I'm not so bothered about dangling participles.

What pains me most are split infinitives!

PUEROS

pueros wrote: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:22 am I'm not so bothered about dangling participles.

What pains me most are split infinitives!

PUEROS

I confess that my personality is infinitely split.

Also, my participles have been known to dangle.

With the good feeback, I can try better to keep things together and tucked in.

- CB

P.S. to Pueros: You have set the language bar so high with your own tomes, I can admire but never emulate. Forgive the lowly mortals we be. Si vous plais.

Second P.S. Reminded of a joke: Smart bumpkin gets into Harvard, is looking for the library. "Where's the library at?" he asks a tweed-clad passer-by. "My fresh friend, at Harvard we do not end our sentences with prepositions," the prof warned. The frosh answered with correction, "Where's the library at, asshole?"

Third P.S. The joke was not intended as a dis. I sincerely thank all for their pre-post comments on my story. And, I am truly honored that the Great Pueros weighed in on the subject. I'd say it in Latin if I could.

Classy bitch:-

Grates persolvere!

PUEROS

First, a question: What is the font used for the majority of the stories?

Then I was surprised that no other poster had mentioned my pet peeve, that being "your" and "you're".

Is that your car?

You're the greatest.

Drives me insane when people get that wrong. The other is "accept" and "except".

I accept this award.

Everyone had an award, except me.

Thanks in advance,

Elizabeth

pueros wrote: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:22 am I'm not so bothered about dangling participles.

What pains me most are split infinitives!

PUEROS

In that case, Pueros (why accusative plural?) I have a problem for you. The author is Beatrix Potter, no less.

The text is, "To partly close up the front door". The sense of this is "to make the front door smaller".

If you move "partly" anywhere else you run into a nonsense situation, with "partly" leading to alternatives we don't want: viz (or videlicet)

1) Partly to close up the front door and partly to improve the view from the parlour windows

2) To close up partly the front door, and partly the side door into the garden

This I know is a very pedantic argument when I'd much rather be reviewing a mediaeval MS titled "De testibus puerorum exsectendis, quo cantent ut angeli".

C van D

I have often wondered, CD, if it is common in UK writing to omit the period after a title? I have seen this a lot in your stories.

"Mr. Trefusis said not to." - note the period after 'Mr'

"Mr Trefusis said not to." - your works.

Is that correct?

I noticed that in a recent story, the author used an apostrophe "s" ('s) for plurals. He did it with almost all the plurals.

I also noticed that he usually had no spaces after the period ending the sentence. When I took typing class many years ago, I was taught to use two spaces after the period. I have read that one period is acceptable.

There were also several run on sentences.

If I were in charge of the stories, I think I would have told the writer to correct the errors and resubmit the story. Do you ever tell writers to resubmit? If you do, what happens? Do they fix some of the errors and resubmit or do you never hear from them again?

curious_guy (imported) wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2010 2:54 pm If I were in charge of the stories, I think I would have told the writer to correct the errors and resubmit the story. Do you ever tell writers to resubmit? If you do, what happens? Do they fix some of the errors and resubmit or do you never hear from them again?

You're always welcome to pitch in and be a story reader... About half of what is submitted never makes it even partly past the front door. Poor grammar, no spell checking, off topic, name the issue. Many times it is just a short conglomeration of run on sentences spewed while spanking the monkey. Good thing the splotches can't get submitted....

Send Paolo a message when you are ready to be a reader.

Most of the time, it's either post or trash. If it's generally readable, it's accepted. If I sent an email to all those that get trashed, I'd never get anything else done.

C van D (imported) wrote: Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:27 am In that case, Pueros (why accusative plural?) I have a problem for you. The author is Beatrix Potter, no less.

The text is, "To partly close up the front door". The sense of this is "to make the front door smaller".

If you move "partly" anywhere else you run into a nonsense situation, with "partly" leading to alternatives we don't want: viz (or videlicet)

1) Partly to close up the front door and partly to improve the view from the parlour windows

2) To close up partly the front door, and partly the side door into the garden

This I know is a very pedantic argument when I'd much rather be reviewing a mediaeval MS titled "De testibus puerorum exsectendis, quo cantent ut angeli".

C van D

Of split infinitives, Fowler, Modern English Usage, Oxford University Press, p. 579-80, says: "The English-speaking world may be divided into 1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is 2) those who do not know, but care very much, 3 those who know and condemn, 4) those who know and approve, and 5) those who know and distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes ..."

Fowler also observes that the prohibition against ending sentences in prepositions is a superstition.

It would have to be a very corrupt manuscript indeed for an illiterate scribe to so mutilate De exsecando testes puerorum ut angeli cantent. Imagine getting the subjunctive right but putting a gerund in the plural as if it were a gerundive even though it is the object of a preposition! If the scribe took such liberties with the title, what must the contents be like?