Time to round off the course with a few useful words about punctuation. Here they are: without punctuation you can't make sense of anything. Let's take the following sentence:
I arrived at the party with two strippers, Kyle, and Carson.
I arrived at the party with two strippers, Kyle and Carson.
I arrived at the party with two strippers: Kyle and Carson.
The first sentence suggests that five of us arrive at the party. There's me, two strippers, and the two boys.
The second sentence is a little ambiguous; are the strippers and the two boys the same people?
The third sentence clarifies everything. Yes, the boys are our entertainment for the evening.
If we strip out all the punctuation from the sentence it leaves us clueless as to the writer's intentions:
I arrived at the party with two strippers Kyle and Carson
If a writer is unclear in his punctuation then he leaves it to the reader's skills to try to interpret whatever meaning he originally had in mind. It's not a great way to communicate, and as our future livings rely on making ourselves clearly understood, it's a good idea to try to get to grips with the basics.
Top Helpers in This Lesson
Not that mine is perfect, but I must have had VERY GOOD TEACHERS as I was painfully and deliberately acquiring English as my second language...I would never have had the guts to put anything up as training but I find it hilarious and can only commend you, Paul.I feel like I have found a soul mate griping about the same thing. I hope you have given a tutorial on my pet hate: the misuse of the words to lay and to lie. My patients always tell me they were laying down...their life, perhaps? And working in Ashton-under - Lyne near Manchester one of my patients proceeded to tell me: "I were just eating me tea, when..."
Coming from South Africa I never thought that i would need an interpreter for English, but there I did!
ReplyWhen ever I hear the word "sat" on telly I shout the word "sitting!" My wife just sighs.
I'll try to do "me" and "I" tomorrow, along with the correction to "me and him went out".
1) It's not 'Lay Lady Lay', it's 'Lie Lady Lie';
2) It's not 'Lay Down, Sally', it's 'Lie Down, Sally'; and
3) It's not 'I Feel Good!', but 'I Feel Well'.
I may not have used the proper punctuation above, but this discussion is about grammar, right? :-)
