See? Even the Fug Girls get the fact that bad punctuation confuses meaning.
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Archive for the ‘Punctuation nightmares’ Category
Fugly punctuation (or lack thereof)
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
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Test your proofreading skills
Monday, October 13th, 2008
Tags: Proofreading, Proofreading Editing Test, Proofreading Test
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NY Times: Celebrating the Semicolon
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
The relevant sentence: “Please put it [your newspaper] in a trash can; that’s good news for everyone.”
The use of a semicolon in this instance is indeed correct, but I would prefer a period or an em dash. Either would add more punch to the final phrase.
And Allan M. Siegal, longtime arbiter of NYT style, is quoted as arguing for a colon: “The semicolon is correct, though I’d have used a colon, which I think would be a bit more sophisticated in that sentence.â€
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Which versus That
Friday, June 29th, 2007
Just ran across a nice summary of when to use which and when to use that … which I always find hard to explain. From the Dayton PRSA website:
The difference between “that†and “which†can be vague until you get the hang of it. “Which†sets off parenthetical information — stuff that can be lifted right out of the sentence without changing the sentence’s main point. “That†introduces information essential to the main point of the sentence. “The press conference, which will be held at 2 p.m., will include a question-and-answer session.†“A company that listens to its customers will succeed.â€
Thinking of which clauses as parenthetical information — bracketed by commas, rather than parentheses — is a nice way of explaining this distinction. And we didn’t even have to use the words restrictive and nonrestrictive, which tend to make non-editors’ eyes glaze over …
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National Punctuation Day
Monday, August 28th, 2006
Well, it’s hardly a national holiday … but perhaps a few people out there will be celebrating National Punctuation Day on September 24.
Be sure to check out the photos of punctuation gaffes displayed on the event site.
Posted in Punctuation nightmares | 1 comment »
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