An entertaining and instructional page to visit. I love the signs with unintended double meanings. Makes me proud to be an American speller, writer and punctuator.
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I remember a lengthy email exchange we once had on the subject of commas. You taught me that exclamation points are known in the publishing world as screamers, and I modified my use of them after that, to the great benefit of my prose. I've always thought of punctuation as road signs to lead readers to a clear understanding of your writing. Poetic as that may be, it doesn't always work in the real world. My grammar checker does pretty well on punctuation but I don't trust it on very many other things. Now when I'm revising I take out commas like mad and wonder what possessed me to put them there in the first place. I'm so intuitive about writing that I can't quote the rules I've followed.
2 comments:
I remember a lengthy email exchange we once had on the subject of commas. You taught me that exclamation points are known in the publishing world as screamers, and I modified my use of them after that, to the great benefit of my prose. I've always thought of punctuation as road signs to lead readers to a clear understanding of your writing. Poetic as that may be, it doesn't always work in the real world. My grammar checker does pretty well on punctuation but I don't trust it on very many other things. Now when I'm revising I take out commas like mad and wonder what possessed me to put them there in the first place. I'm so intuitive about writing that I can't quote the rules I've followed.
I am working to be a good speller and punctuator, but I wish they'd quit changing the rules.
Janet, when you can, drop by my blog. I left an award for you there.
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