Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ramsus on March 29, 2006, 06:52:12 am
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Here are just a few of mine:
- Bad spelling and grammar. If it takes more effort to read than it did to write, you didn't spend enough time writing it.
- Giant blocks of text. If a paragraph is bigger than my head, I won't read it.
- Big words. If there's a more common word with the same meaning, use it.
- Riddles. If it can mean several different things in the same context, it's bullshit. Leave the vague implications to fortune tellers and politicians.
[/list:u]
Now that I've offended you, does anyone else have pet peeves when it comes to writing style that they'd like to share?
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I like your style Ramsus. I agree with them all, but with the big words, sometimes when you use "then" for the 90th time, its time to give it a break. But I pretty much agree with you on that point too. It's really because kids are brought up to learn "Exotic words are good! Smoke Malboro cigarettes!"
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yea the list is good
no prob here
yah mon
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* Overbearing avertising
* Anyone smoking in the general vicinity of anywhere I need to go
* People who want everything they believe is wrong, minus the things they personally want to do, to be illegal (bigots?)
* On that note, hypocrites
* People who BS and believe BS
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Uhh...he meant for writing...
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* People who confuse your/you're, its/it's, and there/their/they're. I can't stand it. They can't get these right for the life of them. I even see this stuff in newspaper articles and official literature nowadays. It's crazy.
* People who won't capitalize because they don't like capitalism, or are trying to be cool, or are lazy.
* People who think they know grammar and don't. (This might include people who critically point out that my post contains many sentence fragments, for instance.)
* Excessive exclamation or interrogative marks (!!!?!?!?!!!), and people who can't make it through a paragraph without ALLCAPS.
* People who can't evolve beyond simple sentences. (I except younger folks who are still learning.)
* People who resent "big" words. Sorry Ramsus; I can agree that using words pedantically is a drag that slows down the pace of reading and generally serves to build the opposite-than-intended impression of the author. But big words don't exist just to obfuscate meaning; they exist to communicate ideas down to a very subtle level. Anyone who says there aren't words enough to express his or her thoughts, needs a bigger vocabulary.
That about covers it...for now.
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Mine are the words "u" and "ur".
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What bothers me isn't "big words," but the use of them in place of more common words when there is no difference in meaning or tone. Big words are supposed to make your sentences clearer and more concise, not longer.
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The people who find it somehow less offensive to just censor a word or to use a weenie version of it like heck. If you're gonna swear, just f*cking do it. (LOL IRONIE!)
Or the people who think it's cool to use japanese words and suffixes in the middle of an english conversation. Japanese language is not a bunch of buzzwords! Either speak English or speak Japanese. If you go "Omg you are KAWAIII ^____^" I will fucking stab you with a damn fork. In the FACE!
Also, you get five bonus stabs if you use it incorrectly, like "You baka" or "Konnichiwa" at 5 PM. Or heck, calling someone "Name-sama-sensei-sama-chan"
>.< RAWWWWWR! *Randomly stabs some poor forumer in the face. Hopefully Zaper or something*
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yea the list is good
no prob here
Writing styles like this. No capitalization, punctuation, and feeling the need to double space between every sentence (aka no paragraphs). And Lord J, I'm going to have to disagree with you about the "giving exceptions to people who are still learning". This is a forum, involving very complex and involved stories. If you are old enough to play them, and even understand some of them, and talk in the forums, you should be able to have a basic concept of how to write at least a somewhat legible and organized post.
And this doesn't technically fall into the "writing" category, but it falls into the forum category.... which is people who have avatars that fall in the range of 500X400 - 600 X 800 pixels... and then wonder why the spacing came out all weird after they hit the submit button.
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Very good things have been said, particularly by Ramsus and Lord J, and I generally agree with them all.
Those should be the rules. However, with all rules, they can be broken at times. Particularly, those governing the complexity of words.
