Thread

The Curious Power of Punctuation

44 points · 18 comments · pepys

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noworld · 1790201115 · focus · HN ↗
Let’s eat, Grandma.
piskov · 1790203275 · focus · HN ↗
> what about, say, the war in Gaza?
That was not on my top-5 list of things that may be in that article.
wpollock · 1790209559 · focus · HN ↗
Dang says tomhow is the better moderator.
Dang, says tomhow, is the better moderator.
1. sharts · 1790221366 · focus · HN ↗
  English can be so imprecise.
  1. robotresearcher · 1790223509 · focus · HN ↗
    Those sentences are perfectly precise. Yes they are sensitive to the commas, just as they are to the whitespace and spelling.
2. jazzprogramming · 1790234365 · focus · HN ↗
  - Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
  - But when, Lord, when?!
  - Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
  - Ahhhh.
  1. JadeNB · 1790257903 · focus · HN ↗
    > - Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
    Shouldn't this one be "Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with Me in Paradise?"
    jazzprogramming · 1790274744 · focus · HN ↗
    You're right of course, that is the grammatically correct way. I guess I was dangerously forcing my poetic license.
    But it's still a good example of where a comma (or lack of) can make all the difference.
chasil · 1790214493 · focus · HN ↗
The play and motion picture Wit by Margaret Edson fixates on a poem by John Donne, Death be not Proud.
The fixation is on the last line of the poem:
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
The assertion is that Donne did not intend the use of a semicolon, and converting it to a comma significantly alters the meaning, profoundly uplifting the aura of spirituality.
The play:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_(play)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_(play)
The poem:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Be_Not_Proud" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Be_Not_Proud
Discussion:
<a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CH1100062956&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00913421&p=LitRC&sw=w" rel="nofollow">https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CH1100062956&sid=g...
everybodyknows · 1790216579 · focus · HN ↗
The author quotes: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Then comments:
> I think that “beat” and “borne” lack visual concreteness. Shouldn’t it be “paddle”? “Paddle” sounds a little silly, but that’s the metaphor Fitzgerald is using. (Those boats must be canoes, not steamboats. A steamboat wouldn’t care that much about a current.)
A reminder of the obscurity of Fitzgerald's analogy, which is specific to the technology of sailing: A "beat" is a course that will take the boat upwind -- always a challenge. And if the current of the water is pointed downwind, perhaps impossible.
Somehow none of the New Yorker editors caught this either.
1. rao-v · 1790232983 · focus · HN ↗
  This is a good catch! The choice of beat here to my ear is meant to capture both a sense of urgency (beating a drum to set the pace for rowers) and beating upwind (tacking frequently). The whole article feels a little undercooked and peevishly underinformed for the New Yorker.
Kuyawa · 1790219605 · focus · HN ↗
One thing I refuse to write is a period at the end of a sentence
Don't ask me why, perhaps an OCD of the many I suffer, but I don't see the point of that if a new paragraph is two lines below
And they look ugly in web pages for titles, feature blocks, testimonials, etc
AI likes to use them everywhere when building web apps. I hate that and have to go find/replace every dot next to a closing tag
I'll have to refine my skills.md "Don't end paragraphs with a period"
1. kstrauser · 1790223016 · focus · HN ↗
  That sounds like an excellent idea if you primarily don't communicate with humans.
2. cobbzilla · 1790227379 · focus · HN ↗
  why haven’t you asked your LLM to make a browser plugin to remove all periods, then stop complaining here
3. Guthwine · 1790256826 · focus · HN ↗
  I think the real question is why you are starting a new paragraph after every sentence It makes your posts read as stilted and a bit difficult to follow Do you still use question marks if you ask a question or an exclamation point Curious to what you do when you write on paper but let me know
walrus01 · 1790223274 · focus · HN ↗
Sometimes it's the difference between helping your uncle, Jack, off a horse. Or helping your uncle jack off a horse.
N_Lens · 1790228802 · focus · HN ↗
I helped my Uncle, Jack, off a horse!
euroderf · 1790247920 · focus · HN ↗
Help! Murder! Police!
chrisweekly · 1790254735 · focus · HN ↗
"Let's eat, grandma!" vs "Let's eat grandma!"

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