# Grammar: Stasis, Chaos, or Growth



## EmmaSohan (Mar 14, 2017)

How do we respond to an ungrammatical sentence?

Some people reject it -- they want to hold the line. They advocate writing only grammatical sentences. In a way that's noble, and it's probably impractical. Anyway, change won't stop.

1. He looks at me, and I look at him.
2. He looks at me and I look at him.


#2 is ungrammatical (in the sense of not following the conventional rules of English grammar). Presumably at one time people fought against it. In any case, #2 has become "normal" in writing. Grammar has been changing for the last 75 years or more.


A second response is to allow the ungrammatical sentence. We can say the comma is optional. Or just recognize that writers do not follow the conventional rules of grammar. But -- how does a writer decide between #1 and #2. Flip a coin? Without any guidance for how to choose, we have fallen into chaos; we would have been better off with stasis.

To me, the sentences have slightly different meanings. And, IMO, the only reason for using #2 is if you prefer that meaning. And that's the growth of grammar -- changing to allow us to write better.

But that means the rules of grammar are becoming more complicated. It also means that #1 is the best choice only when that's the meaning you prefer, so we shouldn't be teaching people to blindly follow that rule.

I can make the same point, more or less easily, for fragments, compound predicates, and complex sentences. There is a modern grammar of writing. Grammar books should be explaining how to write fragments.

(Sorry for the essay format. All comments welcome.)


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## bdcharles (Mar 15, 2017)

It's like music. You can burn years as an amanuensis scribing out every precious semiquaver or you can let rip a big old feedback soliloquy like Hendrix. Both have their place but the question is not what is correct. The question is what is cool.


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## jenthepen (Mar 15, 2017)

bdcharles said:


> Both have their place but the question is not what is correct. The question is what is cool.



Yes, and also what works for the atmosphere, feeling and movement of the story.

 Bending traditions of grammar can enhance and empower a piece of prose but it should always be deliberate and done with an awareness of the changes being made. Most rules of grammar evolved to make meaning clear in the written word. When there is no vocal inflection, tone or facial expression to convey meaning, grammar is an attempt to get the message across and eliminate confusion. As communication evolves, grammar tends to change to reflect it.


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## Sam (Mar 15, 2017)

"Grammar books should be explaining how to write fragments". 

No, grammar books explain how to write grammatically correct sentences. For the all advantages of fragmented sentences, no grammarian will ever say they are grammatically correct. They are by their very nature grammatically _incorrect; _that is the point. 

So why would (or should) a grammar guide teach someone how to break the rules of grammar? It's nonsensical.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 15, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> Yes, and also what works for the atmosphere, feeling and movement of the story.



Right, I knew you didn't just flip a coin, but instead you make the best choice. You are a great writer. (Jen got -- I think -- the only perfect score I have ever given out.) But shouldn't we tell students why they would make one choice over another? I'm sure you don't want to tell them to pick the best one and grade them down if they don't. But I am not sure how you envision this working.




jenthepen said:


> Bending traditions of grammar can enhance and empower a piece of prose but it should always be deliberate and done with an awareness of the changes being made



I wanted to agree with this, but I don't know how to. Take a typical choice:

1. She's as skinny as her brother is fat, and regards Hodges with a watery, suspicious eye.
2. She's as skinny as her brother is fat and regards Hodges with a watery, suspicious eye. 

If the author chooses wisely, does it really matter if the author knew which one was grammatically approved?

If the author doesn't make the best choice, does it matter which one the author chose?

Does knowing which one is grammatically correct help the author choose?



jenthepen said:


> As communication evolves, grammar tends to change to reflect it.



Yes, but is this change reflected in how we describe the rules of grammar. Or course, this depends on what you and I mean by evolving.

I know what you are saying, and I would have said the same a year ago.


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## Phil Istine (Mar 16, 2017)

I'm not saying the mine is the right answer but I would probably include the comma if I wanted to pause for effect.  Otherwise, I would omit it.
I can sometimes be guilty of using excessive commas.


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## Terry D (Mar 16, 2017)

Sam said:


> "Grammar books should be explaining how to write fragments".
> 
> No, grammar books explain how to write grammatically correct sentences. For the all advantages of fragmented sentences, no grammarian will ever say they are grammatically correct. They are by their very nature grammatically _incorrect; _that is the point.
> 
> So why would (or should) a grammar guide teach someone how to break the rules of grammar? It's nonsensical.