Now, generally, I'll agree with you. That, in fact, is one of my own issues with writing - using overly long, technical, complex, or worst of all, inordinately antiquated words, particularly in fantasy writing. To speak for myself, I used to use, say, oft for often, aught for anything, but in time found these all to be rather too assuming and false-sounding, and ammended nearly all of them to their modern equivalent. The same goes for most anything using the older pronouns. Whence, wither, and the like, are marginal. Also annoying are the complex ones, but I'll get to that later.
However, there are some times when the rules can be broken. When I write, I sometimes draw things out, for example, and very, very often use two words where one would do, if I happen to like the sound of the two. Now, this is for the cause of feeling. Not everyone will like it, I'm certain (for example, making use of the Epic Simile will not make people favour my writing, I'm certain. Not that I use it much, but at times my simile will go on for several sentences.) Now, the vindication is this: I'm doing that in the service of style. I'm trying to bring across a certain mood (in this case, semi-epic), and the word choice, and syntax, must reflect that. For epic, it must be ponderous, and so on. The same word choice will obviously not work everywhere. Here's an example from a fantasy story I read, a choice of words that really caught my eye as wrong. In speaking of a sunrise, the author used 'conflagration'. Now, maybe it is just me, but that's a bloated word for a sunrise in a fantasy story. For a contemporary story, it's admissable, but something meant to be in a middle-ages setting? Why not merely use 'fire', or modify 'fire' with some other adjective, rather than use such a fancy word? Now, I will myself use fancy words (many of which I later return to remove in favor of more common ones, seeing it as a foolish decision), ie. sigaldry (that's just my favorite, so it's staying in despite of its obsolete nature), array... whatever. The main point is, however, that one keeps true to the feel. I like to experiment with words, with syntax... whatever.
But in the end, what's important is that it keeps true to the feel, and that it doesn't sound as if you've just used a thesaurus to find a fancy synonymn. I think that's the middle ground there - and likely what both Ramsus and Lord J were speaking of. Use big words, yes... but ONLY if you know what you're doing, if you're doing it for a reason, and have control of it. If it serves no more purpose than attempting to make oneself appear clever, it's a bad thing.
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And Lord J, I'm going to have to disagree with you about the "giving exceptions to people who are still learning".
I was thinking when I wrote that of little first-grade schoolkids. You won't find a bigger opponent of the ignorance excuse than me, but this is not that; you cannot expect young children to master the full depths of the structure, grammar, and diction of a language simply overnight.
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* People who won't capitalize because they don't like capitalism*
Gold.
~ People that use the word Da instead of The
One thing I noticed from my MSN contacts list, who is mainly filled with Chinese (read on and don't call me a racist!), is that they ALWAYS have Chinese characters in their nick name. It bloody annoys me! I mean, I bet half of their contact list won't even get it! And they do the same at school, blurting out random Chinese words.
That and random symbols, like making "Love is like the wind. You can't see it but you can feel it." into "LÕvË í§ Lÿk ÐÅ WïÑd::ü ©Ãñt sÉÈ ïT::3ut ú ¢åñ ƒêè£ ÏT»-"
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They're chinese and you're expecting them to use English? >_> That's stupid.
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Chinese people who live in Australia. These are people of Chinese descent, but speak english perfectly well. I think...
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Chinese people who live in Australia. These are people of Chinese descent, but speak english perfectly well. I think...
Hehe, good one. They were all born in Australia...well, most of them.
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yea the list is good
no prob here
Writing styles like this. No capitalization, punctuation, and feeling the need to double space between every sentence (aka no paragraphs).
Oh come on Dewey.
Is this better?
As long as the reader understands exactly what the poster has typed, then by all means, it's OK
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* People who can't evolve beyond simple sentences. (I except younger folks who are still learning.)
I disagree with this, because there are also people(like me) who are no "first-grade schoolkids" and still learn this language. It's just not that easy to form a perfect post, even if you've time to look over it again, nor is it "fair" to expect everybody to be high educated, because not all are.
