26 Reply by ronald quark (edited by ronald quark 2015-10-24 11:41:20)

Re: Punctuation

Simon Morris wrote:

Punctuate this so that it makes sense:

That that is is that that is not is not.

It makes perfect sense without any punctuation because it utilizes two defining clauses. If you used "which," it would need some commas; clauses with "that," (i.e., defining clauses) do not. In this sentence the subject is "That that is" the verb is "is" and the complement is "that that is not." It's a simple as that.

Quote Post 26

27 Reply by ronald quark (edited by ronald quark 2015-10-24 12:20:32)

Re: Punctuation

I think what you were going for, btw, Simon, is "That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is," which does need punctuation. Right? In that case, the traditional punctuation is:

That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is.

In my opinion, however, it is not grammatical to put a comma before be for the reason stated in my post above. I believe it is only done because of the repetition of the verb. Normally a comma never follows the subject of sentence, even when the subject is a defining clause. For example:

"I, am." is quite odd while "I am." looks quite normal.

So I would punctuate the above conundrum like this:

That that is is. That that is not is not. Is that it? It is.

All the same, it is probably easier to understand with the extra commas.

Quote Post 27

28 Reply by njc (edited by njc 2015-10-24 19:09:16)

Re: Punctuation

Normally a comma never follows the subject of sentence, even when the subject is a defining clause.

Unless the subject is followed by an appositive or by a word or phrase surrounded by parenthetical commas.

Quote Post 28

Re: Punctuation

Simon Morris wrote:

Punctuate this so that it makes sense:

That that is is that that is not is not.

That that is, is; that that is not, is not.
I just love how a simple look at something about grammar can cause such a stir. Technically, to make your sentence MORE correct, it should be:

That, which is, is; that, which is not, is not.

Let's see how long it takes for someone to be offended by this one.

Quote Post 29

30 Reply by Charles_F_Bell (edited by Charles_F_Bell 2015-10-24 23:16:50)

Re: Punctuation

Memphis Trace wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:
Memphis Trace wrote:

First, apostrophes are redundant.

Second, they are wasteful. Tremendous amounts of money are spent every year by businesses on proof readers, part of whose job is to put apostrophes in the 'correct' place

Third, they are just one more tool of snobbery.

Fourth, current technology (text messaging in particular) makes it time consuming to use them. Why give ourselves this stress when itll make no difference anyway?

Fifth, they actually impede communication and understanding. Since so many people these days arent certain about how apostrophes work semantically its hardly going to help even if a proof-reader puts them all in the 'correct' places in some text.

Sixth, they are a distraction for otherwise reasonable and intelligent people.

[1] - [5] ludicrous argument for anything given always by bad spellers. Maybe you are joking about all this?

[6] The apostrophe for contractions is like the abbreviation for a full name and thus a tacit acknowledgement there are real words behind: F.B.I, of course, means Female Body Inspector. Going down the slippery slope to youre from you're goes on down to ur with no trace of proper English and the beginnings of an argument of why have proper English anyway.

Adjectivizing the arguments to ban the apostrophe with your pejorative ludicrous serves your argument to retain them, how?

"Proper" English is ever advancing as a tool for efficient communication. Make your case against the arguments presented by the "Ban the Apostrophe" folks. Labeling their arguments ludicrous and then talking about a slippery slope makes you look stodgy and foolish.

Two or three years ago, I read a book (On Agate Hill by Lee Smith) in which she used no apostrophes in the narrative POV of a bright, young woman who was being taught to write.

And Flowers For Algernon begins with atrocious spellings; Catch-22 often has absurdities. So what? That is affected style for a determinate purpose.   

I'm afraid I have no idea what "adjectivizing the argument" means in this context. The subject can be subsumed under  reformation of English spelling, and no one, other than a Twitter moron, has suggested that English spelling reform means "later" as "l8r" and is so much a matter of not wasting time imprinting those extra two characters in proper English. That is what I mean by a suggestion which is absolutely fu*king ludicrous.

Spelling by its nature must be a fixed and conservative process. The reason why English has so inconsistent/illogical spelling is because it came up without czars at any point to fix it, like Martin Luther for German and Cyril (and literally a Czar in Peter the Great) for Russian.

