Handy Forum Words

[REWahoo]

So here's a punctuation question for the group:

What is the proper way to use a colon...

I gave up on that question long ago - couldn't figure it out even after undergoing a colonoscopy.

 

[Nemo2]

So here's a punctuation question for the group:


What is the proper way to use a colon, as I did above, if it is also a question?

Example:

Where could I find examples of the following?:

< list of stuff>​

​

So it's a question, but it also seems to need the colon to show that it leads into the following list. But ":?" or "?:" or "? :" looks awkward. But maybe it is correct that way?


-ERD50

I think that if you use a question mark you should dispense with the colon.

 

[ERD50]

I think that if you use a question mark you should dispense with the colon.

A quick search shows that some hold that opinion, but it wasn't universal. But I'd say it works. Another suggestion, one that I tend to follow when I hit questionable punctuation/grammar situations: reword it to avoid the problem altogether!

-ERD50

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I gave up on that question long ago - couldn't figure it out even after undergoing a colonoscopy.

Try punctuation H, that should clear things right up.

 

[Nemo2]

Try punctuation H, that should clear things right up.

 

[REWahoo]

Try punctuation H, that should clear things right up.

<rimshot!>

 

[ERD50]

OK, I knew I was throwing a slow, arcing pitch, right across the plate with that one. I thought maybe it was too easy, and you guys might resist. But the "Punctuation H" comment was worth it. Well played!

-ERD50

 

[rodi]

My BIL advises PhD candidates and helps them with their doctoral dissertations. Most of his students are working on doctorates in education and are primary and secondary school principals. You'd think they would know how to write. He said that it's shocking how poorly some of these candidates write. Poor grammar, poor spelling. He's supposed to be helping them organize their thesis and arguments, but ends up doing basic proof reading of typos.

Me - I'm an engineer... It's assumed I can't write.

 

[Walt34]

Another suggestion, one that I tend to follow when I hit questionable punctuation/grammar situations: reword it to avoid the problem altogether!
-ERD50

I do that a lot. It helps to KISS and avoid the issue altogether.

 

[imoldernu]

How about "meme"?

Now there's a handy word for a forum. Definition?

 

[NW-Bound]

My young wife told me that when she was in kindergarten, the teacher was trying to teach them which hand was their right hand so they could say the flag pledge. The teacher said to the class "It's the one closest to the door" (of the classroom). For some time after that, whenever my wife was asked to do something with her right hand, she looked for the nearest door.

I just remembered that when I was 4 or 5, I often put my shoes on the wrong feet. So, my father put a small piece of red electrical tape on my right shoe for identification. But how did I know which was my right foot? I figured out that it was on the same side as my right hand. But which was my right hand? Well, it was the one I would hold a pencil with. There!

So, every time I put on my shoes, I would try to remind myself which hand would hold the pencil, and to be sure, I would pretend to write something by waving my right hand in the air. Yep, that was the right hand all right!

PS. Back on the thread topic, I make plenty of mistakes myself, but people confusing "it's" and "its" just drives me nuts. Its is a mere 3-letter word!

 

[Major Tom]

Including me.

FIFY.

I say "including myself". I have no idea whether that is considered correct or not, but I am English and I know many English people who say it that way, as well as many Americans.

In fact, to be honest (and why wouldn't I be), "including me" sounds distinctly odd to my ears.

Perhaps I am the one who has been misinformed all these years - who knows!

 

[Major Tom]

To continue on from my previous post, I'd like to ramble a little on the subject of "correct" English.

I don't know if what I am about to mention is a new usage, or just something that I had never noticed before. To complicate things further, being English, I sometimes wonder if a particular usage is simply an example of American English as opposed to English English. Anyway, in the last few years, I have been noticing a use of the word "anymore", to mean "nowadays", or "these days". There is even a Wiki page on this usage, which they call "positive anymore". Here's an example from this page,

"Anymore we watch videos rather than go to the movies."

My SO uses anymore in this way and it used to drive me potty. I had never come across the word used in this fashion and just assumed she was "wrong" (how condescending of me!) Then I noticed more and more people using it this way. It seems that it was a regional usage, which is spreading. It still sounds "wrong" to me, but I'm sure that the way we all speak would sound very off-kilter to anyone who was alive a couple of hundred years ago.