"Simple sentence" is to be interpreted itself, but I myself prefer them for easier understanding. Yet I also agree that for more intelligent people it might be too primitive.
Everyone should try his best to type grammatically correct and all, but nobody is perfect.
And yes, I still don't know how to quote properly :roll:
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* People who confuse your/you're, its/it's, and there/their/they're. I can't stand it. They can't get these right for the life of them. I even see this stuff in newspaper articles and official literature nowadays. It's crazy.
Forgivable on forums or in chat-speak, where apparently the rules if the English language are as a flexible as a double-jointed Gumby. But of I'm reading a fanfic, or original fiction, making the above errors consistently is the best way to get me to give up on your story. Never mind articles or official literature. If the writer, beta-reader/editor and publisher can't be bothered to catch this middle-school level error, I can't be bothred to read the result.
Or the people who think it's cool to use japanese words and suffixes in the middle of an english conversation. Japanese language is not a bunch of buzzwords! Either speak English or speak Japanese. If you go "Omg you are KAWAIII ^____^" I will fucking stab you with a damn fork. In the FACE!
You know, for some reason, this doesn’t bother me too much. Maybe because I've read too many Amazones Duo fics when I first started to really read fan fiction on the internet. But what does bug me is when a fanfic writer will use The English and Japanese character names interchangeably in a peace of work. Her name is either Tomoyo Daidouji or Madison Taylor . Its is not Madison Daidouji or any other combination thereof. Pick one and run with it.
Overly "flowery" speech/descriptions. The only thing worse than reading a story with no description is reading one where once must decipher the descriptions. Some writers feel a need to attempt a positive Shakespearian level of metaphor and over-the-top imagery to get across a remarkably simple idea. And I have yet to read anyone other that Shakespeare get it right. Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita is a prefect example of this. Its an engaging read, but Comdrade Nabokov's style occasionally buries me in so many euphemisms that when Humbert finally got around to bedding Lolita, I totally missed it the first time and had to go back and re-read the last chapter. Given the style of the narrative, I knew going in that the act wouldn’t be done a harlequin-novel style play-by-play, but I didn’t except to miss it entirely, especially when I knew it was coming.
Self inserts or Gary/Mary Stus. To date I've only seen two authors pull SI's off with any degree of believability or likeability: J.K. Rowling 's Hermione Granger, (Harry Potter) and Stephen King's... Stephen King (The Dark Tower). If you aren’t these two people, don't bother. You will get it wrong.
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Oh come on Dewey.
Is this better?
As long as the reader understands exactly what the poster has typed, then by all means, it's OK
There's no official rules on the internet about what's "ok",
its a peeve of mine.
If it's ok by you, there's nothing I can do about it.
My main peeve is still the spacing between every setence.
It takes up lots of room.
It also suggests that the poster has lots of unrelated thoughts that wouldn't fit together in a paragraph.
Although, it is "better" in the sense that you did at least capitalize and use some punctuation.
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Self inserts or Gary/Mary Stus. To date I've only seen two authors pull SI's off with any degree of believability or likeability: J.K. Rowling 's Hermione Granger, (Harry Potter) and Stephen King's... Stephen King (The Dark Tower). If you aren’t these two people, don't bother. You will get it wrong.
I would agree, but I did a self insert once and it was actually pretty good :P Nothing screams "A character with proper flaws" like a false Messiah smashing his legs with a hammer to get people to stop worshipping him as a perfect being ^^
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* People who can't evolve beyond simple sentences. (I except younger folks who are still learning.)
I disagree with this, because there are also people(like me) who are no "first-grade schoolkids" and still learn this language. It's just not that easy to form a perfect post, even if you've time to look over it again, nor is it "fair" to expect everybody to be high educated, because not all are.
"Simple sentence" is to be interpreted itself, but I myself prefer them for easier understanding. Yet I also agree that for more intelligent people it might be too primitive.
