Periods Meeting Quotes

-He tilted his head to glance at me, eyebrows raised, “You ever going to get the burnt-out house cleared away?”-

Now, I'm relatively certain that should be a period between "raised" and "you," but I'd like to make sure I've got my grammar straight.

When exactly is it appropriate to use commas or periods before quotes?

Here's another excerpt which I think may be more correct, but, again... I'd like to double-check.

-“… Checking up on old friends,” I said carefully as I quickly swung my feet off the recliner, making a quick move towards where Johnny was hunting around in the back of the truck, “… Congrats on the new job.”-

"Someone's" is incorrect. "Apostrophe s" is a contraction for "is," not "has."

Either I misunderstand you, Joe, or it's one of those situations where someone says something about language that is so outlandish that it shocks everyone into silence.

Apostrophe s" is a contraction for both "is," and "has."

Googled - "someone's been told"
Search About 897,000 results

Googled - "someone asked"
About 23,700 results

JTT is off base with his criticism. The use of “their” in that sentence is not a catastrophe, but proper usage still is preferable.

After all, if we took a poll, it's likely most people would disagree with you (that's certainly the case here on A2K). And so, like you, I'll remain content in the knowledge that, although the masses be against me, I am nonetheless right.

That sort of argumentum ad populum is hardly convincing

I've read recently that use of they/their is heard more often now when it refers to a singular subject. This makes me grind my teeth.

Roberta wrote:

The opening sentence should read (assuming that the someone is a male):

Someone's asked me to proofread his work, but he has a habit of always leading into quotes with commas. For example...

"Someone's" is incorrect. "Apostrophe s" is a contraction for "is," not "has."

That doesn't work for you, Joe, because you, [and every other native speaker of English on the planet], simply don't gloss these in the fashion you've described.

This is another of those silly Strunk & White type rules. No one, here at A2K, made note of this "rule" until you pointed it out.

When real rules are broken, they twig in our brains.

It's completely convincing because, as the linguist, Dwight Bolinger said, paraphrased, Usage in the broad sense is the only determiner of correctness. To think differently would have to mean that the rules somehow preceded language.

You proved him correct in a previous post in this thread where you stated,

"Also, "toward" is preferred over "towards" in American writing".

Wrong, sir ... wrong!

You must not be a Staind fan ...

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5027919)
Quote:
JTT is off base with his criticism. The use of “their” in that sentence is not a catastrophe, but proper usage still is preferable.


That's the trouble with folks like you, Frank, that have been schooled in this stupidity - you're willing to ignore all the facts and hang your hat on these inane arguments like "proper usage".

"My criticism" is backed up by research done by really language experts, not these snake oil salesmen that you have "learned" from.

There's nothing proper about making up phony rules for something as complicated as language.

I told you, that's the singular 'you', Frank, and yet it uses a plural verb. Language uses grammar structure to describe nuances. You [singular] know that you [singular] ARE wrong and yet you persist in advancing this abject ignorance.

"__one" are grammatically singular by convention but they are notionally plural.

'Everyone brought his tent' is a ridiculous way to describe that 'Everyone brought their tent'. Why would 'everyone' bring one guy's tent?

This is the kind of stupidity that flows from these nonsensical rules. Again, as I've explained, and provided sources, these rules were made up. They do not conform to tradition [language tradition], though that's a common defense given by prescriptivists. How can these people, who profess to be language experts, miss this glaring fact?

That's funny, because I'm certain everyone in the English-speaking world glosses the same way that I gloss. And that goes for Canada too.

Try to calm down, JTT.

This thread is about the use of a comma...not about starting World War III.

"Someone's" is incorrect. "Apostrophe s" is a contraction for "is," not "has."

That, of course, is not completely accurate, but with respect to an example like "she's been to London", yes, everyone glosses the she plus apostrophe s as she has been

And so it is with a sentence like "she's been to London." It's not grammatically correct,

For instance, let's take the following: "When real rules are broken, they twig in our brains." Now I'm sure you'll agree that that's non-standard English.

You spend a lot of time bloviating, Joe, but none at all explaining why it's not grammatically correct.

And none explaining where you heard such arrant nonsense. Are you embarrassed to tell us that little gem came from one of your elementary school teachers?

And so it is with a sentence like "she's been to London." It's not grammatically correct

you'll first have to explain whether "me want cookie" is standard English