December Daily: hills to die on, grammatically

[resonant]

laurenthemself -- "What grammatical (or punctuation, spelling) hill would you die on?"

Maaan, I don't know if it was good idea to let me loose on this.

If I can only choose one? Friends, I choose the vocative comma.

Everyone, pay attention. If you're addressing someone by a name or a descriptive title, then there needs to be a comma between that title and the rest of the sentence, fellow writers. This is true whether the name/title is at the start of the sentence or at the end, folks. British schoolteachers of a certain era, I blame you for creating this extremely common activator of my pet peeve system.

Aside from that:

- I have the usual ex-journalist's hair-trigger on the subject of less vs. fewer (the latter for things that can be counted, so the sign on the express lane needs to say "Eight Items Or Fewer").

- The whole genital arrangement is the vulva; the vagina is only the channel itself.

- Please stop conflating top/bottom as in pitch/catch with top/bottom as in dominant/submissive, and please stop writing as though every couple or every sex act must have a top and a bottom of either sort.

- A drabble has one.hundred.words.







ride_4ever if you are a maker of New Year's resolutions, post at least one -- if you are not, then comment about the concept of New Year's resolutions OR write a snippet-sized list of New Year's resolutions from the POV of one dSC6D character.

Comments

[kass]

Oh my goodness I am right there with you on all of these.

Also, Res, I see what you did there, with the vocative comma. :-D

[pauraque]

For some reason, the mailing lists where I hung out in XF fandom defined a drabble as being exactly 155 words. I never found out where that specific number came from and I've never seen it anywhere else.

...Okay, it occurred to me to actually make an effort to check before posting this, and apparently it was inspired by a specific ficlet of that length and I guess at some point that became conflated with drabbles. But here's the kicker: The ficlet in question satirized, among other things, the erroneous belief that somebody always has to top. In 1998! The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[stranger]

With you on the commas and "less/fewer" but the biggest one for me (and I think it's a lost cause, but I'm dying this hill anyway) is lie/lay and lay/laid. One takes a direct object, the other doesn't.

[krytella]

Your opinions are good and correct and you should say it!

[minoanmiss]

I love how you, our gracious host, demonstrated the vocative comma.

[trobadora]

100% agreement!

[trobadora]

Oh god, yes, this. I can't just ignore it; it drives me batty.

[the_shoshanna]

YES.

I have bailed out of many stories because they didn't use the vocative comma. Ow, my eyes.

[fox]

Friend, I will back you on the vocative comma if you will back me on the serial comma. I know - ex-journalist. I'm asking you to HEAL.

[resonant]

I love, honor, and adore the serial comma, but in order not to be driven mad, I have had to arrive at a place where I can endure its absence.

[resonant]

I spent years using it as an early warning sign of a writer who lacked basic language skills, and then I learned that there was a period when British schools were teaching students not to use it! So then I had to recategorize it from "author probably bad in big ways too" to "author to approach with caution but not rule out immediately."

[jesse_the_k]

As long as you're distinguishing vulva and vagina, I want to share something I learned altogether too late in life: that the clitoris isn't a tiny bump, but a very large organ with two pairs of 'horns.'

Unfortunately, the original paper is behind a paywall; the BBC offers a compressed overview.

[lunabee34]

I have extremely fond memories of being in a bar with crazydiamondsue and us trying to explain the vocative comma to the guys who were trying to pick us up. LOL

[laurenthemself]

I am so glad I let you loose on this, my esteemed friend.

I agree with you on all these points!

[james]

And! And stop tagging characters as top and bottom and writing them as though they are always and forever locked into one preferred position.

[minoanmiss]

OMG YES THIS. Was going to say this before but my version kept turning into a 500 word rant.

[torch]

I will be with you on that hill, waving two signs and asking people to tell me the difference between them. Sign one: FUCK HARRY! Sign two: FUCK, HARRY!

(Okay, both of them can be interpreted in a couple of ways. But it's very useful to know whether something is said to or about Harry. Harry cares.)

[resonant]

So glad you're with me, friend!

[resonant]

[facepalm]

I mean, I suppose in the long run it doesn't necessarily do anybody any harm later in life to be going, "Yeah, when I was thirteen I thought it was part of my fundamental personality that I was a top," but jeez. Life is hard enough, you guys.