Everyone should try his best to type grammatically correct and all, but nobody is perfect.
And yes, I still don't know how to quote properly :roll:
As long as you don't do it in German or whatever language you speak, then I guess it's ok.
To quote with the persons name, you make it:
[/quo te] (remove the space inbetween quo te)
Nice work Dewey. Irony.
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There's no official rules on the internet about what's "ok",
its a peeve of mine.
If it's ok by you, there's nothing I can do about it.
My main peeve is still the spacing between every setence.
It takes up lots of room.
It also suggests that the poster has lots of unrelated thoughts that wouldn't fit together in a paragraph.
Although, it is "better" in the sense that you did at least capitalize and use some punctuation.
hee hee
Well I'll try to keep all of this in mind for future posts :)
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So, when are you going to start?
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So, when are you going to start?
Time will tell :wink:
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When it comes to written debates, I try to leave a space between each specific point I try and make. Even if it does take up a lot of space, it makes it a lot easier to read.
On another note, my pet peeve? When people don't use enough spaces so the post looks like one behemoth of a paragraph.
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When it comes to written debates, I try to leave a space between each specific point I try and make. Even if it does take up a lot of space, it makes it a lot easier to read.
On another note, my pet peeve? When people don't use enough spaces so the post looks like one behemoth of a paragraph.
Ie. someone like me. I really have to watch that.
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Most likely when people try post on message boards using "leet speak." I can understand it if you're in an instant-messaging situation if you're a slow-ish typer, but there's really no time bar for posting something >_O.
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The PC apps on mac interests me more. As we all know from out favourite site Joystiq, Half Life 2 can be downloaded, run smoothly and played, all on the new Intel Macs.
the intels only reach their full potential if you have 2 hardrives one with the Mac OS and one with windows (i think the hackers have made a patch for it now so it dosnt use the thing the intels didnt handle which was the only thing stopping the OS from running on it)
No full stops or any punctuation at that.
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You can't apply the rules of "AIMing" to message boards. The point of "instant messaging" is for quick chatting purposes, where a majority of the talking takes place in a single sentence at most, and sentence fragments in a large part of it. Making everything grammatically correct and punctually accurate is pointless, and takes away from the experience. However, on message boards, the point is to make a large, coherent though. People aren't able to read something that isn't structurally organized.
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You can't apply the rules of "AIMing" to message boards. The point of "instant messaging" is for quick chatting purposes, where a majority of the talking takes place in a single sentence at most, and sentence fragments in a large part of it. Making everything grammatically correct and punctually accurate is pointless, and takes away from the experience.
I disagree, there. I mean, though in casual conversation correct grammar isn't neccessary, it is nicer to speak to someone when they at least attempt it. The same for IM. Personally, I actually find it faster to be grammatically correct in such circumstances. If I'm writing a forum post (or IM), I can probably max out at about 50WPM, and that's with everything being reasonably proper. Actually, I once had the WCIII chatroom server tell me to stop spamming I was writing messages so quickly - and, despite that, I was obeying the language rules.
I know it's not for everyone, and most people now just write in shorthand on the internet, but it does rather annoy me when they write 'u' for you. If one's practiced typing, it takes a fraction of a second longer to write the latter over the former. There is little reason, other than apathy, why the full word cannot be written. It comes down to what one practices. I've written somewhere in the area of 350,000 words in story writing alone in the last three and a half years (including forum posts... probably nearer 800,000), and by attempting my best to remain as correct as I can, it makes it more natural. Admittedly, I come from a family that is generally tends to try for being grammatically correct (my father's a professor, you see, and has to put up with the abysmal grammar of first, second, and even third year arts students.) I still get corrected by my brother for using less for a countable sum (ie. fewer people)... though, having looked it up in the dictionary, it's a marginal complaint, seeing as strictly it's admissable to say it. But anyway, the point is, I'm generally less forgiving than most for apathy in such matters.
