Comments on: Punctuation is your friend

By: 2nihon

2nihon — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:31:00 +0000

The ultimate niche group.

By: Brian Baresch

Brian Baresch — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:27:00 +0000

All right, so, at the top of this page, what on earth are “features podcasts family video comics music tech science books”? Those sound like interesting books, but shouldn’t “features”, “podcasts”, and “comics” each drop the terminal S to be proper adjectives?

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:39:00 +0000

Heh. Semi-colons. (“Disabled” – check!)

By: Gloo

Gloo — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 13:23:00 +0000

As a foreigner who only know English learnt from a fairly distant time college class, I can assure you it may be hard, at times, to understand the meaning from sentences lacking a correct punctuation (as much as it may be difficult for you to understand what I tried to say here ;o) ).

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:36:00 +0000

Actually it is a list of four substantives, two of which can function as adjectives or nouns, one only as an adjective and one only as a noun and which would need complete rewriting. The context makes the meaning clear.

No guerrilla punctuationistas required here!

Where’s that panda when you need him?

By: jbond

jbond — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:15:00 +0000

“THANK YOU” should have scare quotes round it.

By: jerwin

jerwin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 05:59:00 +0000

Then you wait. You wait!

By: redesigned

redesigned — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 04:47:00 +0000

sure, especially if it comes with Moroccan food, yum!!!

my favorite trick which i’ve seen a few times, is when they stack the tea cups either in a huge pyramid or on their bodies and pour all that yummy green/mint tea. :-)

but even without the sword belly dancing, the hand washing, the tea pouring, or the sitting on the ground, i’d still go, because the food, damn the food is good.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 04:13:00 +0000

Like this? http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertmiller/1143048746/

By: redesigned

redesigned — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 03:52:00 +0000

now that we have the toilets attention only, we can thank it for shopping with us (not in our store). i always shop with a toilet, it picks out the best produce, and nothing says thank you like 3 !!!

if i was a lady, i’d totally use this washroom whenever i pleased, who are they to say if i’m pregnant or not. i just might not be showing.

By: redesigned

redesigned — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 03:47:00 +0000

i’m in for a complimentary hand washing.

By: Ipo

Ipo — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 02:49:00 +0000

That bathroom must be incredibly clean.

There’s a sign in my neighbourhood that asks to “please feed no water fowel”. And since they ask so nicely, maybe I would, but there are always some ducks, swans and gulls present, so I feed them instead.

By: niktemadur

niktemadur — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 02:18:00 +0000

But what if Im an old handicapped children with child? Your cruel.

I’m just realizing, it hurts to write with bad grammar and spelling.
The freckled kid with the flannel cap and earflaps in Fat Albert yells between my ears, “NC – No Class”… Russell is his name!

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 23:16:00 +0000

You obviously didn’t know me when I was younger.

By: Ashley Yakeley

Ashley Yakeley — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 23:01:00 +0000

Everyone else may use the bath.

By: eldritch

eldritch — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 22:34:00 +0000

The bigger question is this – why the limitations at all? If my bladder is in uproar while I’m picking up Jaffa Cakes at the local Safeway or whatever, why do I need to be in some way disabled to relieve myself?

Maybe there’s another toilet reserved for the more able customers? But then the sign should specify “this” toilet is only for the disabled, elderly, pregnant, and children!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need the loo.

By: class_enemy

class_enemy — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 22:26:00 +0000

A restaurant next to where I work has a lunchroom.

In that lunchroom a sign reads:

EMPLOYEES
MUST WASH YOUR HANDS
BEFORE YOU LEAVE

How long am I supposed to wait?

By: Aaron Gilliland

Aaron Gilliland — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 22:19:00 +0000

That would make excellent fodder for ultra-conservative pundits.

“What has Obama given us in his first four years as President? Disabled, elderly, pregnant children. And, with Obamacare, you get to support them, Taxpayer!”

Warm up the bumper sticker machine.

By: Rob Sheppard

Rob Sheppard — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:52:00 +0000

As Wreckrob says, this is not an issue of punctuation. There are several problems here. First, there’s no parallel form: when joining items in a series, they generally need to be of the same category, but here we’ve got three adjectives and a noun. You also can’t have an adjective as the object of a preposition, so even if ‘children’ was changed to ‘young’, you’d still have an issue. There’s also no conjunction. A simple ‘and’ would make the comical interpretation of the sentence impossible. Semicolons might make things clearer, but it would be nonstandard usage.

By: Michael Pulsford

Michael Pulsford — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:42:00 +0000

Semicolons would help avoid that, but I take your point.

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:16:00 +0000

Why would only punctuation help? It would still read as three adjectives qualifying a noun.

By: Lobster

Lobster — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:50:00 +0000

Holy crap your comment is so cutting and edgy I’m getting dizzy from blood loss. Your pregnant disabled elderly mother must be so proud.

By: Lobster

Lobster — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:48:00 +0000

I like how ONLY is capitalized. It’s like they’re saying the following people are allowed to use it ONLY as a toilet.

By: abstract_reg

abstract_reg — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:37:00 +0000

You are the child of your parent. I think that’s what he is getting at.

By: abstract_reg

abstract_reg — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:36:00 +0000

And then go get knocked-up just to use the washroom.

By: invictus

invictus — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:21:00 +0000

Pregnant progeriac wheelchair-bound gun-toting panda disagrees.

By: jimh

jimh — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:12:00 +0000

I feel that “elderly” and “children” are mutually exclusive.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:56:00 +0000

What?

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:38:00 +0000

Technically speaking it IS possible that a fair number of such people exists.

/The only person that might automatically get disqualified is Adam.

//Not that he ever existed.

By: Jorgen Fleisterman

Jorgen Fleisterman — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:36:00 +0000

Probably that panda bear that eats, shoots & leaves.