I agree. Books on grammar are like the owner's manual for a car; only the basic, proper operation of the vehicle is covered. Writers are the race drivers and pit crews of language. We take the basics and tweak them, adjust them, modify them to suit our needs. There is no way to tell someone how to do that. It is a matter of experience, insight, and creativity. 

The only reaction to an un-grammatical sentence that matters is: "Will the reader keep reading?" Your use of grammar is bad if it puts off your reader. It is good if the reader turns the page. This difference is why there is often so much dissent about books like, Fifty Shades of Grey, and Twilight. Millions of readers read those books in spite of what many others thought was terrible writing, including poor grammar. To fans the grammar was acceptable.


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## LeeC (Mar 16, 2017)

I like your explanation Terry. For example, the wife hated having to read Mark Twain in school, where on the other hand I have, I believe, all his published writing, and I enjoyed reading Miguel Street by V. S. Naipaul. Another writer I enjoy is Garrison Keillor, who brings out the extraordinary in the everyday.

In my own writing I listen to my wife and academic daughter when they point out grammatical transgressions, and change what I didn't intend. There's one snippet that's been retweeted thousands of times, that the wife and daughter particularly abhor:
Moon glintin' off the Platte, movin' upriver, flickerin' through patchy, bare branches. This culo maybe seen action, maybe a remf, but sure never learned ta respect others' privacy, or take a bath. Not a clue with 'is ungrateful bastards remark. Three sides ta every pathetic human conflict, down through history, with innocents sufferin' the most. We're no better 'an animals, just outgrown our pants. Enough bad ta go around on both other sides, with each playin' the three monkeys ta their part. What's changed fer me is havin' it fer dinner.​


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 16, 2017)

Sam said:


> "Grammar books should be explaining how to write fragments".
> 
> No, grammar books explain how to write grammatically correct sentences. For the all advantages of fragmented sentences, no grammarian will ever say they are grammatically correct. They are by their very nature grammatically _incorrect; _that is the point.
> 
> So why would (or should) a grammar guide teach someone how to break the rules of grammar? It's nonsensical.



I don't know how else to define the rules of grammar except as the consensus found in grammar books (and websites). So, right. But to be analogous to a car owner's manual, the grammar books would have to be trying to describe something external. Like the grammar that writers use. Notice how much car manuals have changed in the last 100 years because cars have changed.

If we could go back 100 years, I'm guessing we would find grammar books saying about the same thing as today, and writing pretty much following those rules. The grammar books haven't changed much, but the grammar we use in writing has. Of course, we can discuss how well the grammar books match what writers do.

It's interesting to compare grammar books to dictionaries. A dictionary works hard to study modern usage and improve the dictionary. And the dictionary doesn't just say, "Face-palm is now a word", they also give a definition, which is to say meaning, which is to say, a guide for when to use those words.

To take an extreme from a random Y/A book I was reading:
But it sure doesn't feel like a joke, and I don't post stuff like that and LOL. Not anymore. _#becausenothingisfunnynow_​
I noticed it because of the hashtag, which is too new to make a grammar book. But it also has an ungrammatical list (I think). There's also an (elegant) fragment.


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## ppsage (Mar 16, 2017)

To be fair, its role in prose fiction is not the primary concern of those investigating grammatical usage.


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## ppsage (Mar 16, 2017)

Well Lee, I'm with your wife. I'd definitely put an apostrophe somewhere in bastards.


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## jenthepen (Mar 16, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> shouldn't we tell students why they would make one choice over another? I'm sure you don't want to tell them to pick the best one and grade them down if they don't. But I am not sure how you envision this working.



As Sam and Terry said, you shouldn't and couldn't tell students how to decide on the grammar for their own fiction - you can only give them the manual and perhaps let them know that rules can be broken for effect and with discretion. To be honest, I think the art of tweaking the rules is learned by reading works of fiction that we admire - somehow the tricks of the trade that good writers employ burrow into the subconscious and resurface in our own work.

As to grades, I would hope that most tutors would recognise creative grammar in a work of fiction and grade it according to merit on that basis.




EmmaSohan said:


> Take a typical choice:
> 
> 1. She's as skinny as her brother is fat, and regards Hodges with a watery, suspicious eye.
> 2. She's as skinny as her brother is fat and regards Hodges with a watery, suspicious eye.
> ...



I would answer your three questions this way:
No
Yes, a bit
Generally but not always.

