When to use proper punctuation?

Carry on . . .

Pep ( . . . since you are doing just fine without me. )

Grammar is fluid, and can (should) be made up as you go along. It's purpose is to make writing as understandable as possible. E.g. a missing comma, for instance, can alter a sentence's meaning to the reader. There are few hard and fast rules. I've seen it argued that hyphens in sentences should be double hyphens, and that a single hyphen is wrong. That's bollocks, of course. Either is coorect. It's argued that way simply because some teacher at school taught it that way. I've seen double spaces argued about in the same way. Even in this forum, I seen it (wrongly) stated that single quotes shouldn't be used for highlighting words and that a question mark should always be put on the end of rhetorical questions. But those are just personal choices, and not actual 'rules'.

Or, "Otherwise, sod off - my brain is fried."

Sorry, you used a hyphen where a dash would have been appropriate.

FYI, substituting double-hyphen for dash was a convention for monospace typewriters, which did not have a long dash. This font has a long dash, if I knew how to enter it. Meh, it's a forum post, so I usually do what you do, IIRC.

Sorry, I missed this thread.

Ah, but that's the point about grammar It doesn't matter if it's a hyphen, a double hyphen, a long dash, a few dots (...), or whatever else does the job, such as >>>. Grammar is simply to make writing more understandable, so any of them are correct.

That sounds pretty consistent to what I've been taught as well.

Oh, cool! Does this mean we can verb nouns now?

Verbing weirds language.

Hm. Diff. English ist not my first language. But even in my first language (german), I use these signs and especially a comma where I like it, as kind of "pivot" of my sentences, maybe because all these rules are not fitting to the "sound", or "poetry", or melody, or rhythm, I (sometimes) like to give to sentences - so, I use them by intuition, or better to say: by mood - even while I know the rules, but I find them often too static.

I'm with Immy and with Phil; fairly strict logic *as I see it* combined with a healthy dose of flexibility as regards traditional rules. Poorly nested groupings (as the full stop plopped inside the quotes) look utterly wrong to me and I refuse to do them, rules be damned. I'll also always without fail close parentheses the same way.

If I have a notable "punctuational idiosyncrasy" it's probably that I use a lot more semicolons than most people (and I like to think I use them properly most of the time). Run-on sentences with endless commas bug me enough to avoid, that much is clear; I have no idea, though, why I post so often in pairs of related thoughts that seem to cry out for being connected via semicolon rather than being left to fend for themselves as individual sentences.

More importantly, I have no idea why anybody would care.

/me pours a beer and leaves grammar and punctuation for another, non-Saturday, day.

Hey dont get bored. Your meant to be sassy.

"Okay... well it's always gona be a hard choice," said Jig.

"What do you mean?" asked Dove*
* dove - a bird representing peace.

It's up to you: peace or war.

My English grammar has really improved; I've chained a dictionary to my wrist.

Okay, in terms of book titles...
If you follow the M.L.A. format book titles are always in ITALIC You do NOT use quotation marks for the titles of BOOKS.
You only use quotation marks for the titles of short stories, articles, song titles and poetry.

I have to do much of this sort of thing so use a number of sourcebooks including a new Penguin handbook, the Little Brown Handbook, several on-line handbooks that help me in proper formatting. I hate anything I write to be improperly formatted. Lyrics etc all need correct formatting. Just check out any site or MLA (Modern Language Association). The APA (American Psychological Association) format is quite different but not much use for artists.

I prolly know much more about this than Pep but I just dont let him know that.

Same for APA and Chicago styles, surely? The basic idea is that, if it was ORIGINALLY published on its own, it appears in italics; otherwise, within quotes. So Byron's _Don Juan_, for instance, may be available to YOU through an anthology or collection, but because it was originally published on its own, it would still be italicized.

(Why the F**K are we even HAVING this discussion???)

No. MLA is vastly different from APA and Chicago.
How the f**k should I know? You started it coz you wanted lunch in Yorkville.
And Byron was having it off with his sister. You got sex on the brain, you have.

It's also nice to know we know a lot about it and other people dont. So they are amazed at us and our brilliant chatter.

Yeah, I KNOW they are different. For one thing, I f**king despise APA. I can't STAND parenthetical references inserted into the middle of a text:

"As noted by renowned expert Jig Chippawa (_To Hal with You All_ 2008, p. 27), the Residents Answers forum is an enormous waste of time, and, moreover, a lousy way to pick up guys (79)."

I really hate that MLA has gone this way too,

And I did NOT start this! As for lunch in Yorkville, the really HIP restaurants (Chippawa, "What Is Hip," Post #51) are now in MY area of Toronto anyway.

And I thought I was geeky for keeping a dictionary on my desk for occasional spell-checking while I was typing into Second Life. I never thought of checking everything I say in Second Life through a stack of style manuals. I feel like I should relinquish my B.A. in English.

See all the FUN you've been missing???

I also despise APA and it always reminds me of trash cans in sad alleyways for some reason. MLA has indeed gone down the drain this year - I was sadly disappointed in its recent changes. I think Queen Street has some pretty Hip places BUT I prefer The Danforth when I am in TO. Hip are cool Sikh restaurants.
Lets be honest and say that maybe Hip are now restaurants and bars in Hamilton (up around Mac or environs and in Hamilton main with the new gallery), London ON, and even further afield than that. Halifax is Hip.

I love dictionaries. I have five here and quotations books. I dont like Thesaurus quite so much.
Hip is Ethiopian restuarants but I prefer hole-in-the-wall Jamaican and Bahamian ones.
Scylla stop brushing your teeth and floating off from the keyboard and answer these comments.

Yeeesh! Ok, ok!

Queen Street is cool, but the hip part of it has moved west from where it used to be, nearly into Parkdale. And also up Ossington, between Queen and Dundas. The Danforth is sort of middle-class hip, but a few nice restaurants. College West used to be hip, but is now mostly overpriced, I think.

I've never done Sikh, but Indian is definitely Hip. Portugese is becoming more so, too. And, inevitably, Italian, but with the focus on regional cuisines, and natty little pizza ovens.

I actually don't know Hamilton and Halifax that well, but I can assure you that London is definitely NOT Hip. Not even a bit.

Dictionaries ARE neat. But I like a good thesaurus too; not one of those stupid ones organized by "concept" or "idea," but a really simple one in which you can just look up a word and find lovely alternatives. I don't use quotation books much, but I DO have a really cool one for Latin literature, which includes two sections: one in Latin, and one in English. Always good if you want to wow people with your evidently intimate knowledge of the poetry of Juvenal.

Oh, there's a new Ethiopian place near me. I'll have to try it, and let you know. I'm not big on Caribbean food for some reason. I love curries, but I've never warmed to jerk.

/me flashes a smile notable for gleaming teeth

I have a friend in London ON and so it is Hip coz she is there.
Its a party town now. yaaay!
I'm gonna go to bed now Scylla. I am knackered girl.
I'm gonn abrush my teggies, take my pills, and toddle off to bed.

/me waves goodnight to Jig

I am in PJs already. Nighters. IM me in sl.