possessive form in English? I don't know, that seems counter-intuitive to me. (By the way, isn't it Master of Orion anyway?)

I guess when the lexer sees an apostrophe, it must mean: here comes an “s”!

Funny how Microsoft say...

1. "Microsoft" is not plural. "Microsoft says..." If there were more than one Microsoft (and they all agreed), you could say "Microsofts say..."
2. Sentences don't start with predicates. "It is funny how..."

Use of a period instead of a question mark.
That is a sentence fragment.

Poster was writing informally as one who is listing items. Correct usage, despite not being formal — but then again, this is not a dissertation.

Use of the aging term "Micro$oft."
Use of the aging term "Micro$oft". (Note location of period.)

Poster's original positioning of the full stop is correct in formal American English. Reference is available here. I'm not American, I've just come across this often enough to wonder what the deal with that is.

And a poorly constructed sentence that uses "it's" instead of "its."
That's another sentence fragment, and you misplaced the period a second time.

Both assertions are still wrong for the reasons listed above.

Why is there a story about grammar on a site whose editors can't understand the difference between "its" and "it's"?

Nope, not in this example. Any professional writer would leave it outside. I think you're overgeneralizing -- American English does override the logical placement for commas and periods, but other punctuation marks like ? and ) are always left in their logical position, which may be either before or after the close-quote.

Source if you need one: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/quotation .htm

That sentence has all the punctuation it needs.

If you're going to be pedantic, you'd better be more precise. The comma isn't always required when using "and" to connect two independent clauses. It's usually preferable, but your statement that it's required is incorrect.

Those who live by the grammatical assertion die by the grammatical assertion.

Refer to section 2 here.

I hope you're not an English teacher. If you are, I hope you don't preach your nonsense with the authority you feign here.

I hate to be critical. That being said, when a post discusses grammar and contains a glaring error, I have to respond. The use of "there's" and "there are" is incorrect. I am sure just a typo, but if you are going to nitpick, then nitpick without commiting the same type of sins. Just in case it wasn't a typo, here is a link discussing subject verb agreement. http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/sv_agr.htm

According to this web-site, using periods inside quotation marks in defiance of logic is an American thing. Canadians and Brits only put the periods (and similar punctuation) inside quotation marks where it makes sense. E.g., for the GP post the period makes sense outside of the quotation marks. However, consider this sentence:
You said, "They're in the queue, directly behind people who don't put periods inside quotation marks."
Here it makes sense to have the period inside the quotation marks.

It should also be pointed out that many Americans (myself included) follow the Canadian and British style.

Quiz time

Gramer, spling and typink skilz are far overated intodays internet age. basicly if you cn reed what is typd then it iz gud enuf. Much better then wasteing our time lerning a bunch of stuf we dont need no more.

Even grate skolers have known this for yeers as u can see:

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm

I attended catholic school, and in 8th grade (circa 1992), we were diagramming sentences. I haven't met a single other person under 50 that has even heard of such a thing.

The point is that most people have very poor grammar, even if they think they're just fine.

For the curious, here's the first link I found on Google.

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams2/diagr ams2.stm

Yeah, I know. And 'weird is weird'. But I call bullshit on your always put the period/comma inside the end quotes - it's an Americanism, doesn't make any sense, and I won't do it.

Sloppyjoes7, you are right.

/. is a community of nerds. We are supposed to be the intellectual superiors, and we can't even use commas right. And for those who previously argued against me, I suggest you double check your proper grammar rules.
Reference 1
Reference 2
Reference 3

Point being. I am a nerd, and therefore I am Intellectually Superior. Therefore I will obey the rules of C++, Grammar, and Mathematics (in that order).

So you're really smart, h'uh.

I didn't know that until now, either. For more info: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/sv_agr.htm

Since I do not wish to be a moron, perhaps you can tell me which of these usage rules covers the comma usage above. Or perhaps you have your own link you could share.

Great link!
I admit I was distracted by the present progressive in my thinking.
English grammar--here to make Perl look consistent...

I may have picked the wrong week to stop <verb> <noun>.

I think you mean <gerund noun> <noun> (e.g., smoking crack)

gerunds

I am not usually one to point out grammatical errors, but. ... When using an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, "the ellipsis will be placed after the period, making a total of four dots".

See http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/ellipsis. htm

P.S. Does anyone else like to put their periods outside of quotes because it seems mismatched otherwise? In other words, [sentence]blah is [quote]blah[/sentence][/quote] doesn't seem right. I do that as well. I read somewhere that the only reason that punctuation marks were placed inside quotation marks was because of some issue with the metal typefacing of olde... okay, I found the link here. I guess that, deep down, I'm not American grammatically.

Apple is an organization, and therefore should be referred to as a singular entity, not as a group of people. Therefore, it is acknowledging its influence. The crowd on /. (especially story submitters) has been propagating this gramatical problem long enough! Also, Sony is an organization, and so is Microsoft.

I found this link for more info: Plural Noun Forms