As Phil said, the real criteria in fiction is to get your meaning across. If a pause works in speech, then a comma usually works in prose. It indicates a pause and gives the sentence the impact that the writer intended.

The Oxford comma is commonly used in the USA and only in specific circumstances in the UK but it is becoming common all round now.




EmmaSohan said:


> Yes, but is this change reflected in how we describe the rules of grammar. Or course, this depends on what you and I mean by evolving.
> 
> I know what you are saying, and I would have said the same a year ago.



I think changes are reflected in works of fiction that schools and colleges use for classes but, as has been pointed out by others, grammar rules themselves are a kind of skeleton and can't be changed in line with writing fashions. Grammar covers all written English, not just fiction, so has to work as a consistent and reliable set of rules. Fiction writing is akin to poetry and can bend and manipulate words and grammar for the desired effect. It's an art form in a way and the writer has the freedom to choose how to use the tools at his disposal. Like all artists, he has to have broad enough shoulders to face criticism, from those who don't 'get' it, when he veers away from the normal.


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## Sam (Mar 16, 2017)

ppsage said:


> Well Lee, I'm with your wife. I'd definitely put an apostrophe somewhere in bastards.



Well, sorry to say it, but you would be wrong to put an apostrophe _anywhere _in 'bastards'. 

The remark belongs to the 'his', not the 'bastards'.


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## LeeC (Mar 16, 2017)

To ppsage's credit, he is the one that recommended I read Miguel Street. 

There are other aspects to the overall point, but in the example I cited I was trying to capture both period and cultural settings. As I noted, I've also enjoyed Garrison Keillor's writing which at times tramples on writing dogma in a very creative, and evocative way.

[a snippet of Garrison Keillor's widely enjoyed writing, set in an archetypical rural midwestern America diner named the Chatterbox Cafe]
It's packed today because it rained so hard last night nobody could get into the fields this morning and a lot of them wound up in town. Big butts of pear-shaped gents in coveralls lined up on the stools like the 1938 Chicago Bears as seen by Bronko Nagurski. Platters of the Commercial on the counter ("Twenty-six years I stood back here and watch them eat—if I got some hogs and a trough, I'd feel right at home": Dorothy) and big forkloads of chow hover above the gorge, meanwhile Al who hasn't yet got his dinner hunkers at the end and clears the phlegm from his head with one expert snort. It's a deep liquidy snort that Flora would never allow at home, but here at the Box he cuts loose as if it were no more than a little cough, a mere ahem, and then he eases up one cheek and releases a whistle of a fart. Bob next to him is offended. "Take a dump while you're at it," he says. "Gotta eat first," says Al.​


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 16, 2017)

> 1.  I could be naked standing next to Lula, and no one would give me a second glance.
> 
> 2. I could be naked standing next to Lula and no one would give me a second glance.



I would say that #1 is wrong. The comma causes me to stop and imagine her standing naked next to Lula, which really was not the author's point at all, the MC would not do that. It was just a hypothetical -- she was trying to say something about Lula.

I would say, commas divide one thing into two. She didn't want to say two things, she only wanted to say one.

I am starting to understand -- I am more prescriptive  than you all want to be. True? I just want to make up better rules. I don't know if my opinionated prescriptivism is appropriate, though presumably that is how we got the conventions we have before we fell into stasis on the rules.

And the fact that #1 is "grammatically correct" does not excuse it, to me.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 16, 2017)

ppsage said:


> To be fair, its role in prose fiction is not the primary concern of those investigating grammatical usage.



Are you saying it does not do a good job on prose fiction? Should we be espousing grammar that works for us?

I assume you want to say it also doesn't work for informal nonficiton, like tweets and text messages. Or websites, or forums.

It's not clear how well it works for speech, I am guessing that our dialogue (which the grammar people apparently don't care about) is even less grammatical than our narration. Pauses probably don't occur in reading? It's not clear how often they occur in spoken language, either. You should listen sometime to two native speakers talking in a language you don't know, it sounds like a giant run-on, right?


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## jenthepen (Mar 17, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> Are you saying it does not do a good job on prose fiction? Should we be espousing grammar that works for us?



I see the problem you have identified, Emma. Maybe you should write a book - _Modern Y/A Style of Writing._ I think all your arguments would be valid and helpful to writers who want to write in this genre. If you approach it from a style perspective rather than grammar, I think you wouldn't get any argument.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 17, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> I see the problem you have identified, Emma. Maybe you should write a book - _Modern Y/A Style of Writing._ I think all your arguments would be valid and helpful to writers who want to write in this genre. If you approach it from a style perspective rather than grammar, I think you wouldn't get any argument.