Languages morph and change, and there's not much we can do about it.

 

[Nemo2]

^ I recall being in Georgia some 17 years ago and speaking to a campground manager.......a woman entered the office while we were conversing, and the guy turned to me and said "I claim kin to her"........terminology that was possibly an English hold over from previous centuries(?)

 

[braumeister]

use of the word "anymore", to mean "nowadays", or "these days".

This may be a regionalism, but it extends over a much greater area than that wiki page indicates. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and it was considered normal there.

 

[Hermit]

...

Perhaps I am the one who has been misinformed all these years - who knows!

The Shadow.

The Shadow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[haha]

To continue on from my previous post, I'd like to ramble a little on the subject of "correct" English.

I don't know if what I am about to mention is a new usage, or just something that I had never noticed before. To complicate things further, being English, I sometimes wonder if a particular usage is simply an example of American English as opposed to English English. Anyway, in the last few years, I have been noticing a use of the word "anymore", to mean "nowadays", or "these days". There is even a Wiki page on this usage, which they call "positive anymore". Here's an example from this page,

"Anymore we watch videos rather than go to the movies."

My SO uses anymore in this way and it used to drive me potty. I had never come across the word used in this fashion and just assumed she was "wrong" (how condescending of me!) Then I noticed more and more people using it this way. It seems that it was a regional usage, which is spreading. It still sounds "wrong" to me, but I'm sure that the way we all speak would sound very off-kilter to anyone who was alive a couple of hundred years ago.

Languages morph and change, and there's not much we can do about it.

This usage is certainly older than I am, and may go back who knows how long. Someone with O.E.D access can tell us.

Duke Ellington first recorded this as an instrumental in 1940; words were written and Ellington as well as the Ink Spots recorded it in 1942. It was a big hit, reaching #8 on Billboard's charts. Plenty of lonely young people around in those war years and the theme of loss and change hit the public's consciousness.

Ha

 

[haha]

^ I recall being in Georgia some 17 years ago and speaking to a campground manager.......a woman entered the office while we were conversing, and the guy turned to me and said "I claim kin to her"........terminology that was possibly an English hold over from previous centuries(?)

Southerners never spoke of relatives, that cold Yankee term. We spoke of kin.

Ha

 

[braumeister]

This usage is certainly older than I am, and may go back who knows hos long. Someone with O.E.D access can tell us.

The OED doesn't list "anymore" as a single word, but my Random House Unabridged (2nd Ed.) does (in this same meaning) and traces it to Middle English, 1350-1400.

 

[Major Tom]

Duke Ellington first recorded this as an instrumental in 1940; words were written and Ellington as well as the Ink Spots recorded it in 1942. It was a big hit, reaching #8 on Billboard's charts. Plenty of lonely young people around in those war years and the theme of loss and change hit the public's consciousness.

I'm very familiar with this song and believe that this is the traditional use of the term, as in "I don't get around much any longer". I'm talking about it's use in statements such as, "Everything we do anymore seems to have been done in a big hurry." This is using it in an affirmative context as opposed to the the more usual negative sense.

 

[HFWR]

Southerners never spoke of relatives, that cold Yankee term. We spoke of kin.

Ha

Or kinfolk.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Or kinfolk.

or people. As in "those are my people" or "who are your people?"

 

[braumeister]

This is using it in an affirmative context as opposed to the the more usual negative sense.

Hence the RHD (published 1987) reference I cited. About halfway through the entry, is:

In some dialects, chiefly South Midland in origin, it is found in positive statements meaning "nowadays": Baker's bread is all we eat anymore. Anymore, we always take the bus.

It would probably be difficult to think of a topic this forum doesn't have at least some knowledge of.

 

[Major Tom]

Interesting braumeister. I had assumed this usage was an American colloquialism, but it seems that it goes back to the mother country.

 

[aja8888]

or people. As in "those are my people" or "who are your people?"

My DW refers to them as "my peeps"......"my phone is ringing...must be one of my Peeps...."