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Or you could just get a plugin for whichever IM Program you use and just have it to autocorrect you.
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People should learn how to use real shorthand instead of Internet garbage.
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The point of "instant messaging" is for quick chatting purposes, where a majority of the talking takes place in a single sentence at most, and sentence fragments in a large part of it. Making everything grammatically correct and punctually accurate is pointless, and takes away from the experience.
Far from true! In fact, exactly wrong. But in the interest of granting a diversity of opinion, I might suppose that it depends on who you are, and with whom you are talking. (By the way: Ending a sentence with a prep; not necessarily a bad thing--major exceptions are figures of speech and phrases (conf. Churchill) and all lower degrees of conversation formality.) I always use fully proper English on AIM, and I have persuaded several friends over the years of the wisdom of my position.
Degrade the language, and you degrade your own capacity to express the character and contents of your mind. While this may be unnoticeable if your IM conversations are so incoherent as to be of dubious value to begin with, this is not a rebuke of the full power of proper English but of your own quality of discourse.
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Hope you don't mind if I interject with a few points.
I have no issues with the proper use of sentence fragments - namely, when they're used to convey some feeling, or as part of a distinct and otherwise grammatically correct writing style. It can sometimes add some flourish.
My pet peeve is this:
"......................................................"
That. Long, useless ellipses, usually found in blocks of dialogue. One ellipsis will do, thank you. What's worse is that sometimes, people use it to denote a long pause in conversation, when simply saying, "An uncomfortable silence reigned," or something to that effect, would more than suffice. In fact, it would flow much better. Even more irksome than finding it in dialogue is finding it in narration. In a proper work, there should never be a case in which sentences are broken up...... like that...... It's especially irritating when placed at the end...... Well, one should avoid generalizations like that, but it's generally in bad taste to insert ellipses in that fashion.
The English ellipsis isn't even meant to be used in such a manner! It's a Japanese usage; the English ellipsis is three dots long, and used to indicate an ommission. The Japanese ellipsis is six dots long, sometimes separated into two groups of three, and, admittedly, used to show speechlessness. Still, to me, it's jarring to see them used in anything but quotation and dialogue, and even then, in the latter case, I don't favor them. Besides, it's usually only used in manga in Japan, anyway; one can't really describe a silence in the format. In informal conversation, I don't care either way, but in more formal works, it's my pet peeve.
I do love it when someone misspells the singular form of ellipses as ellipse, when referring to the punctuation mark.
Please don't pick on me for my grammar; English was not my native language, and I still struggle with it from time to time, though it's been several years. English grammar is befuddling, in comparison to Chinese.
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Here's something I absolutely loathe. And, as a matter of a fact, the person I have seen do it most - and who I am most annoyed at for it - is me. When one puts the negation of a verb after the verb itself. Ie. 'Be not (...)'. Maybe it's just me, but it strikes me as trying to sound falsely formal or old. It's okay sometimes, but for the majority saying 'Do not be (...)' sounds far less assuming. There's certain sentence structures that strike me as sounding like an immature attempt at seeming formal or 'old', and that's one of them.
Note: maybe it's just me, though. Yet what I'm speaking of here is what I'm critical of in my own writing, and what jumps out to me as sounding stupid. I'm far less forgiving of myself than others in that regard.
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What's worse is that sometimes, people use it to denote a long pause in conversation, when simply saying, "An uncomfortable silence reigned," or something to that effect, would more than suffice. In fact, it would flow much better. Even more irksome than finding it in dialogue is finding it in narration. In a proper work, there should never be a case in which sentences are broken up...... like that...... It's especially irritating when placed at the end...... Well, one should avoid generalizations like that, but it's generally in bad taste to insert ellipses in that fashion.