Contrary to the assertion Five above, changing spelling by top-down edict so long after the 99+% illerate Middle Ages will cause confusion in the rules for spelling -- to a degree even irrationally, as for the simplest reforms like jail for gaol and color for colour with adding hundreds of homonyms like we'll to well and wheel (for good measure as a new heterograph and homonym). Having different spellings, meanings, and sound for every word is the least confusing so that we'll is completely different than wheel and wheel and well. By far, knowing we'll stands for we will like FBI stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation is better than adding well/ we will as a homograph to well/ good health/ deep hole/ &c..

Quote Post 30

Re: Punctuation

corra wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Going down the slippery slope to youre from you're goes on down to ur with no trace of proper English and the beginnings of an argument of why have proper English anyway.

There is no such thing as "proper English."

Yes, there is.  Even U.K./Commonwealth English, that is to say, English English, is improper English ;-)

Quote Post 31

32 Reply by Dill Carver (edited by Dill Carver 2015-10-25 01:47:06)

Re: Punctuation

How would you punctuate this?

A long sentence from Virginia Woolf. She is notorious for them. Okay, we can use a Google search to reach the original; but without reference to her published version, where would you place the punctuation here? Would you retain it as one long sentence?

Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm chair and confuse his Rinse the Mouth rinse the mouth with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us when we think of this as we are frequently forced to think of it it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature

Quote Post 32

Re: Punctuation

Dill Carver wrote:

How would you punctuate this?

A long sentence from Virginia Woolf. She is notorious for them. Okay, we can use a Google search to reach the original; but without reference to her published version, where would you place the punctuation here? Would you retain it as one long sentence?

Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm chair and confuse his Rinse the Mouth rinse the mouth with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us when we think of this as we are frequently forced to think of it it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature

I'm not even close to be up on proper punctuation, but I would leave it as one long sentence (I like those at times) and throw in a few commas as follows:

Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers, when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm chair and confuse his Rinse the Mouth rinse the mouth with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us, when we think of this as we are frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.

Makes sense to me anyway as it rambles between the ears. I suppose you could throw in a semi-colon or dash or such at some point to reduce the monotony of the commas, but it wouldn't make it any clearer imo. Take care. Vern

Quote Post 33

Re: Punctuation

Dill Carver wrote:

How would you punctuate this?

A long sentence from Virginia Woolf. She is notorious for them. Okay, we can use a Google search to reach the original; but without reference to her published version, where would you place the punctuation here? Would you retain it as one long sentence?

Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm chair and confuse his Rinse the Mouth rinse the mouth with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us when we think of this as we are frequently forced to think of it it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature

A full stop after literature and something on the order of quotes, boldface, or italics around Rinse the Mouth but not necessarily so because the caps take care of that.

The how's what's and when's are a kind of punctuation.

Funny thing about long and complex sentences is that punctuation does not mollify the rubes who do not like them.

Quote Post 34

35 Reply by njc

Re: Punctuation

I'm guessing that VW used nothing but the final period--and that she even begrudged the need for the period.

Quote Post 35

36 Reply by Charles_F_Bell (edited by Charles_F_Bell 2015-10-25 09:47:21)

Re: Punctuation

Memphis Trace wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:
Memphis Trace wrote:

If without is an adverb meaning outside,

highly archaic, so any efficiency gained made by leaving out words is lost by lack of understanding by vast numbers of English speakers. Also, again ordinarily, the two parts of a semicolon sentence require connection, and a woman being outside and a man being nothing has a weird, unfathomable connection.

Without meaning outside is not archaic, let alone archaic. See definitions 4-10: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/without?s=t  Where do you get your "vast numbers of English speakers" would not understand using without to mean outside? Imposing your limited understanding of the language, can only serve to keep you wallowing in the archives.

How is the woman being outside and the man being nothing, either weird or unfathomable in the context I presented? To wit: Minnie went somewhere with her girlfriends for a night out; Riley stayed home and can't even find the fixins for a sammich.

Memphis Trace

Cite and quote any such like "the woman is without" after the 18th century in which without  is an adverb. Okay, I'll give you one from Dickens: "Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag..."  and we can guess together just how many good readers will not pause to think that actually does not mean the poor guy had no door behind which to stand. It is weird to any good reader and unfathomable to the barely literate --- today's average college student --- and your example inserts from nowhere a whole panoply of external information to decypher "The woman is without, and her man is nothing."

