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APS Message Forum :: General :: Other English Language Problems :: To stop apost. abuses Author Topic: To stop apost. abuses (Read 343 times) sephris New Member member is offline Joined: Apr 2012 Gender: Male Posts: 2 To stop apost. abuses « Thread Started on Apr 25, 2012, 2:24pm » Look at what I have received, right here, on this site, from your sitemaster, about my inbox. "Hey, sephris, you have 0 messages, 0 are new. Apr 25, 2012, 2:08pm" There is, one may say, a tendency to, oh, I don't know, perhaps overuse, yes I think that would be fitting, the amount of, ummm, commas, yes, that they can, you know, put into a single, umm, sentence. It thus shows, of course, that while you might, as you say, be defenders of apostrophies, you are, in fact, abusers of the smaller, and might I say less frequently noticed, comma, thus perpetuating, in my opinion, a greater literary evil than, as you desire to point out, others have done with the apostrophe. Perhaps if, and I know , for you, this is a big if, but if you have the heart to spare the apostrophe, as one might put it, it would be also considered that you would, at least, have the same amount of compassion, if not more, for the abuse of the apostrophe's smaller cousin, the comma. For the comma, as you may or may not have understood previous to my comment, is far more abused, yea, even misused, than the the higher, and more lofty, apostrophe is, at least in general use. Let us, as civilized adults, join forces, perhaps a literary alliance, to see that all forms of punctuation, no matter how grand or small, are used not only properly, but in their proper form and shape, so that we can all, one day, be viewers of a more fixed and, in my belief, tidy literary world. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged John (Forum Admin) Administrator APS Forum Administrator & Webmaster member is offline John Hale, APS Forum Administrator & Webmaster Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 132 Location: South Dorset, UK Re: To stop apost. abuses « Reply #1 on Apr 25, 2012, 3:36pm » Apr 25, 2012, 2:24pm, sephris wrote: Look at what I have received, right here, on this site, from your sitemaster, about my inbox. "Hey, sephris, you have 0 messages, 0 are new. Apr 25, 2012, 2:08pm" There is, one may say, a tendency to, oh, I don't know, perhaps overuse, yes I think that would be fitting, the amount of, ummm, commas, yes, that they can, you know, put into a single, umm, sentence. It thus shows, of course, that while you might, as you say, be defenders of apostrophies, you are, in fact, abusers of the smaller, and might I say less frequently noticed, comma, thus perpetuating, in my opinion, a greater literary evil than, as you desire to point out, others have done with the apostrophe. Perhaps if, and I know , for you, this is a big if, but if you have the heart to spare the apostrophe, as one might put it, it would be also considered that you would, at least, have the same amount of compassion, if not more, for the abuse of the apostrophe's smaller cousin, the comma. For the comma, as you may or may not have understood previous to my comment, is far more abused, yea, even misused, than the the higher, and more lofty, apostrophe is, at least in general use. Let us, as civilized adults, join forces, perhaps a literary alliance, to see that all forms of punctuation, no matter how grand or small, are used not only properly, but in their proper form and shape, so that we can all, one day, be viewers of a more fixed and, in my belief, tidy literary world. If, dare I say, your rather "unusual" post is to be taken seriously ... 1. I have move it to this section of our Forum because it relates more to the comma than the apostrophe. 2. The message to which you refer is generated automatically by this message board system (which is hosted in the US), the wording of which is not within my control as APS webmaster. 3. Your duplicate post has been deleted. Please do not post duplicate messages on our Forum. « Last Edit: Apr 25, 2012, 3:40pm by John (Forum Admin) » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged John Hale (APS Forum Administrator & Webmaster) Chippers Guest Re: To stop apost. abuses « Reply #2 on Apr 25, 2012, 6:11pm » sephris, Why don't you start a forum devoted to commas? Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Tone Advanced Member member is offline "I don't do Happy." Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 912 Location: West of London (ex-Hampshire) Re: To stop apost. abuses « Reply #3 on Apr 25, 2012, 8:15pm » >"Hey, sephris, you have 0 messages, 0 are new. Apr 25, 2012, 2:08pm" < And just which are "unnecessary" commas therein? I might well decry the use of "Hi", but I'm sure that all the commas are needed. (But that is not to say that the more careless users of English might omit some of them!) Tone Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged hubertus Senior Member member is offline Joined: Jan 2012 Gender: Male Posts: 465 Location: W. Yorkshire, England Re: To stop apost. abuses « Reply #4 on Apr 26, 2012, 6:53am » Stylistically, I would prefer a colon or a full stop in place of the last comma. I don't like sentences peppered with commas. Short, crisp sentences are more pleasing to me. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Pete Advanced Member member is offline Punctuation is the virtue of the bored! Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 738 Location: Leicester, UK Re: To stop apost. abuses « Reply #5 on Apr 30, 2012, 11:10am » Apr 25, 2012, 2:24pm, sephris wrote: Look at what I have received, right here, on this site, from your sitemaster, about my inbox. "Hey, sephris, you have 0 messages, 0 are new. Apr 25, 2012, 2:08pm" There is, one may say, a tendency to, oh, I don't know, perhaps overuse, yes I think that would be fitting, the amount of, ummm, commas, yes, that they can, you know, put into a single, umm, sentence. It thus shows, of course, that while you might, as you say, be defenders of apostrophies, you are, in fact, abusers of the smaller, and might I say less frequently noticed, comma, thus perpetuating, in my opinion, a greater literary evil than, as you desire to point out, others have done with the apostrophe. Perhaps if, and I know , for you, this is a big if, but if you have the heart to spare the apostrophe, as one might put it, it would be also considered that you would, at least, have the same amount of compassion, if not more, for the abuse of the apostrophe's smaller cousin, the comma. For the comma, as you may or may not have understood previous to my comment, is far more abused, yea, even misused, than the the higher, and more lofty, apostrophe is, at least in general use. Let us, as civilized adults, join forces, perhaps a literary alliance, to see that all forms of punctuation, no matter how grand or small, are used not only properly, but in their proper form and shape, so that we can all, one day, be viewers of a more fixed and, in my belief, tidy literary world. Hypercommaism, perhaps? Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Pete Advanced Member member is offline Punctuation is the virtue of the bored! Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 738 Location: Leicester, UK Re: To stop apost. abuses « Reply #6 on Apr 30, 2012, 11:11am » Apr 26, 2012, 6:53am, hubertus wrote: Stylistically, I would prefer a colon or a full stop in place of the last comma. I don't like sentences peppered with commas. Short, crisp sentences are more pleasing to me. I agree, hubertus. The issue is not that the commas are unnecessary, as they are all required by the standard rules of English punctuation. But the sentence looks poor and I would recast it, if possible. 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