Pondering Example Sentences

[gnomi]

When I'm clarifying a bit of style or punctuation or whatever, I tend to give an example sentence, so that the rule is not provided in a vacuum. This is true of most style guides: an example of correct (or common incorrect) usage is usually provided. But most example sentences tend to be dry. I have a different take on it... I don't know what it is, but I love writing example sentences. For example:

When showing the varying uses of em-dashes:

Bob -- the guy with the chicken on his head -- spoke first.

"Bob, why are you--" Mark started to ask, cutting himself off when the chicken took flight.


On ellipses:

"Bob... why is there a chicken on your head?"

"The chicken belongs to Bob... He wears it on his head."


On periods, commas, semicolons, question marks, and quotation marks:

Bob said, "The moose isn't going to the Red Sox' victory rally."

Susan repeated, "Bob said, 'The moose isn't going to the Red Sox' victory rally.'"

Did Bob say, "The Dropkick Murphys don't expect moose at the rally"?

Susan asked, "Why don't moose like the Dropkick Murphys?"

"Bob saw a moose," Susan said. "It was going to the Depeche Mode concert."

Jason said, "Moose are fond of 80s music"; he said it's true of antelopes, too.

Comments

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

bob said, "i wear the chicken; the chicken does not wear me."

(yaks like new order, tho.)

you can write grammar-example sentences for me anytime. :D (any time?)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Garner permits "anytime" and says:

Some writers consider this term a casualism, but it is highly convenient and has -- for whatever reason -- gained more widespread acceptance than anymore (in positive contexts) and anyplace.

So I say, use "anytime" anytime! ;-)

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

I do this wrong all the time, and I do it the way you do it, so I'm pretty sure it's wrong. Em-dashes don't get spaces around them--unless there's a rule that modifies that for fixed-width fonts, or for em-dashes constructed of two en-dashes.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

If it's any reassurance, Garner says that book publishers will not space around em-dashes, but he recommends spacing around them otherwise, to prevent awkward line-breaks. So if you always do it "wrong", you can just point to Garner!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

What michelel72 said. It seems to be a style thing, varying from house to house.

I prefer the spaces for ease of reading, but I;'m completely aware that many people prefer it without the spaces.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

I don't generally have cause to create example sentences (though I love yours). Instead, since I can never remember the proper Whiskey Tango Foxtrot list, I make up the words to indicate spelling: "No, that's mob, martini-octopus-boy." Apparently I come up with some pretty strange choices under the pressure.

I'm sure it's in a style guide somewhere (not Garner), but Sox' as a possessive makes me vomit a little. Is the theory here that in this particular case the phrase Red Sox is plural and it ends in an s-like sound? (The guide you're working with also seems to eschew the sentence-ending period after ellipses; I should stop there, because I've never yet met a style guide I agree with entirely ....)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

The reason I used x' and not x's in this case (and, yes, I thought about it long and hard before posting) is the sound. We say "Red Socks rally," not "Red Sockses rally," (pronunciationwise, I mean), and so the x' made more sense to me than x's.

However, it's again a house style thing in many cases. You'll see houses that do Maddux' regularly, even though it's usually pronounced "Madduckses."

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

I tend toward the other extreme as you: If it's not obviously a plural, it gets an apostrophe-s. CMS is my guide, and from what I recall, the 15th doesn't even include the exception for Jesus and Moses anymore.

Also, CMS has some great example sentences. And they can get hilarious in their monthly online Q&A.

Does the fact that I find them hilarious make me a pathetic grammar geek?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'm glad you like my example sentences. I figure they shouldn't be boring, right?

As for Whisky Tango Foxtrot list words, I can never remember them either. I tend to use names or familiar nouns when I need to: "N as in Nancy, O as in Orange, M as in Mary, I as in Indigo."

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

I have been known to spell out the shortened version of my name as "B as in buzzards, E as in eat, V as in vampires."

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do that with clients too. It's more fun that way. :-)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yup. Exactly!

[aunt-becca.livejournal.com]

Your grammar posts make my head hurt.....