Moreover, one can discern just how archaic, though not obsolete, an English word is by trying to find the equivalent in another language. French, German, Spanish, Russian all translate without as an English adverb the same only as the English word outside but the English preposition exactly as their own : sin la puerta; sans la porte; ohne die Tür --- there being no adverb that is not literally outside in their typical dictionaries. Draußen vor der Tür by Dürrenmatt, for example, cannot be translated as Without the Door which can only be translated into German as Ohne der Tür, not what Dürrenmatt meant.

Quote Post 36

Re: Punctuation

Charles_F_Bell wrote:
corra wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Going down the slippery slope to youre from you're goes on down to ur with no trace of proper English and the beginnings of an argument of why have proper English anyway.

There is no such thing as "proper English."

Yes, there is.  Even U.K./Commonwealth English, that is to say, English English, is improper English ;-)

True enough! lol

Quote Post 37

38 Reply by corra (edited by corra 2015-10-25 13:13:23)

Re: Punctuation

Dill Carver wrote:

How would you punctuate this?

A long sentence from Virginia Woolf. She is notorious for them. Okay, we can use a Google search to reach the original; but without reference to her published version, where would you place the punctuation here? Would you retain it as one long sentence?

Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm chair and confuse his Rinse the Mouth rinse the mouth with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us when we think of this as we are frequently forced to think of it it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature

I looked it up & read everyone else's suggestions after I punctuated my version. Here's what I came up with:

Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness -- how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm chair and confuse his "Rinse the Mouth" -- rinse the mouth! with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us when we think of this as we are frequently forced to think of it: it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.

I didn't know what to make of the Rinse the Mouth repeat, especially since only the first version is capitalized, so I made it an emphatic repetition with the dash and exclamation point? I can see now that makes my prior dash (which I inserted because the tempo changed in the list and became suddenly breathless) confusing. smile I use the colon at the end because everything before it seems to be leading up to the final "it becomes strange indeed" line.

Good sample!

Quote Post 38

39 Reply by Dill Carver (edited by Dill Carver 2015-10-25 13:25:50)

Re: Punctuation

Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Moreover, one can discern just how archaic, though not obsolete, an English word is by trying to find the equivalent in another language. French, German, Spanish, Russian all translate without as an English adverb the same only as the English word outside but the English preposition exactly as their own : sin la puerta; sans la porte; ohne die Tür --- there being no adverb that is not literally outside in their typical dictionaries. Draußen vor der Tür by Dürrenmatt, for example, cannot be translated as Without the Door which can only be translated into German as Ohne der Tür, not what Dürrenmatt meant.

The English language is derived from a hybrid of Ancient Briton, a mix of Celtic based languages, Latin and the mixed languages of the legions and their trade followers after the Roman invasion. Germanic from the Saxons who came later; Norse dialects from the Danes and the Scandinavian Vikings. French from the Norman invasion after which for centuries the national language of England was the French spoken by the nobility, Latin by the church and blend of all that went before by the common populace. Add to this the influences from a far-flung empire and then export the package  to the other side of the earth, Australia, New Zealand or to North America, already influenced by Spanish and French and this along with immigrants and slaves from all around the globe into a land with its own native languages.

Along the way the English language has evolved into what it is without objective rationalisation or standardisation.   

Where there is little or no exterior influence or interference to a civilization or culture you end up with a simple language like Pawnee.

The flexibility and versatility, the variety complexity and idiosyncrasies of the stew that is the English language is beloved of poets, lyricists and writers because it brings with it the rhyme and a plethora of meanings inferences and interpretations.  It loans itself to the nuance, hyperbole, the intentional mixed meanings of the double entendre and a huge, fat thesaurus full of synonyms with doorstep sized dictionaries.

These are our tools and as writers in English, we have an advantage.

This morning my young teenage son invited me to "Frack off." Grinning from ear to ear from the supposed immunity the innocence of his wordplay afforded him. His confidence was misplaced.

Quote Post 39

40 Reply by Memphis Trace (edited by Memphis Trace 2015-10-25 13:49:38)

Re: Punctuation

Charles_F_Bell wrote:
Memphis Trace wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

highly archaic, so any efficiency gained made by leaving out words is lost by lack of understanding by vast numbers of English speakers. Also, again ordinarily, the two parts of a semicolon sentence require connection, and a woman being outside and a man being nothing has a weird, unfathomable connection.

Without meaning outside is not archaic, let alone archaic. See definitions 4-10: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/without?s=t  Where do you get your "vast numbers of English speakers" would not understand using without to mean outside? Imposing your limited understanding of the language, can only serve to keep you wallowing in the archives.