I did, two books on modern grammar in fiction writing, depending on how you count, and that's the only reason I have the thoughts and impressions I have been saying. It's unpublished for now and I am happy to send anyone a copy.

Y/A isn't the issue. Cutting edge can be found anywhere, and once something becomes well-accepted in Y/A, Stephen King usually uses it. But I can talk about any genre. Would you expect any entry in the Grand Fiction contest to be all grammatical? Is anyone bothered by that?

This is the start of Clancy's _The Cardinal of the Kremlin_. This is almost 30 years ago.



> Business was being conducted. All kinds of business.



The first sentence is grammatical, but it's hard to go wrong with a four-word sentence. Unless it's a fragment, which the second "sentence" is. One of my favorite fragments, actually.

Then, still on this first page, which isn't even a full page, there's a compound predicate separated with a comma, grammatically incorrect formatting of a list, and one more fragment.  Plus this ungrammatical sentence: "They were the masters, knew it, and their demeanor proclaimed it." (And a missing comma, but I think just an error on that.)

When I was in my I-give-up-commas-are-chaos phase, I was trying to understand Michael Connelly, Dan Brown, and James Rollins, not Y/A authors.


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## ppsage (Mar 17, 2017)

Sam said:


> Well, sorry to say it, but you would be wrong to put an apostrophe _anywhere _in 'bastards'.
> 
> The remark belongs to the 'his', not the 'bastards'.


I see your point and agree so I guess what's really sticking in my craw is the plural. I'd be happier with just one bastard per remark I think.


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## jenthepen (Mar 18, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> I did, two books on modern grammar in fiction writing, depending on how you count, and that's the only reason I have the thoughts and impressions I have been saying. It's unpublished for now and I am happy to send anyone a copy.
> 
> Y/A isn't the issue. Cutting edge can be found anywhere, and once something becomes well-accepted in Y/A, Stephen King usually uses it. But I can talk about any genre. Would you expect any entry in the Grand Fiction contest to be all grammatical? Is anyone bothered by that?
> 
> ...





Fair enough, I only mentioned Y/A because I thought that was your primary area of interest. I still think this way of writing is stylistic rather than grammatical. There are many ways to manipulate grammar for effect and it would be just as restrictive as traditional grammar if you try to set rules for cutting edge writing surely?


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 19, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> There are many ways to manipulate grammar for effect and it would be just as restrictive as traditional grammar if you try to set rules for cutting edge writing surely?


1. I can't follow the conversation because I'm too lost in my own thoughts.
2. I can't follow the conversation*, *because I'm too lost in my own thoughts.​
How do we decide between the two? One is to have a rule. (#1 is correct) or habit. Or you could use feelings. Writers who know the rule might use #2 only when they feel like #1 isn't working. Writers who don't know the rule, or don't care, could use whichever one seems best.

However. The comma divides. I use #1 when explaining an already-known fact, because that's one thing (an explanation); I use #2 when the fact is new and the explaining fact is new, because that's two things. So I used #2 because it was new information that she wasn't following the conversation.

We might disagree on that, and that would be an important discussion to have. To me, the odd thing would be for us not to talk about it.

But with that rule, I can choose between #1 and #2 more easily, without using intuition. Then I can use intuition on top of that. So the knowledge is one rocket getting me as high as it can. Then it falls away and intuition/feelings is my second rocket.

I will say, actually, the same thing many people here say, though perhaps not in the context they imagine: Garrison Keillor should know this rule. If he then decides to break it, fine. His sentence had style, but I think a comma before because would have been a lot better (if that's the start of his essay). It even makes his second sentence easier to understand (to me).

This isn't a convention, it relies only on the superficial meaning of the comma. But if writers reliably used this distinction, it would be easier for readers to understand it. So it could become a convention.


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## jenthepen (Mar 19, 2017)

I understand your argument but, as a writer who always tries to punctuate so the reader will 'hear' the prose inside their head just the way I hear it, I wouldn't have used either of your examples. If I wanted to convey equal importance to both parts of the sentence I would write it one of two ways:

I can't follow the conversation, I'm too lost in my own thoughts.
or even
I can't follow the conversation - I'm too lost in my own thoughts.

If there was a rule that said I should write it as your second example, I would probably break that rule to do it my way. 