The English ellipsis isn't even meant to be used in such a manner! It's a Japanese usage; the English ellipsis is three dots long, and used to indicate an ommission. The Japanese ellipsis is six dots long, sometimes separated into two groups of three, and, admittedly, used to show speechlessness. Still, to me, it's jarring to see them used in anything but quotation and dialogue, and even then, in the latter case, I don't favor them. Besides, it's usually only used in manga in Japan, anyway; one can't really describe a silence in the format. In informal conversation, I don't care either way, but in more formal works, it's my pet peeve.
As the Compendium's resident English expert, allow me the pleasure of replying to this infamous testimony.
The ellipsis was my favorite grammatical punctuation for many years--actually it still is--and although nowadays I use it somewhat less often--especially in "cafeteria" writing like that which I do here on the Compendium--I understand it well and do want to correct you that the English ellipsis, which is (naturally) the only kind of ellipsis that can be used in English as a legitimate punctuation mark, is quite properly applied not only in the structural mode you describe, but also in the stylistic mode that you allege it should not be applied: as a technique.
It might help to think of these two different modes as out-of-character and in-character. These terms are used in roleplaying; when something is said out-of-character it is understood to be external to the story at hand, as a comment between the various parties involed in the storytelling. Conversely, when something is said in-character it is understood to be behind that fouth wall and within the story itself. As our analogy goes, an out-of-character ellipsis would be used to indicate a literal omission of text (or other content) presented to the audience, whereas an in-character ellipsis would be used to indicate an event of some kind within the setting described by a segment of text.
Indeed, most of the time you see an ellipsis outside of scholarly papers, business documents, periodicals, and other formal academic literature, it will be in this stylistic form, used like the italics technique to convey additional meaning not through the text itself but through the structure of the text. (Never mind the semantics of presentational versus grammatical structure.) Much like their out-of-character counterparts, these in-character ellipses indicate an omission of some kind, but omissions which are diverse enough that it is more important to focus on the context of a given omission than on the omission itself. In other words, these omissions most often indicate: 1) an open-ended expression or thought; 2) an incomplete expression or thought; 3) a thoughtful pause; 4) a dramatic pause; and there are surely other uses as well which elude me at this moment. Ellipses can be used either amid a sentence or at the end of it; some people apply a fourth period in the latter case but I do not. Anyhow, some examples:
1) An open-ended expression or thought:
Ex. "I wonder what will come of them..."
Use: Perhaps spoken of the bride and groom at a wedding. The ellipsis explicitly invites the audience to continue this line of thinking. Had a period terminated this phrase, its meaning would have been less figurative--and, in this particular case, quite different. To convey the same meaning without an ellipsis would require an additional sentence, or some other disruptive modification that the author might quite understandably want to avoid.
2) An incomplete expression or thought:
Ex. "The secret of life is...is..."
Use: Perhaps spoken by a dying secret agent Zen monk to a comrade. The ellipsis conveys that the expression came to an end before the idea behind it could be fully communicated. In this case the ellipsis serves a double role, indicating both an omission of speech as well as of the meaning of those words. Because of the former role, no other punctuation mark could be substituted here; therefore, any subsequent verbal restatement of the second role played by the ellipsis would be, all else notwithstanding, redundant.
3) A thoughtful pause:
Ex: "This prayer might be said to act as the...guardian of the memory of the dead."
Use: Perhaps a meditation on death. The ellipsis indicates a thoughtful search on the part of the narrator for the most appropriate word, inviting the audience to give a closer inspection to not only the word that is eventually chosen, but also to the reason for taking such care in choosing the right word. Generally, it would be very difficult to convey this kind of meaning more eloquently by bypassing the ellipsis and adding more text. This usage of the ellipsis is very different from the other three.
4) A dramatic pause:
Ex: "I believe that's what they used to call me...ages ago."
