Well, German commas are one of the few things that are logical. At least if you know the grammar behind the rule.
But then, that might be the German teacher in me speaking.
 

silverblaze wrote:

Schmiezi wrote:

At least if you know the grammar behind the rule.  

I think you may have identified my problem there, Schmiezi. 
 

That was my inner teacher speaking.

silverblaze wrote:

Well, it's helpful for me. AG might just not be aware of the fact that interpunction is different across languages and often quite counterintuitive. I remember learning to write letters in German at school; at first I thought it'd be easy, our languages have a simiar structure etcetera. Turned out I had pretty much all the commas wrong. You Germans, you just love your commas, don't you? 

Funny, I had just finished my secret santa fic when I realised I didn't really know whether to use single quotes or double quotes (I'd seen both). Really happy to see that single quotes are also ok, I wasn't going to redo all the quotation marks! 

The em dash is new for me, though. I don't even think it's on my computer and I can't think of ever reading it in a book. Is it perhaps an American thing? Maybe I just read over it without ever seeing it, interpunction tends to work that way. 

 

WTH is interpunction?  I'm all ears.
 

Harriet wrote:

Ancientsgate, do you think my post wasn't helpful or necessary? Do you think it's of no interest for people here?

I think anything that tries to teach people how to write better is of interest anyplace where writers and readers hang out. I was just putting in my two cents, that punctuation rules are barely taught anymore, and not only that, they're taught way back in school, to 8, 9, 10 year olds, who then quickly forget what they were taught. Fast forward 20+ years, when suddenly someone finds they want to write stories for others to read, but they lack the skills to make it readable. At that time, it'll be necessary to relearn what they were taught back in the day and then promptly forgot. Ivy's small primer was a good review, for sure.
 

We add an adult content warning to the thread and we're talking about punctuation.
I'm so disappointed in you ladies.

tonnaree wrote:

We add an adult content warning to the thread and we're talking about punctuation.
I'm so disappointed in you ladies.

The most boring of all p-words.... I'm so sorry, tonnaree, my fault 


 

Sorry, tonnaree. Feel free to add a bit of adult content. 

Phew! I thought you would say something really naughty! 

Is interpunction not English? Maybe it's a Dutchism. I'll go and check. 

@Tonnaree: No warning is big enough when you talk about punctuation. Schoolkids all over the world agree that it's a topic from hell. 

silverblaze wrote:

Schoolkids all over the world agree that it's a topic from hell. 

I thought that's usually maths, isn't it?

Last edited by stoertebeker (December 21, 2014 10:53 pm)