Part v: Rules Even Your Great-Aunts Grammar Teacher Didn"t Know in Visual Studio .NET

Painting Code 128 Code Set C in Visual Studio .NET Part v: Rules Even Your Great-Aunts Grammar Teacher Didn"t Know

EXCITING AITER VERSION: Smacking Ludwig is Lulu's way of telling Ludwig that he should not have stolen the sacred toe hoop from her parrot Discovered 100 years ago, the toe ring serves to sharpen the

LABELS FOR THOSE WHO CARE: Smacking Lulu =gerund, discovered 100 years ago = participle, to sharpen the parrot's beak = infinitive Combine these ideas into one or more sentences Ludwig bakes infrequently He does bake with enthusiasm His best recipe is for king cake King-cake batter must be stirred for three hours Ludwig orders his cook to stir the batter The cook stirs and LudWig adds the raisins Sometimes he throws in a spoonful of tuna fish Answer: Many combinations are possible, including the following: Ludwig's baking is infrequent but enthusiastic His best recipe, king cake, requires three hours of stirring, which Ludwig orders his cook to do Adding raisins and the occasional spoonful of tuna fish is Ludwig's job (The italicized words are gerunds) Ludwig, who bakes infrequently but enthusiastically, excels at cooking king cake, which requires three hours of stirring Ordering his cook to stir, Ludwig adds raisins and the occasional spoonful of tuna fish (who bakes infrequently but enthusiastically =subordinate clause, cooking king cake = gerund, which requires three hours ofstirring = subordinate clause, ordering his cook = participle, to stir = infinitive)

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Understanding commas ~ Using ellipses correctly ~ Hyphenating made simple ~ Distinguishing between parentheses and brackets ~ Knowing when a slash mark is appropriate

"unctuation is one topic that you don't have to worry about when you're , - ~peaking But oh, those little specks of ink do make your life miserable when you're writing Commas, ellipses (little dots ), hyphens, parentheses, and brackets can wreak havoc on your mind (Who invented them, anyway ) I haven't even mentioned the slash, which isn't the name of a horror movie, but it could be

Despite the terror most people feel when confronted with punctuation dilemmas, the rules actually follow a logical pattern In this chapter I tackle some advanced punctuation rules (For the basics of commas, see 14 For information about semicolons, colons, and dashes, see 15) With just a little effort, you'll find that your punctuation improves and your writing takes a giant step towards grammar nirvana

When you're writing, keep in mind that each comma in your sentence should have a reason for being there The most important reason, of course, is to make your meaning clear Commas act as a signal to your reader Each comma calls for a slight pause - not so long as a period, but a pause nonetheless Commas also separate some words from the rest of the sentence The reader knows that words enclosed by commas are not part of the main idea of the sentence

To begin, here's the rule that tells you when to use commas with descriptions:

If a description is essential to the meaning of the sentence, don't put commas around it If the description is extra, non-essential information, set it off with

commas Consider this situation: In her quest to reform Ludwig's government, Ludmilla made this statement: Taxes, which are a hardship for the people, are not acceptable Eggworthy, who is a member of Ludwig's Parliament, declared himself in complete agreement with Ludmilla's statement However, his version had no commas: Taxes which are a hardship for the people are not acceptable What's the difference Do the commas really matter Yes They matter a lot Here's the deal: which are a hardship for the people is a description If the description is set off from the rest of the sentence by commas, the description is extra - not essential to the meaning of the sentence You can cross it out and the sentence still means the same thing If commas do not set off the description, however, the description is essential to the meaning of the sentence It may not be removed without altering what you are saying Can you now see the difference between Ludmilla's statement and Eggworthy's Here's the original and expanded version of each: LUDMILLA'S ORIGINAL STATEMENT: Taxes, which are a hardship for the people, are not acceptable MEANING OF LUDMILLA'S STATEMENT: The government should not impose taxes Taxes are a problem for the people They have little money as it is We can run the government perfectly well by selling postage stamps to foreign tourists I suggest a tasteful portrait of the royal bride (me) on a new stamp No taxes - that's the bottom line Because Ludmilla's original sentence includes commas, the description which are a hardship for the people is extra information You can omit it from the sentence Thus Ludmilla is against all taxes EGGWORTHY'S ORIGINAL STATEMENT: Taxes which are a hardship for the people are not acceptable MEANING OF EGGWORTHY'S STATEMENT: The government is against any taxes which are a hardship for the people Of course we don't want to place a burden on the working families of our great nation However, the new 90 percent income tax is not a hardship; it allows the people of this great nation to show their patriotism by contributing to the government and paying my salary This particular income tax is acceptable

Eggworthy's proposal is much less extreme than Ludmilla's Without commas the description is a necessary part of the sentence It gives the reader essential information about the meaning of taxes Eggworthy opposes only some taxes - those taxes that he believes are a burden He isn't against all taxes This description doesn't simply add a reason, as Ludmilla's does Instead it identifies the taxes that Eggworthy opposes The pronouns which and that may help you decide whether or not you need commas That generally introduces information that the sentence can't do without - essential information that isn't set off by commas The pronoun which, on the other hand, often introduces non-essential information that may be surrounded by commas Keep in mind, however, that these distinctions are not true 100 percent of the time Sometimes which introduces a description that is essential and therefore needs no commas The pronoun that almost never introduces non-essential material Check out these additional examples, with the description in italics: SENTENCE: The students who are planning a sit-in tomorrow want to be paid for doing homework PUNCTUATION ANALYSIS: The description is not set off by commas, so you may not omit it WHAT THE SENTENCE MEANS: Some of the students - those who are planning a sit-in - want to be paid for doing homework Not all the students want to be paid The rest are perfectly content to do math problems for absolutely no money SENTENCE: The senators, planning to revolt, have given the television network exclusive rights to cover their rebellion PUNCTUATION ANALYSIS: The commas indicate that the description is extra, non-essential information WHAT THE SENTENCE MEANS: All the senators are involved They're quite upset, and all have prepared sound bites Which sentence means that you can't fly to Cincinnati for your cousin's wedding A The pilots who are going on strike demand that mood music be piped into the cockpit B The pilots, who are going on strike, demand that mood music be piped into the cockpit Answer: Sentence B means that all the pilots are going on strike The description between the commas may be omitted without changing the meaning of the sentence In sentence A, only the pilots who like heavy metal music are going on strike