Friday, November 11, 2011

Reads blogs and comments

The following are Seven Bar Jokes Involving Grammar and Punctuation by Erik K. Auld. Most demonstrate various writing mistakes in a fun way.
Commas seem to throw everyone a curve now and then. Three years ago, John B. recommended the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" to me, and the first entry on the list below reminds me of "eats, shoots and leaves."
I particularly like Number 6 since it used to be my Number 1 nemesis.
Better to laugh at the problems this way than when they show up in your own writing... when they aren't so funny.

1. A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves. (As I said, commas are infamous, so an editor has taken up the challenge to expand this sentence into its possible permutations. For those who are so inclined.)

2. A dangling modifier walks into a bar. After finishing a drink, the bartender asks it to leave.

3. A question mark walks into a bar?

4. Two quotation marks “walk into” a bar.

5. A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink.

6. The bar was walked into by the passive voice.

7. Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave.

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