[resonant]

I used to be so good at lie/lay. My instincts for it used to be flawless. But I see it wrong as often as I see it right, so now I actually have to think about it.

[resonant]

All grammar is merely convention, except when it makes me violently backbutton out of a story.

[resonant]

Kind reader, I'm happy that you understood!

[resonant]

Wonder if any grammar complaints have been found on the walls of Pompeii with all the other human universals?

[resonant]

I've seen those diagrams! They're fascinating! I guess it's kind of like how your immune system includes the bacteria in your intestines that aren't even you.

[resonant]

For some reason I'm seeing this lesson being given to Geralt by a tipsy Jaskier. (Do we have reason to believe that either of those people are literate, though?)

[resonant]

Buddy, if we learn by example, we're all getting our vocative comma use reinforced by this conversation.

[resonant]

[facepalming some more] I've literally gotten AO3 comments from people saying they liked some story or other despite not agreeing with the characterization of bottom!whoever. I just think it would be better for everyone if we could agree that nerve endings do not have politics.

[resonant]

If you involve Polyjuice, you could even have to contend with "Harry, fuck Harry."

[minoanmiss]

UGHHGHGHGHHG I hate those comments. The onyl reason I can make myself respond politely to them is that at least they are not FLAMES for making the "wrong" character the top or bottom or whatnot. WHY DO PEOPLE CARE OMG.

*restrains the rest of the rant and just vociferously agrees with you*

*

[minoanmiss]

Dammit. I swore to myself I would never write Aitchpea, but.

*makes a note*

[jesse_the_k]

I listened to ~half of Ed Yong's I contain multitudes which explores the billions and billions of commensuals living on/in/with our bodies. Some of them are even inside our cells!

(Bailed because it was too technical a concept for audio listening; maybe I should watch a YouTube about it?)

It did serve as a nice bookend to the popular-science book I read in 6th grade about van Leeuwenhoek, Pasteur & Koch. (No Watson/Frick/Franklin because it was 1966!) I don't think the book was Rats Lice and History but who knows.

Truer words have not been spoken

[jesse_the_k]

I just think it would be better for everyone if we could agree that nerve endings do not have politics.

...and I just learned that the nerves in question reliably distinguish between gas and solids, so of course they can feel very happy when appropriately stimulated.

(I'm sad I don't have an appropriate icon.)

[bliumchik]

once I was breastfeeding behind a curtain in a Parents Room at a shopping centre and I heard a dad bring his kid in to use the little toilet, and then tell her to wipe her vagina from the top to the bottom. It took everything I had in that moment not to become Disembodied Voice Correcting Anatomical Terminology From Behind The Curtain xD

[lunabee34]

Ha! I love it.

I'm trying to remember if we ever see them reading or writing. I don't think so, but I assume Geralt would be because his witcher training sounds like it would have been a situation in which he had to read. IDK

[resonant]

Oh no! Makes me think of that old Steve Martin joke where his girlfriend had a vocal coach "and he wanted her to sing from her diaphragm. I mean, that could take years to learn!"

[cybel]

I, too, agree with everything said above, especially about lay/lie, the misuse of which drives me mad where most of the rest just make me grind my teeth.

The one thing, as a retired nurse, that pushes my buttons hardest, though, is the near universal misuse of the non-word bicep. There is no such thing as a bicep. The type of muscle in question is a biceps, which signifies it has two insertion points at one end. Unlike grammar, which, as you indicated, is merely convention (though some conventions are right and some are just plain wrong), bicep is purely a misspelling and always will be.

I have spoken.

[resonant]

I've been defeated by this in beta before, because I know that the singular is biceps ... but does Ray Kowalski?

I mean, Fraser knows, but when he points it out, Ray just gives him A Look.

[cybel]

See, Fraser knows that just because most people misspeak doesn't mean they should not be gently guided toward the light. Then he just sighs and moves on, though he's sure to try again another day. The man is relentless.

But really, why should one assume Ray would get this wrong? He's had a number of injuries, seen a lot of injuries, spent a lot of time in and around hospitals and courtrooms where injuries are discussed—some of which likely affected a biceps or two—that he's probably heard medical personnel say it plenty. He'd likely have picked up the proper usage by osmosis.

[mekare]

Joining the lie/lay pet peeve group.

[mekare]

Plus there is also: author isn‘t a native speaker. We were taught next to nothing about comma usage at school.