Use: Perhaps spoken by an old man at the End of Time who has been found out to be far more than he appeared. The ellipsis indicates an omission in the form of direct silence, or in other words the omission of non-interruption from a passage. No other punctuation mark can be substituted here, but additional text can. However, the dramatic pause is one of the ellipsis' strongest suits. It is this form that is often repeated on its own in IM conversations and elsewhere as the standalone dot-dot-dot, which you conflated with the Japanese ellipsis. Regardless of any such entity, this is a legitimate English usage which serves a clear need on the part of writers and speakers everywhere.
I hope this clarifies your understanding of the ellipsis as a stylistic technique.
I do love it when someone misspells the singular form of ellipses as ellipse, when referring to the punctuation mark.
Please don't pick on me for my grammar; English was not my native language, and I still struggle with it from time to time...
An irony. You "love it" when others use grammar incorrectly, but would rather not be the object of such attention yourself.
Also, note that I truncated your quote, with an ellipsis. This would be an example of the out-of-character ellipsis, symbolizing an omission of text itself rather than something happening inside the text. And there you have it.
Right...?
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Oh, I thought I made it clear that I don't find it wrong on every occasion. Not at all. Just as sentence fragments can be used to convey a certain feeling that is otherwise unattainable, I acknowledge that ellipses, as you've described, can be used for the same purposes. Also, I noted that they are best used in dialogue; sometimes, there is no substitute, especially to denote a brief, but powerful pause.
3) A thoughtful pause:
Ex: "This prayer might be said to act as the...guardian of the memory of the dead."
[...]The ellipsis indicates a thoughtful search on the part of the narrator for the most appropriate word, inviting the audience to give a closer inspection to not only the word that is eventually chosen, but also to the reason for taking such care in choosing the right word. Generally, it would be very difficult to convey this kind of meaning more eloquently[...]
I assume you're implying the narration is in the first-person, right? There is no need for any such conveyance in objective narration. Also, I would rewrite the sentence as, "The prayer acts as the guardian, perhaps, of the memory of the dead," which, though admittedly subtly different, is in the same spirit. Also, this allows for a clearer emphasis on the noun of choice, which I figured was "guardian", but could be interpreted differently. However, personal styles have the final say here.
I was wrong about the Japanese origin, though they do use it more in that fashion than we. Certainly, media such as comics and games require it more than writing, as they can't show pauses as readily.
I don't mind proper usage of it. I'm lenient on such matters, anyway, as my writing skill is paltry at best. However, when perusing through fanfiction and the like, nothing irks me more than to see this business:
And so, she stood............................... He came to her, and placed a brief kiss on her petal-soft lips, before.............. she turned heel and dashed out the room, leaving billowing dust clouds her wake, and the door swinging, its hinges creaking.................
An otherwise fine passage, ruined by superfluous ellipses. What's worse, many don't seem aware that the ellipsis is only three or six dots in length, and so, overextend them, making them quite hideous to read.
I've had the pleasure of opening an email with voice that had such a thing, and heard it prattle, "dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot...", which is penultimately low on acceptability to the ears to, "hyphen-hyphen-hyphen-hyphen...", which I also have received.
An irony. You "love it" when others use grammar incorrectly, but would rather not be the object of such attention yourself.
Ah, but misery loves company. Not the exploitation of one's own, of course - that's hardly ever humorous - but that of others. Does that make me a bad person, then?
Still, if there is any real dispute, you're more likely to be right than I. I'm merely presenting what I know, and I definitely don't have the qualifications to be an expert on the matter.
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As the Compendium's resident English expert
Your modesty astounds me.
What is the point of talking "sensibly" with your mates? Sure, my friends are all around fourteen, but what does that matter? IM is meant to be a text rendition of just chatting. Quick, simple and concise, so it would be more like a conversation and less like a lecture. Forums, on the other hand, are meant to be a formal discussion, or even a meeting place, and to get your point across, you must use proper language. I just can't see the point of using long, stretched, gruesome, tedious, satanic words when you can just simply say what you want to say with a shorter version. Oh damn, its not sophisticated! Oh shit, that guy said "can" instead of "may"! Is it just me, or does anyone give a fuck?
