posted
I'm going to self-publish this. If someone wanted to read a chapter or whatever before I do, that would be nice. I can email a chapter, put it on the internet, or whatever you want, plus you can download it the whole book here: Modern Grammar Book
Um, it's about all the things writers use that you won't find in a normal grammar/punctuation book. Including all the ungrammatical constructs we use. I suspect it's all hard to find anywhere else for most of it. I know, that's hard to imagine. 82K. TOC:
Section I: Using PaG to Add Life 1. The Art of Fragments Interlude: How to Read this Book 2. Dashes, Ellipses, & Other Pauses Interlude: Pitch 3. Italics and All-Caps (Adding Emotion) Basic Principle: How Much is Too Much? 4. Repetition 5. Disfluencies Interlude: Mimicking Thinking 6. Exclamations Underlying Principle: Excitement and Drama without Quality 7. More New PaG Side Issue: Poetry
Section II: Words 8. Using Adverbs Successfully 9. Active Versus Passive Verbs (& Grammatical Simplicity) 10. Conjunctions 11. That (Which, This, Etc.)
Section III: Punctuation (Dem Dry Bones) 12. Sentences 13. Paragraphs 14a. Combining Two Sentences (Grammatically) Interlude: A Matter of Style 14b. Combining Two Sentences (Ungrammatically) 14c. More Combining Interlude: The Pitch of Punctuation Marks 15. Adding Extra Information (Parentheses, the Double Comma, and the Double Dash) 16. Lists Basic Issue: Forming the Rules of Grammar
Section IV: The Lowly Comma, Building Block of the Universe 17. Split-Personality 18. Comma Confusion 19. Resolutions to the Great Comma Problem Interlude: Rules, Conventions, Tactics, and Style 20. Modifiers 21. Changing Grammar to Fit the Scene
And if you actually want 13 lines . . .
quote:Shannon opened the diary and said, "Oh my God."
Unless Shannon is heavily sedated, this sentence is missing something. Life, I would say. To be more scholarly, the PaG (Punctuation and Grammar) does not support what the writer was trying to convey.
[skip]
Let's remove the dialogue tag and add an exclamation mark:
quote: Shannon opened the diary. "Oh my God!"
Now I'm happy.
[skip] Some issues are less dramatic. Like whether or not this sentence keeps its comma:
quote:He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.
Take the comma out? Leave it in? Frankly, you don't give a damn?
posted
Thanks for sharing, Emma. FYI - the link above has as extra 'http' in it that makes it inoperative: you might want to edit. It should be: http://emmasohan.com/PaGstart.htm
I am seriously under-qualified to comment on a grammar text, but I did download your SPG book a while back... It's on my (growing) 'to-read' list, to which I'll add this one as well. If I get to it in the coming month, I may send feedback, but can't promise that. (Anyway, I'm likely to be learning more than critiquing.)
All I can offer for now: I like the style of the first thirteen -- warm, engaging and gently amusing. All helpful things in a text about grammar... which can spark dread in the hearts of many, mine included.
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quote:He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.
Take the comma out? Leave it in? Frankly, you don't give a damn?
Comma stays per standard grammar principles for compound subject-predicate compound sentence guidelines. No semicolon nor colon instead, if prior to a conjunction that links two syntax units. Dash not indicated either, too sophisticated, too abrupt, too soon, for a third-person middle distance to close distance, provincial persona's expression mannerisms.
The subtle rhetoric principle, though, is what part of the sentence is emphasized, of most affect force (auxesis). Also, whose viewpoint foremost, narrator or focal persona? Force at the end, a type of periodic sentence, though brief: "he had gone eighty-four days without taking a fish." The clause is pertinent to the whole novella's central theme of late adulthood initiation onset and, hence, wants emphasis. An individual and Nature, salado * by age's natural progression. As is, the sentence favors narrator viewpoint.
//He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream. He had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Auxesis defused, narrator viewpoint. //An old man, who fished alone _in_ a skiff _in_ the Gulf Stream, he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Valid, affect force movement. Too many prepositions for best strength and clarity, though, a pesky middle position relative case pronoun clause, "who," and narrator viewpoint. //He fished the Gulf Stream alone from a skiff. An old man, he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Narrator viewpoint. //Alone from a skiff, an old man, he fished the Gulf Stream. He had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Chaotic agonist thought. //An old man, he fished the Gulf Stream alone from a skiff, eighty-four days now without a fish.// Middle main clause, though tension setup, first position phrase non-emphatic, main clause tension relief delay and force increase, appositive end partial tension relief phrase and further force increase. Force progression graphic: _ | - | ^ Etc.
The latter example above also more so estranges the narrator's voice in favor of Santiago's viewpoint, stream-of-consciousness though not chaotic thought. Four in one, enhanced strength and clarity, force movement, tension entrainment, and middle to close narrative distance viewpoint persona introduced in favor of now more so somewhat estranged narrator viewpoint.
