Grammar; semi colons, colons and commas......

[groucho]

anybody know for sure when and where to use them? or like me, put them wherever they look good.

[ARH]

I just put them where they look good, never had a clue about spelling and grama. Numbers I can do with no issues at all.

[Eric Mc]

Read Lynne Truss' book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". It's all in there.

[Eric Mc]

I'm usually OK with apostrophes, commas and colons but I'm damned if I know when it is correct to use semi-colons. I therefore avoid them like the plague.

[einion yrth]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'm not entirely convinced by la's post; therefore I think I shall ignore it .

[srebbe64]

ARH said:

never had a clue about spelling and grama.

Actually it's spelt "grammar".

>> Edited by srebbe64 on Friday 25th February 09:07

[jimothy]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

To terminate statements in C++!

[jeremyc]

Eric Mc said:

I'm usually OK with apostrophes, commas and colons but I'm damned if I know when it is correct to use semi-colons. I therefore avoid them like the plague.

I suspect the kids of today use them most for smileys/emoticons. ;-)

[Size Nine Elm]

I find people nowadays use far too many commas in the wrong place - probably a lot to do with Microsoft Word grammar checker complaining about too long and complex sentences.

(Maybe this topic should have referred to dashes too, another good partial sentence delimiter).

The one in particular which annoys me, is the use of a comma as in the first in this sentence, i.e. after the subject, but before the verb. Unless there is some qualification of the subject, there shouldn't be a comma.

This is OK: The Pistonheader, who was in his car, drove like a numpty.

This is not OK: The Pistonheader, drove like a numpty.

(Of course, it is not OK to drive like a numpty).

[einion yrth]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

or C, perl, java, bash, some BASICs etc etc.

[wendyg]

Colons are good in front of a list eg 'Grammar: semicolons, colons and commas.....'

[Balmoral Green]

So, a semi colon is not a complete arsehole then. A comma is what happens if you drink too much, in which case you're a complete colon. And my Grammar is dead.

[beano500]

If your colon is bothering you

[planetdave]

I missed the day they did punctuation at school. (1970's education for ya)


How many miss it now by blinking at an inopportune moment?

[towman]

Yep. Colons give you round eyes, semis make you wink.