You're right, though, this is an interesting conversation.


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## ppsage (Mar 20, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> I understand your argument but, as a writer who always tries to punctuate so the reader will 'hear' the prose inside their head just the way I hear it, I wouldn't have used either of your examples. If I wanted to convey equal importance to both parts of the sentence I would write it one of two ways:
> 
> I can't follow the conversation, I'm too lost in my own thoughts.
> or even
> ...


OMG. She did a comma splice. ​We're in for it now.


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## jenthepen (Mar 20, 2017)

Ooh, I'm such a rebel.irate:


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 21, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> I understand your argument but, as a writer who always tries to punctuate so the reader will 'hear' the prose inside their head just the way I hear it, I wouldn't have used either of your examples. If I wanted to convey equal importance to both parts of the sentence I would write it one of two ways:
> 
> I can't follow the conversation, I'm too lost in my own thoughts.
> or even
> ...



Ouch, that was my best example. Do you not use the word "because"? It seems like a useful word to give up.

I can't swear at him, I'm on probation.
I can't swear at him, because I'm on probation.​
You suggested that, given two equally good options, you would choose the grammatically correct one. Did you want to walk that back?


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## jenthepen (Mar 22, 2017)

It's all very subjective and how we view our own work might come across very differently to others. I think that, in the end, we have to go with our instincts when it comes to presenting creative work. Of course, it's often very useful to be able to reference the 'rules' of grammar so that we can make an informed choice before we decide to ignore them. Actually, I don't think my choice was perfectly correct. I think it should have been:_ I can't follow the conversation; I'm too lost in my own thoughts._ I chose to use a comma rather than a semi-colon because the 'correct' punctuation felt too stiff and formal. This is exactly what I mean about writing to the _feel_ of the piece you are creating.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 23, 2017)

There's a lot of ways I would like to go from here, but I will try to stay on topic, summarize, take advantage of what I have learned, and say something I think people will not disagree with.

He puts his arms around her and they sleep spoons the rest of the night.
He puts his arms around her*,* and they sleep spoons the rest of the night.​
1. There are rules of grammar, for example saying which of the above sentences is grammatically correct.

2. Writers -- high school students, Hemingway -- break the rules.

3. One might change the rules to be more permissive and allow that comma to be optional. That's almost like having no rule at all; it would mean, just looking at rules, that writers --high school students, Hemingway -- could flip a coin and either outcome would be right. We would be better off with just following the rule.

4. There is what could be called Expert Intuition -- given experience, writers can choose which one best. So the lack of grammar rules gives us freedom.

And, still my opinion, if a writer is truly using Expert Intuition to choose the best option, is there any value in knowing when option is grammatical?

And how should we judge grammar in a contest?

5. There can be a stage beyond this -- attempting to say why an author would use one construct over another. I would argue for advantages to doing this, though that depends on how well that can be done.


And then, I am asking if we can say more about why an author would choose one option over the other. I think so, though I don't know how well I can do that. For example, keep the comma in when my "and" means "and then" or "and also".


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 23, 2017)

If you 'went back a hundred years or more', yes, you would find grammar defined by rules, a 'right' and a 'wrong' way of saying things. This is prescriptive grammar.

Modern grammarians tend to look at the way that language is used, and then use grammar to describe that; descriptive grammar.

An example, someone uses a double negative. 'Aha', says the prescriptive grammar man, 'If you didn't not do it, then you must have done it'. The logic sounds good, but it is not the meaning intended.
The descriptive grammar man sees that the intention is to deny strongly, and comes to the conclusion that this is the reason the negative is repeated.

Language came before grammar, grammar is a tool to understand something that evolved quite separately from it, to then use it to restrict language is simply not going to work. The language will evolve and change, it always has. For grammar to say it is 'wrong' to adopt case endings, or become agglutinative, if that is the way the language is heading, is like telling the sea to go back when the tide is coming in.

The nineteenth century was a time for defining statement and absolutes, the twentieth and twenty first recognise the world is malleable and forever changing. The relative nature of space and time, the changing nature of species, the occurrence of sports that don’t fit the taxonomies, the breakdown of the atom into smaller and smaller units, and the discovery of isotopes within the elements; all things that point away from the definite conclusions and absolute statements of the past. 

Prescriptive grammar has had its day, give us descriptions of how things do and don’t work, not rules about how they should work that do not relate to the real world of language like what she is spoke.