How is the woman being outside and the man being nothing, either weird or unfathomable in the context I presented? To wit: Minnie went somewhere with her girlfriends for a night out; Riley stayed home and can't even find the fixins for a sammich.

Memphis Trace

Cite and quote any such like "the woman is without" after the 18th century in which without  is an adverb. Okay, I'll give you one from Dickens: "Once he had to stand without the door, and display a flag..."  and we can guess together just how many good readers will not pause to think that actually does not mean the poor guy had no door behind which to stand. It is weird to any good reader and unfathomable to the barely literate --- today's average college student --- and your example inserts from nowhere a whole panoply of external information to decipher "The woman is without, and her man is nothing."

Moreover, one can discern just how archaic, though not obsolete, an English word is by trying to find the equivalent in another language. French, German, Spanish, Russian all translate without as an English adverb the same only as the English word outside but the English preposition exactly as their own : sin la puerta; sans la porte; ohne die Tür --- there being no adverb that is not literally outside in their typical dictionaries. Draußen vor der Tür by Dürrenmatt, for example, cannot be translated as Without the Door which can only be translated into German as Ohne der Tür, not what Dürrenmatt meant.

You seem bent on limiting your word usage to situations not requiring context. Pick any word and you can make it ambiguous without context.

The example I gave you—Minnie went somewhere with her girlfriends for a night out; Riley stayed home and can't even find the fixins for a sammich.—was the context for which using without in the original short sentence would have been efficient, elegant, modern, and unambiguous to any wino on the street. The way I know that to be the case is it raises the ire in a workshop environment of an eager grammarian ill-informed of what he has in his archives.

Absent context, I suppose your example from Dickens could be humorously ambiguous. However, since you were able to figure it out despite your faux bemusement, I can only assume there was sufficient context around it to render it accessible to any interested reader.

Has without in this sense been ruled officially archaic in the archives of eager linguists? Do you know whereof you speak?

Memphis Trace

Quote Post 40

41 Reply by Dill Carver (edited by Dill Carver 2015-10-25 14:56:03)

Re: Punctuation

Dill Carver wrote:

How would you punctuate this?

A long sentence from Virginia Woolf. ….

Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view what precipices…


I can’t get past the first few lines.

I suffer a form of dyslexia (a single term for a broad set of conditions).  My daughter has a more chronic form of the condition and can’t read very well but is very obviously intelligent. It held her back at school until she was eleven years old and an enlightened teacher gave her a purple tinted film overlay to read through. Reading through this placed upon her page she immediately caught fire and as incredible as it sounds, purple film overlay in-hand she read the Harry Potter series of books in four weeks flat (after stumbling over the first volume for months) and consumed the school library to become one of the top three literary students in her school by age sixteen.  But that’s another story.

I can’t get past the first few lines… in truth, the first line. (and not for the want of trying)

‘Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that….

Blows my train off its tracks.

Whilst…

‘Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that….

Is crystal. My world is back and the right way up.

Judging by the other responses, and once we are agreed that the rules of formal writing don’t apply, it is clear that within creative writing, punctuation is a matter of subjective choice.

A poet would punctuate this piece with line breaks and without first letter capitalisation to show it as one contiguous passage.

Considering how common illness is

how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings

how astonishing

when the lights of health go down

the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed

what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view

what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals

I need to ‘poem’ it in order to find, for me, where the punctuation should be placed.

(And wow! What a poem this lady brings!)

My purple tinted film, is to ‘poem’ things

Quote Post 41

42 Reply by Dill Carver (edited by Dill Carver 2015-10-25 14:17:33)

Re: Punctuation

Memphis Trace wrote:

Riley stayed home and can't even find the fixins for a sammich.

Outside of the context of any other discussion being conducted here, and stealing a very well coined phase....

This passage is chicken soup for the readers soul. Wonderful.

Quote Post 42

Re: Punctuation

corra wrote:

I didn't know what to make of the Rinse the Mouth repeat, especially since only the first version is capitalized.

The typo might well mine rather than VW's. As far a my keyboard is concerned, I have webbed feet upon the ends of my wrists.

Quote Post 43

44 Reply by Dill Carver (edited by Dill Carver 2015-10-25 14:51:22)

Re: Punctuation

Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Funny thing about long and complex sentences is that punctuation does not mollify the rubes who do not like them.

