Sunday, May 16, 2010

Four secrets of English writing


Usage affects the evolution of language. The way we are using English on the Internet will forever earn us the scorn of future generations of English speakers/writers, which is why it is imperative that someone makes clear these four most basic rules of sentence construction, since, apparently, most of us either never learnt it or haven't paid enough attention to it to. There are, of course, many more rules pertaining to sentence construction and punctuation, but following the following four would make reading a great pleasure for the readers. So, here goes:

1. Every sentence begins with a capital letter. Always.
2. Choose only one of the following to terminate a sentence: . ! ? Do not use an exclamation mark and a question mark in combination to express/ask a surprised question.
3. After you've made your choice in Rule 2, use it ONLY ONCE. Using 27 exclamation marks at the end of a sentence doesn't mean you have a point. If you really do have a point, just one exclamation mark, if deemed necessary and appropriate, would suffice. And by extension of Rule 1, every sentence is terminated by only one period (or full stop). Always. Furthermore, it's easier to use one than seven or eight.
4. There exists a space after a period (or full stop) and a comma. Be wise in using or not using commas. "Let's eat, grandma" is not the same as "let's eat grandma."

While occasional typos and punctuation or capitalization errors can be forgiven, celebrating our ignorance of it cannot be. It's not enough to get the point across. That's like saying as long as there is a ground to sleep on and a roof to protect us from the sun and rain, it's enough. No, its not.

1 comment:

  1. OK i'm guilty! for the hundred full stops and the exclamations and question marks. And you definitely have a point there, we are just runing a language and becoming more and more ignorant towars understanding it in the first place.

    But what gets on my nerve the most is the way "texting" has changed the way we spell. eg. my = ma , for = fa . WHY ! WHY ! its not cool, why dont ppl just stop doing it !!

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