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## Phil Istine (Mar 24, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> I understand your argument but, as a writer who always tries to punctuate so the reader will 'hear' the prose inside their head just the way I hear it, I wouldn't have used either of your examples. If I wanted to convey equal importance to both parts of the sentence I would write it one of two ways:
> 
> I can't follow the conversation, I'm too lost in my own thoughts.
> or even
> ...



I often use 'as' in place of 'because'.  It feels (to me) like it slightly weakens the cause and effect, thus making them more equal.  I've not read this anywhere.  It's just the way it feels.


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 24, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> I understand your argument but, as a writer who always tries to punctuate so the reader will 'hear' the prose inside their head just the way I hear it, I wouldn't have used either of your examples. If I wanted to convey equal importance to both parts of the sentence I would write it one of two ways:
> 
> I can't follow the conversation, I'm too lost in my own thoughts.
> or even
> ...



Not the first way, the reader could assume a list when they get to the comma (that is ppsage's 'comma splice') and it is not a subordinate clause.
Not the second, the dash indicates a range (Olly Buckle 1944 -), a co-ordination (mother-daughter relationships); or contrasting relationships (Arsenal were 5-1 down)

I think what you need is the semi-colon, not a full stop, the next part is semantically related. Think of it as a re-statement in different terms.

The problem is that the semi-colon is probably one of the least used punctuation marks, the dash probably one of the most used; so your readers may not understand what they are 'supposed' to signify. I do wonder if this may change now people use keyboards; they will know where the semicolon is


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## jenthepen (Mar 24, 2017)

You're right, Olly. A semi-colon would be the correct punctuation but I  chose not to use it for the very reason you pointed out. (I tried to  explain this in my last post but you put it so much better.  )

Phil, I agree with you, _'as' _does seem to work better.

Emma,  sorry if I veered off topic. I think competitions are areas where you  might expect traditional grammar to be upheld. It's difficult to judge  between stories and grammar does provide some framework for the judges  to work to. Of course, the writer can choose to write their story as  they like but, if they break the rules during a competition, they have  to take it on the chin if it's held against them by the judges, imo. I  speak as one who has been marked down for grammar sins that have been my  deliberate choice. I never complain because I tend to think my story  wasn't strong enough to carry the errant grammar without it being  noticed. When I write for publication I still use 'bad' grammar when it  feels 'right' to me and I've been lucky enough to get away with it (so  far.)

This conversation reminds me of a small incident that took  place when I was at school ( I have a fantastic memory. lol. ) A boy in  my English Lit. class had his story marked down because he had sentences  beginning with 'And.' The teacher told him that it is forbidden to  start a sentence with a conjunction and it should never be done. The  next day, the boy arrived with a Thomas Hardy novel and showed the  teacher several examples of sentences starting with 'And' and 'But'. The  teacher simply sighed and said, "When you are as famous as Hardy you  can start sentences with conjunctions, until then you do as you're  told."


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 24, 2017)

Olly Buckle said:


> If you 'went back a hundred years or more', yes, you would find grammar defined by rules, a 'right' and a 'wrong' way of saying things. This is prescriptive grammar.
> 
> Modern grammarians tend to look at the way that language is used, and then use grammar to describe that; descriptive grammar.
> 
> ...



"The term descriptive grammar refers to an objective, nonjudgmental description of the grammatical constructions in a language"

I _want _to be judgmental. Laughing, it suits my personality. I'm happy with people arguing with me, and changing my mind or me changing theirs or ending up with some mess like the Oxford Comma. To me, it's chaos to just say everything is okay. The modern rules of grammar: Do your best, good luck.



> They couldn't claim marriage; she wasn't wearing a wedding ring and he's taken his off for good three years before, but they could claim....



Where does descriptivism get us? Saying that's okay because King did it? I want to say that a semicolon is a bigger separator than a comma, and if you want to use just one, it better be in the meaningful center of your sentence.

I have read what grammarians have to say about left-dislocations. To summarize, they are sometimes used. They don't know if left-dislocations are grammatical. Left dislocations are a sign of less education, which you could have gotten from reading Twain. No discussion of when they are useful. No discussion of the hoops we jump though because we don't use them when they are useful. No mention of variations or similar constructs. Those are answer (or opinions) you only get by trying to use them in your writing.

Descriptivism has it's uses; I think I am the primary user of it here at WF for grammar things. You mention describing the _meaning _of a construct. I haven't seen the descriptivists do that, but once that's done, it's a really quick step to prescriptivism.


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