Comments on: Friday, Semicolons, Style, Blue Ribbon, Wong Kar Wai, Cinemas, and Edward Scissorhands

By: tala

tala — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 14:24:54 +0000

by the way, i watched Amazing Grace while i was in New Jersey last weekend, and i loved it. i thought it was perfect. i did wonder if their portrayal of him imagining what slavery was like could have been a little more realistic, but then i remembered, apparently (i think i read this in your article??? :P) he had never seen slavery face to face, and the fact that he knew everything secondhand was even more impressive, considering his passion and determination. long sentence! i like semi-colons, even if they are easily replaceable.

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:33:37 +0000

Where did that “e” come from?

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:32:25 +0000

I happen to love semicolons. I find that they are particularly effective given my style of thinking/speaking (and, consequently, writing) which is to make a statement and then feel the need to qualify it. The funny thing is that I don’t know where I learned the proper use of semicolons and it has often made me wonder if I actually don’t know how to use them properly. But that’s why I’m a writer and not an editore :-P

By: TLC

TLC — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:42:49 +0000

Oh, and actually, I forgot to add that the noun form of “depraved” is actually “depravity,” whereas the noun form of “deprived” is just what you used: deprivation. (Note the use of colon — haha!) So it wouldn’t have 2 A’s after all.

By: TLC

TLC — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:41:02 +0000

You were probably thinking of “depraved” instead of “deprived,” which would have 2 A’s in its noun form. But they mean very different things. In fact, before Matt’s new album went to press I begged him to make a last minute change in which he misused the word “depraved” in a song where he actually meant “deprived.” Common switcheroo made by many. Don’t feel bad. :)

By: Colleen

Colleen — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:34:06 +0000

“Indeed, this simple method of indicating relationship between statements is one of the most useful devices of composition. The relationship [...] is commonly one of cause and consequence” (The Elements of Style 6). (I do so love Strunk and White.) I had a class last semester in which we had to write 3-sentence text reviews, but they were to be approximately a page long. I learned to love conjunctions, semicolons, colons, and parentheses (and the occasional double parenthetical).