Hi Charles,

I hope my comment ‘A long sentence from Virginia Woolf. She is notorious for them.’ wasn’t interpreted as a criticism upon the author or her style? 

The comment is open to interpretation but I was actually issuing a tongue-in-cheek  if reticent jibe towards those of whom you speak.

As members of the previous version of this site are aware, I am the long-term student admirer of the literary long sentence, and an advocate of that art form.

As for Woolf, I have recently been steered there by a mentor and am finding the fare quite delicious. It was as a result of such that I came across the sentence in question. To be honest it fascinated me and I’m extremely pleased to be able to discuss it here. I can’t get this kind of interaction anywhere else that I know of and I think this is a great forum and a wonderful discussion.   

The long literary sentence by way of accidental lack of punctuation or complete disregard for basic grammar peened by an aspirational amateur writer, is common detritus within novice manuscripts and is the type of long sentence instances that are commonly criticised. Anyone criticizing Woolf will need to get past corra and should be prepared to be savaged smile smile and rightly so!

Quote Post 44

45 Reply by Charles_F_Bell (edited by Charles_F_Bell 2015-10-25 19:02:13)

Re: Punctuation

Dill Carver wrote:
Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Moreover, one can discern just how archaic, though not obsolete, an English word is by trying to find the equivalent in another language. French, German, Spanish, Russian all translate without as an English adverb the same only as the English word outside but the English preposition exactly as their own : sin la puerta; sans la porte; ohne die Tür --- there being no adverb that is not literally outside in their typical dictionaries. Draußen vor der Tür by Dürrenmatt, for example, cannot be translated as Without the Door which can only be translated into German as Ohne der Tür, not what Dürrenmatt meant.

The English language is derived from a hybrid of Ancient Briton, a mix of Celtic based languages, Latin and the mixed languages of the legions and their trade followers after the Roman invasion. Germanic from the Saxons who came later; Norse dialects from the Danes and the Scandinavian Vikings. French from the Norman invasion after which for centuries the national language of England was the French spoken by the nobility, Latin by the church and blend of all that went before by the common populace. Add to this the influences from a far-flung empire and then export the package  to the other side of the earth, Australia, New Zealand or to North America, already influenced by Spanish and French and this along with immigrants and slaves from all around the globe into a land with its own native languages.

Along the way the English language has evolved into what it is without objective rationalisation or standardisation.   

Where there is little or no exterior influence or interference to a civilization or culture you end up with a simple language like Pawnee.

The flexibility and versatility, the variety complexity and idiosyncrasies of the stew that is the English language is beloved of poets, lyricists and writers because it brings with it the rhyme and a plethora of meanings inferences and interpretations.  It loans itself to the nuance, hyperbole, the intentional mixed meanings of the double entendre and a huge, fat thesaurus full of synonyms with doorstep sized dictionaries.

That is the reason I picked two romance and one germanic languages and for good measure an unrelated indo-european. If without that  is Germanic/Anglo-Saxon/Old English cannot have an equal as an adverb, capable of standing by itself to modify a verb or otherwise an action other than as outside, in any of those modern-version languages, it is an outlier of limited extent. I can say that I have never in my life once heard the word in that context, nor have seen it in print apart from the Dickensian and KJV Biblical. My example of A woman without doth return anon is how an author in English today would affect an olde tyme style to present a manufactured sort of allegory in double meaning. The woman could be literally outside a house but will walk back in -- from outside --  shortly; or she could be a morally wayward lass ready to be led back into good grace. However, that author cannot expect welcome from editors eager to publish.

Quote Post 45

Re: Punctuation

corra wrote:

I looked it up & read everyone else's suggestions after I punctuated my version. Here's what I came up with:

Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness -- how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm chair and confuse his "Rinse the Mouth" -- rinse the mouth! with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us when we think of this as we are frequently forced to think of it: it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.

I didn't know what to make of the Rinse the Mouth repeat, especially since only the first version is capitalized, so I made it an emphatic repetition with the dash and exclamation point? I can see now that makes my prior dash (which I inserted because the tempo changed in the list and became suddenly breathless) confusing. smile I use the colon at the end because everything before it seems to be leading up to the final "it becomes strange indeed" line.

Notice how you have punctuation before some when and how and what and the double it. These are not necessary, and I bet they were inserted by her editor/publisher husband if ever published that way. The Rinse the Mouth bit is odd -- some literary reference, perhaps.

