dogboy said:
Another one that is hard to remember, at least for me, is when to use "which" and when to use "than". English can be a difficult language to master when writing.
jayjoy said:
I also have much trouble differentiating "which" and "than." Every time I use one in a formal essay, I have to look it up!
You mean "
which" and "
that"? I remember that annoying paperclip in Word trying to teach me the difference! Grr!
According to Clippy, when used as to clarify a statement (as opposed to asking a question), "
which" is followed by a supplemental clause, while "
that" is followed by a necessary one. And you need to use a comma before "which", but not "that".
So, "
the dog that farted" refers specifically the farting dog; whereas "
the dog, which farted" refers to the dog... which (inconsequentially) farted.
I think there's an argument that, without a comma, "which" and "that" are synonymous... Or at least unambiguous.
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One of the most heinous crimes of language that I happily commit on a regular basis is in using conjunctions (e.g. and, or, but, etc.) to start a sentence... or even (gasp!) a paragraph!
And I feel no shame when doing this in casual writing, such as here, because
sometimes it helps separate "major" (more encompassing) points from "minor" ones, just like the Oxford comma separates the smaller ones.
But I would never start a sentence (let alone a paragraph) with a conjunction in formal writing.
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As regular forumites may have noticed... I have a particular obsession for the ellipsis (the three dot symbol that indicates a trailing off of thought). Maybe it's because I'm so absent-minded and jump between thoughts a lot... or maybe it just visually separates thoughts in a way in which commas, semicolons, sentences and paragraphs just aren't sufficient...?
I also like the ellipsis followed by a question mark (as above)! It invites more thought and indicates that I'm brainstorming rather then defending a proper argument.
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The thing that I struggle with is the placing of punctuation inside or outside of quotation marks when the quotation is not a full sentence. I sort-of know the rules... but
no one obeys them! And they don't seem logical. So I often omit unnecessary commas before and inside the end of speech marks. They're pointless.
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Talking of speech marks... Why
for the love of sanity do some people say "quote-unquote" before quoting something?! That's the verbal equivalent of saying that Bob said "" No! I'm at the end of my tether and I simply cannot put up with Bob saying that to me again.
It causes the very ambiguity that speech marks are supposed to solve!