<p>Toblin and DonnaL: you miss my point–I was attempting to say that at a Tier 1 school, the professors would know how to spell “rubric”. Not that I had any failings myself. After all, having attended MIT undergrad, I lend a certain bloom to the tier 4 education college I attended for my masters, rather than the other way around.</p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>Sign prominently posted at a local barber shop:</p>
<p>YOUR NEXT</p>
<p>Yahoo has generously stepped into the fray. I haven’t read all the articles, but they seem to be a good start.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Practices for Online Copy | Yahoo! Style Guide](<a href=“http://styleguide.yahoo.com/editing]Best”>http://styleguide.yahoo.com/editing)</p>
<p>Sign prominently posted at a local barber shop:</p>
<p>YOUR NEXT </p>
<p>Your next haircut is about to commence?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Right, but unfortunately some people conclude that they are called for far more often than they really are. It’s a question of good writing more than proper grammar. If in doubt, skip the parentheses and use commas instead.</p>
<p>[How</a> to Use Parentheses Correctly | eHow.com](<a href=“http://www.ehow.com/how_2057192_use-parentheses-correctly.html]How”>http://www.ehow.com/how_2057192_use-parentheses-correctly.html)</p>
<p>Excerpt:
“Replace parentheses with commas wherever possible to continue the flow of the sentence. This simple guideline will cut your use of parentheses by at least 50 percent.”</p>
<p>I teach composition. If minor mistakes made me cringe I’d have to quit my job. I am more interested in what my students have to say and in teaching them to organize their thoughts.</p>
<p>My H has periodic grammar rants, but his grammar is much more flawed than mine.</p>
<p>The guidelines at that eHow link seem comically simplistic and mechanistic to me. “Replace parentheses with commas whenever possible to continue the flow of the sentence”? No. Replace parentheses with commas when commas express your intended meaning more perfectly. There’s no simple rule for this. Yes, commas are smoother and interrupt the flow less–but that’s not always a good thing. Sometimes an interruption of the flow is exactly what you want to get your point across. </p>
<p>Take the example sentence at the eHow link: </p>
<p>John (who is Joan’s brother) drove us to the airport.</p>
<p>They suggest as a substitute</p>
<p>John, who is Joan’s brother, drove us to the airport.</p>
<p>eHow claims that the second of these is “preferred,” but that isn’t necessarily true. The two versions have subtly different meanings, and you should choose your punctuation to match your intended meaning. The version with commas, to my ear, suggests a connection between the subject and predicate on either side of it; perhaps the fact that John is Joan’s brother is the reason why he drove us to the airport. In the version with parentheses, the sibling relationship seems more a tangential fact about John that the writer is mentioning in passing.</p>
<p>Now, I’d rewrite that as:</p>
<p>John (Joan’s brother) drove us to the airport.</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Joan’s brother John drove us to the airport.</p>
<p>I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet but I’ve noticed that at my local produce store, all the signs have quotation marks for the item like this: “Nectarines” $1.99/lb
This is actually pretty common where I live. English is not the first language for a lot of shopkeepers. I think it’s kind of funny. When I read the signs, I hear their voices in my head, as if I’m reading a quote.</p>
<p>^At least it doesn’t say “Nectarine’s” $1.99/lb. I’d be back with my little smudger to rub out the apostrophe. And yes, I see nouns quoted for no apparent reason too. </p>
<p>Or…I, too, see nouns quoted for no apparent reason. </p>
<p>Laurie – who is learning a lot from this thread.</p>
<p>Maybe this has been discussed. Which is correct? The couple is living in Seattle or the couple are living in Seattle. Only one couple so I vote for “is.”</p>
<p>re post 151- couple is considered a collective noun and though by definition it means more than one person, it is treated as a singular noun.
Also true for “everybody”.
Everybody is anxious for our economy to improve. for example.</p>
<p>US standard: the couple is, the brigade is, etc.</p>
<p>British: the couple are, the brigade are</p>
<p>How about: “…based off of…”? Isn’t something always based ON something else.</p>
<p>Such as:</p>
<p>The house is based on its foundation. </p>
<p>The theory is based on unsubstantiated research.</p>
<p>I am not off base on this one! ;)</p>
<p>leanid, yours reminded me of a pet peeve of mine that I know is a losing cause: throwing a superfluous “of” into the construction “that ---- a ----” or “too ---- a ----”, e.g., “I didn’t realize it was that big of a deal.” “It was too small of a space to fit the desk into.” It usually seems to happen with size or quantity adjectives. It really does the nails-on-chalkboard thing for me.</p>
<p>So much blood, you want me to take you to the hospital?</p>
<p>Why ‘the’, is there only ever one hospital?</p>
<p>nightchef,</p>
<p>Your examples are quite correct, but they are lost on those who do not value (or perceive) the importance of logic in proper usage. The language really does rely on logic if it is going to be spoken or written well.</p>
<p>Often, sentence structure is awkward, which almost forces poor word choices.</p>
<p>People seem to use “a lot” much more than “many”, for example. That forces a choice between - ‘There is a lot’ and ‘There are a lot’. To me a ‘lot’ is a singular whole – regardless of the numbers that make up the whole, so I feel that the former should be used.</p>
<p>sorgham, in the US you are “in THE hospital”, but in Britain “in hospital”. I don’t know though if they (the Brits) take you to hospital or to the hospital, or perhaps to an (a?) hospital.</p>
<p>Note, I feel strongly that “the Brits” needs to be in parentheses not between commas. :)</p>
<p>I hate it when people put their names in quotes. I have seen this mainly on signs and mailboxes.</p>
<p>^ So, am I to assume you don’t want to move “onward”?</p>
<p>:D</p>