Quote Post 46

Re: Punctuation

Dill Carver wrote:

My purple tinted film, is to ‘poem’ things

Oh, I like that! I've never done that with Woolf! Look at this one (stripped of its punctuation & a couple capital letters, by me) -

"Beauty
the world seemed to say
and as if to prove it scientifically
wherever he looked at the houses
at the railings
at the antelopes stretching over the palings
beauty sprang instantly
to watch a leaf quivering in the rush
of air was an exquisite joy
up in the sky swallows swooping
swerving
flinging themselves
in and out round and round
yet always with perfect control
as if elastics held them
and the flies rising and falling
and the sun spotting now this leaf
now that in mockery dazzling it
with soft gold in pure good temper
and now again some chime
it might be a motor horn
tinkling divinely on the grass stalks
all of this calm and reasonable
as it was made out of ordinary things
as it was was the truth
now beauty
that was the truth
now beauty was everywhere."

- from Mrs. Dalloway. The ending reminds me of Keats:

"When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

x

Quote Post 47

Re: Punctuation

Dill Carver wrote:
Dill Carver wrote:

How would you punctuate this?

A long sentence from Virginia Woolf. ….

Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view what precipices…


I can’t get past the first few lines.

I suffer a form of dyslexia (a single term for a broad set of conditions).  My daughter has a more chronic form of the condition and can’t read very well but is very obviously intelligent. It held her back at school until she was eleven years old and an enlightened teacher gave her a purple tinted film overlay to read through. Reading through this placed upon her page she immediately caught fire and as incredible as it sounds, purple film overlay in-hand she read the Harry Potter series of books in four weeks flat (after stumbling over the first volume for months) and consumed the school library to become one of the top three literary students in her school by age sixteen.  But that’s another story.

I can’t get past the first few lines… in truth, the first line. (and not for the want of trying)

‘Considering how common illness is how tremendous the spiritual change that….

Blows my train off its tracks.

Whilst…

‘Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that….

Is crystal. My world is back and the right way up.

Judging by the other responses, and once we are agreed that the rules of formal writing don’t apply, it is clear that within creative writing, punctuation is a matter of subjective choice.

A poet would punctuate this piece with line breaks and without first letter capitalisation to show it as one contiguous passage.

Considering how common illness is

how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings

how astonishing

when the lights of health go down

the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed

what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view

what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals

I need to ‘poem’ it in order to find, for me, where the punctuation should be placed.

The encryption key is 'how', 'when', 'what' etc. causing the reader to pause. Try James Joyce's' Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses  his 'keys' are 111 and yes and so forth.

bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream too I know what 111 do 111 go about rather gay not too much
singing a bit now and then mi fa pieta Masetto then 111 start dressing myself to go out presto non son
piu forte 111 put on my best shift and drawers let him have a good eyeful out of that to make his
micky stand for him 111 let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is [...]


[...] mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my
breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that
was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him
because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I
gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes [...]

Quote Post 48

Re: Punctuation

Charles_F_Bell wrote:

Notice how you have punctuation before some when and how and what and the double it. These are not necessary, and I bet they were inserted by her editor/publisher husband if ever published that way. The Rinse the Mouth bit is odd -- some literary reference, perhaps.

Would the lines I punctuated form a series though?

Considering:
- how common illness is
- how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings
- how astonishing when the lights of health go down the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed
- what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view
- what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals
- what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness

(etc.)

I think this is the original as punctuated:

* Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm-chair and confuse his “Rinse the mouth—rinse the mouth” with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us—when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature. *

I think it would be incredible without the commas, though. The Sound & the Fury! wink

Quote Post 49

Re: Punctuation

Charles_F_Bell wrote:

The encryption key is 'how', 'when', 'what' etc. causing the reader to pause. Try James Joyce's' Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses  his 'keys' are 111 and yes and so forth.

bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream too I know what 111 do 111 go about rather gay not too much
singing a bit now and then mi fa pieta Masetto then 111 start dressing myself to go out presto non son
piu forte 111 put on my best shift and drawers let him have a good eyeful out of that to make his
micky stand for him 111 let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is [...]


[...] mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my
breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that
was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him
because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I
gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes [...]

Oh, never mind my remark above. I see what you're saying here with "yes." I wrote as you were typing. (I love that Molly Bloom passage.)

Quote Post 50