There are two things that irritate me quite a lot when people write
prose, especially online:

  1: When, in the middle of a longer sentence, they start writing something
in parentheses, but never close them. Sometimes it's confusing and hard to
guess where the thing in parentheses is supposed to end.

  2: When people write something like: "Two points: Firstly, ..." but then
they never write "Secondly, ..." or anything like that anywhere in the text.
Thus it's hard to see what the *other* point they are making is.

  Yeah, minor things, but...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> There are two things that irritate me quite a lot when people write
> prose, especially online:
>
>   1: When, in the middle of a longer sentence, they start writing something
> in parentheses, but never close them. Sometimes it's confusing and hard to
> guess where the thing in parentheses is supposed to end.

these should have a crash course in Lisp.

>   2: When people write something like: "Two points: Firstly, ..." but then
> they never write "Secondly, ..." or anything like that anywhere in the text.
> Thus it's hard to see what the *other* point they are making is.

these should just throw their 2 cents as usual...

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On 8/28/2010 1:38 PM, Warp wrote:
>    There are two things that irritate me quite a lot when people write
> prose, especially online:
>
>    1: When, in the middle of a longer sentence, they start writing something
> in parentheses, but never close them. Sometimes it's confusing and hard to
> guess where the thing in parentheses is supposed to end.

Oh, crap. I do that all the time...

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For extra comedy you should have written: "There are three things that irritate
me ..." ;)

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> There are two things that irritate me quite a lot when people write
> prose, especially online:
>
>   1: When, in the middle of a longer sentence, they start writing something
> in parentheses, but never close them. Sometimes it's confusing and hard to
> guess where the thing in parentheses is supposed to end.
>
>   2: When people write something like: "Two points: Firstly, ..." but then
> they never write "Secondly, ..." or anything like that anywhere in the text.
> Thus it's hard to see what the *other* point they are making is.
>
>   Yeah, minor things, but...
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> There are two things that irritate me quite a lot when people write
> prose, especially online:
>
>   1: When, in the middle of a longer sentence, they start writing something
> in parentheses, but never close them. Sometimes it's confusing and hard to
> guess where the thing in parentheses is supposed to end.
>
>   2: When people write something like: "Two points: Firstly, ..." but then
> they never write "Secondly, ..." or anything like that anywhere in the text.
> Thus it's hard to see what the *other* point they are making is.
>
>   Yeah, minor things, but...
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

FIVE THINGS THAT IRRITATE ME:

1. EXCESSIVE CAPITALIZATION

B. PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THAT A PREPOSITION IS NOT WHAT ONE SHOULD END A SENTENCE
WITH.

III. NIT-PICKING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE'S WRITING STYLE

FOUR: PEOPLE NOT FINISHING WHAT THEY START.

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Mike the Elder <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> B. PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THAT A PREPOSITION IS NOT WHAT ONE SHOULD END A SENTENCE
> WITH.

  It irritates me when people blindly repeat the lore about certain
conventions of writing being bad, even though there's nothing wrong
about these conventions. It's ok to end a sentence in a preposition,
or start a sentence with a conjunction. There's nothing wrong about it.
The notion of them being "bad English" is just an urban legend invented
by some individual.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> It's ok to end a sentence in a preposition,

Even the guy who invented the rule said it was OK as long as the preposition 
was necessary. The actual rule is to not add an extra preposition that 
doesn't change the sentence.

I.e., "Where is the library at?" can be just as easily written "Where is the 
library?"

On the other hand, "Who did you give it to?" is fine, because you can't say 
"Who did you give it?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Quoth the raven:
        Need S'Mores!

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Warp wrote:
>   There are two things that irritate me quite a lot when people write
> prose, especially online:

BTW, "fake" doesn't mean what you think it means. :-) A machine-assisted 
speed-run is still "fake" even if everyone knows it's speed-assisted, just 
like Star Wars had fake space ships.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Quoth the raven:
        Need S'Mores!

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   There are two things that irritate me quite a lot when people write
> > prose, especially online:

> BTW, "fake" doesn't mean what you think it means. :-) A machine-assisted 
> speed-run is still "fake" even if everyone knows it's speed-assisted, just 
> like Star Wars had fake space ships.

  A movie is not a "fake documentary" because a movie is not intended to
pass for one. It's made clear that it's fiction, and hence it's completely
genuine fiction. Nobody calls a movie "a fake documentary".

  A documentary which fabricates events and claims them to have truly
happened, with the intention of fooling people, is fake.

  Likewise a tool-assisted speedrun is not a "fake speedrun" because it's
not made for the purpose of fooling people into thinking that it's one.
Calling it a fake makes as much sense as calling a movie a fake documentary.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:51:58 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Warp wrote:
>> It's ok to end a sentence in a preposition,
> 
> Even the guy who invented the rule said it was OK as long as the
> preposition was necessary. The actual rule is to not add an extra
> preposition that doesn't change the sentence.
> 
> I.e., "Where is the library at?" can be just as easily written "Where is
> the library?"
> 
> On the other hand, "Who did you give it to?" is fine, because you can't
> say "Who did you give it?"

Except that it should be "Whom", IIRC. ;-)

Jim

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