* Salado, provincial "salao" in the narrative, from Spanish verb salar, to salt, past tense salado, salted, typical provincial D slurred "salao" of the novella, is the past participle gerund noun or adjective. "But after forty days without a fish[,] the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky . . ." Salao is a Spanish metonymy for cursed -- by old age's mystical, mythical, natural curse, akin to maritime English metonymy "old salt," attribute descriptions for both.
posted
Right, leaving the comma out is grammatically correct. That rule is broken often, but the interesting thing is that Hemingway left the comma out FOR THE WHOLE BOOK. It's an amazing lack of diversity.
Why? It's fun to think about, but I'm not sure the answer is important to grammar. The question is why any skilled writer would leave it out (or leave it in), and I think Hemingway was doing something different and unique.
From that book, an endless train of comma-less ands connecting independent clauses.
quote:The line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean bulged ahead of the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides. He was bright in the sun and his head and back were dark purple and in the sun the stripes on his sides showed wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball bat and tapered like rapier and he rose his full length from the water and then re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the old man saw the great scythe-blade of his tail go under and the line commenced to race out.
posted
Wanted commas and other punctuation are often left out to minimize bumpy flow. Polysyndeton, multiple conjunctions, as above, is to stream flow, a stream-of-consciousness method that simulates pressure of speech and thought (Wikipedia), that represents emotional expression, what I label filibuster speech, too, monologue that resists or refuses mid sentence or mid speech interruptions, resists readers, viewers, hearers' escapes or conversation participants' interruptions, monopolizes, forces, and manipulates waits for a natural break.
Both are adjustable for more apt and artful expression if standard grammar principles are applied, and, more often than not, more comprehensible and easier to read, of stronger and clearer intent and affect force movement, etc.
and's more common, subtler, apt, and mechanical use is a coordination conjunction related to serial lists of two parallel and coordinated items (night and day, green and gold, hot and dry, Joan and Jay, worked and sweated). As is the latter paragraph above, rather than unconventional though discretionary grammar syntax unit links, conjunction-spliced sentences, a type of fused or run-on sentence, as Hemingway does for the streamed flow above that expresses emotion, too.
That comma above is discretionary, otherwise, the comma is wanted. Grammatically correct or incorrect are judgments for formal composition, not for prose if apt and for a rhetorical function, like emotion expression. Nine out of ten experienced English writers would leave it out anyway, and not know what they do or why, nor many readers: convenient habit and similar precedent examples. "Separate two main clauses with a comma only when they are joined by a coordinating conjunction" ("Comma Splices," Little, Brown Handbook, 12th edition, section 18a, page 362, as well as many other handbooks and style guides).
Spliced sentences and adjustments: //He was an old man, who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Invalid punctuation splice.
//He was an old man, who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream; he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Valid punctuation splice.
//He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream. He had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Valid punctuation, de-spliced. Relative pronoun clause not comma separated due to it is a terminal restrictive clause.
//Because he was an old man, who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.// Valid punctuation splice, invalid subordination conjunction initial word, though apt if for other than an initial sentence or for rhetorical effect. (Rudyard Kipling, "If," Kipling Society site.)
"He was an old man[,] who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish." Valid punctuation and coordination conjunction splice, medial relative pronoun clause now aptly punctuated, though affect force movement sags mid sentence, defuses auxesis, and further promotes narrator viewpoint at the expense of agonist's viewpoint.
Grammar matters mutually inform narrative craft matters, and discourse, expression, and appeal matters, such as narrative distance, affect force movement, and tension entrainment.
quote:Originally posted by WarrenB: Thanks for sharing, Emma. FYI - the link above has as extra 'http' in it that makes it inoperative: you might want to edit. It should be: http://emmasohan.com/PaGstart.htm
I am seriously under-qualified to comment on a grammar text, but I did download your SPG book a while back... It's on my (growing) 'to-read' list, to which I'll add this one as well. If I get to it in the coming month, I may send feedback, but can't promise that. (Anyway, I'm likely to be learning more than critiquing.)
All I can offer for now: I like the style of the first thirteen -- warm, engaging and gently amusing. All helpful things in a text about grammar... which can spark dread in the hearts of many, mine included.
Thanks and thanks. I try to make it upbeat, when I can but that's only occasional. But the reality is it tends to be work, and most of it's marginal value. So I talk about using commas to distinguish the two meanings of "or", and that's ultimately useful to do. (Hmm, I am now realizing I could use more humorous examples.) But it isn't like a reader will notice, it's more the difference between smooth reading and not as smooth.
And so the whole book goes. It's a book for people willing to spend a lot of time and effort to improve their writing in ways that are rarely dramatic.
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posted
First, Hemmingway connected all of his independent clauses with "and". As far as I know. And left out the comma unless it was there for other reasons.
Extrinsic this is a BASIC IDEA in my book. There are reasons for choices. I want them to have different meanings.
So I don't want to call that comma optional, I want to say you leave in the comma or take it out depending on what you want to accomplish.
You might like it to help distinguish events that are happening simultaneously versus sequential. I think I never leave out the comma when the "and" means "and then" or "and also" or "and so".
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posted
Discretionary is a distinction among apt grammar options and rhetoric functions, and inept and convenient omissions or inclusions.
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