I don’t think that’s a hard and fast . . . um . . . guideline.
Thank you. I will rethink how I write that kind of sentence.
Sorry to multipost, but I guess this was what my OP was originally all about. Traditional there was one usage and over time another is adopted – I get that. That’s why I was trying not to jump to the conclusion that the commaless folks were wrong, that maybe things had changed enough that commalessness has been recognized as acceptable.
I’d be curious to hear what you and others come up with. Seriously, not sarcastically.
You’ve taken a beating in this thread, and come up smiling & polite. I respect that a bunch.
I struggle with gender-neutral writing too. I’ve read a lot of proposals, most pretty poor IMO. The cure shouldn’t be worse than the disease. IMO the so-called singular they is almost worse than the disease it cures.
Anyone?
I don’t think here’s nothing wrong with the singular they. It’s been used for centuries, and to most people it sounds correct where “he” or “she” or “he or she” does not. I brought it up as a joke-- you’re worried about X grammar rule when you’re breaking grammar rule Y!!
I confess to using “s/he” during one phase of my life. Get out the wet noodle.
Yeah, to me, the singular “they” is the most natural-sounding solution to the lack of gender neutral pronouns in English. When I’m writing formally, I try to avoid it, or try to recast in the plural if possible, but for my own speech and writing, I like it far better than any of the alternatives. When I was in college in the early 90s, I remember alternating “he” and “she” as pronouns from paragraph to paragraph being one way around the lack of a gender-neutral third person singular, and it drove me completely nuts. “He/She,” “he or she” is needlessly wordy, and “s/he” or “(s)he” is just inelegant (and how do you say that aloud?) And the various neologisms for third person pronouns are just a non-starter for me. Singular gender-neutral “they” is familiar enough to my ears that it sounds completely natural (although I could understand how to others it may also sound “off.”) So that’s the one I personally go with when I don’t need to fit my writing to a style guide.
Others may be smarter than you realize, knowing when something is worth stopping to think about.
Periods are used for more emphatic stops.
Consider my sentence above: “Others may be smarter than you realize, knowing when something is worth stopping to think about.”
Now break it into two sentences: “Others may be smarter than you realize. They know when something is worth stopping to think about.”
All such exercises involve personal habit and taste, but the way I read them the pause is enough stronger in the second example to require use of a period.
I would have used a semi colon there. Others may be smarter than you realize; knowing when something is worth stopping to think about.
That which follows a semi-colon should usually be an independent clause, though. I, personally, would not use a semi-colon there.
I attended college during the heyday of gender neutral writing as a Big Deal.
I was a “s/he” user as well. And to answer pulykamell, I pronounced that as “shuh-he”. Like the start of “shuffle” then plain old “he”. I don’t know how others did.
I gave up on that because there isn’t a good corresponding him/her neologism. And “himr” just sounded dangerous; mentioning something that sounds like hummer when trying to be gender neutral in an otherwise sex-politics charged environment was / is a recipe for epic fail.
One way of putting is that a comma is appropriate for connecting an independent clause with an element which cannot stand alone as its own sentence.
Who is doing the knowing?
D’oh!
Again, I do not mean to be dismissive or rude as everyone is entitled to their own feelings. I’m just interested in why it bothers a person and why people grant this institution or that dictionary the ‘right’ to change the rules but not the people themselves.
I don’t think you’re being rude, but it goes back to the idea of clear communication and making a judgment that a person knows what he or she is doing. If I am reading a business document and someone consistently spells “cat” as “kat”, yes, I guess I can understand what he or she is saying, but it brings me up short and makes me wonder about the person. When folks use all kinds of variants of "e.g., " (e.g., eg, EG) it brings me up short and makes me wonder if they are pulling it out of their asses or if they know something I don’t. We don’t usually just plop down a phonetic spelling and leave it at that.
Just use your common sense, people! It’s just an abbreviation, and it should be treated exactly as you would treat the words spelled in full.
If you put a comma after “exempli gratia,” then you should also put one after “e.g.” Why would you put one after “exempli gratia?” Because you would also do so after “for example.”
[QUOTE=gigi]
Traditional there was one usage
[/QUOTE]
Now, if you’re going to get up in arms about a comma after “e.g.,” then you should at least be consistent. It is precisely the same rule that dictates that there should be a comma after “traditionally.” Why did you think that the one is mandatory while the other one is optional, when both cases are governed by the very same rule?
If you’re going to judge people based on how well they know their grammar (as you admitted), at least know the rules yourself; otherwise you’re just making yourself look foolish.
Commas after periods are aesthetically displeasing, and people tend to avoid them whenever possible. Since the spelled out version of the abbreviation always has the comma, it can be incorporated into the abbreviation.
The thing is, what is right or wrong in language is always decided by the people. It can’t not be. The place of prescriptivism is to create inertia and prevent change from getting out of control. The place of a style guide is to create consistency. Ultimately all bow down to the descriptivist ideals.
Descriptivism still has rules. They are just entirely democratic. You can still be a descriptivist and say that something is an error. Prescriptivism isn’t needed at that level. It’s useful for teaching, but not for evaluating.
Others.
“Than you realize” is a Subordinate Clause.
Sorry, that was a typo. And I could argue that you don’t need a comma because there isn’t a pause after “traditionally”. There is a pause after “for example”.
So, once again, this was my point in starting the thread. I noticed a change in how these expressions are punctuated and wondered if the rules I had learned have changed. I was intentionally NOT assuming I was right, and wanted to find out if something had “officially” changed.
And please, judge away. I am happy to know when I should be writing more clearly or correctly.