Archive for Punctuation
A slash by any other name
A couple of days ago, I wrote about abbreviations containing slashes; researching that reminded me to mention that there are a couple of different names for slashes, and a couple...
Commas, multiple
The following sentence contains a comma after every word: Ahead, Edmund, inevitably, lurked. I'm not saying it's a good sentence, but I believe it to be grammatical. So what's the...
Comma, importance of
Back in March, I came across this AP headline: More than math, reading important I read it as saying that reading was more important than math, but the article is...
Food and serial commas
From an article about rescued Chinese miners: But today rescuers hailed a miracle as they pulled more than 100 miners to safety after eight days trapped underground. They had survived...
Why God gave us the serial comma
As reported by Womzilla, via Supergee on the cranky_editors LiveJournal community: Several groups trying to re-ignite New England's faith are theologically conservative, such as the Southern Baptists [and others]. They...
Mother’s Day or Mothers’ Day?
Every year around this time, a question of the utmost importance occurs to me. I refer, of course, to the question of whether this holiday honors mothers or a mother—that...