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Kill all the English experts. Then the lawyers!
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3) A thoughtful pause:
Ex: "This prayer might be said to act as the...guardian of the memory of the dead."
[...]The ellipsis indicates a thoughtful search on the part of the narrator for the most appropriate word, inviting the audience to give a closer inspection to not only the word that is eventually chosen, but also to the reason for taking such care in choosing the right word. Generally, it would be very difficult to convey this kind of meaning more eloquently[...]
I assume you're implying the narration is in the first-person, right?
Not quite. Instead, it implies an "embodied" as opposed to a disembodied narrator--a narrator who exists as an entity, and who can interject its own presence from time to time, as opposed to the case where no embodied "narrator" exists and the audience merely peers through words directly in order to see the story. This is not the same as point-of-view (first-person, etc.).
Also, I would rewrite the sentence as, "The prayer acts as the guardian, perhaps, of the memory of the dead," which, though admittedly subtly different, is in the same spirit. Also, this allows for a clearer emphasis on the noun of choice, which I figured was "guardian", but could be interpreted differently. However, personal styles have the final say here.
Your final sentence is the very nub of my gist. I cannot speak for everyone, but I should expect that, mostly, someone who is truly a master of this language will emphasize the importance of expressing an idea in just the right way. For the point under discussion, consider the entire passage from which I yoinked this example:
The origins of the Kaddish are mysterious; angels are said to have brought it down from heaven...
It possesses wonderful power. Truly, if there is any bond strong enough to chain heaven to earth, it is this prayer. It keeps the living together, and forms a bridge to the mysterious realm of the dead. One might almost say that this prayer is...the guardian of the people by whom alone it is uttered; therein lies the warrant of its continuance. Can a people disappear and be annihilated so long as a child remembers its parents?
Because this prayer does not acknowledge death, because it permits the blossom, which has fallen from the tree of humankind, to flower and develop again in the human heart, therefore it possesses sanctifying power.
A close read of the larger context should clearly indicate the important differences between the use of the ellipsis and that of your suggested alternative, "perhaps." This passage is a meditation on death, one of my favorites, on the occasion of a prayer for death, the Kaddish, which concludes most significant Jewish religious services. To eliminate the ellipsis and introduce "perhaps" would change the mood of the passage, and therefore its meaning--and therefore its spirit! For a religious meditation, this is important.
Lay audiences tend not to realize it, but the structure of a passage--the stylistic choices, the diction, the technique--profoundly influences their experience and subsequent perception of the work in question. Sometimes the subtlety is lost; but often it works. To master the language, an author (or orator, etc.) must control not only what is said, but how it is said.
However, when perusing through fanfiction and the like, nothing irks me more than to see this business:
And so, she stood............................... He came to her, and placed a brief kiss on her petal-soft lips, before.............. she turned heel and dashed out the room, leaving billowing dust clouds her wake, and the door swinging, its hinges creaking.................
Agreed.
What's worse, many don't seem aware that the ellipsis is only three or six dots in length, and so, overextend them, making them quite hideous to read.
In English, the ellipsis is only ever three dots in length, or, according to another faction, three dots amid a sentence and four at its terminus. Six is never appropriate, and to the best of my knowledge has only professionally appeared in video game text windows, where a low graphical resolutuion is stretched to fill a large screen. On its own, the ellipsis is used here to indicate a nonplussed state, or an extended silence, or, ironically, an extended omitted dialogue. I would guess--and it is just a guess--that the dots were doubled because in many of these games three dots is small enough as to be visually distracting, therefore diminishing its effectiveness. Extending the dots makes the ellipsis large enough for people to see, but not so different as to suggest anything other than an ellipsis. This spatial problem (and its solution) could also have been solved, occasionally, with creative hard-spacing.
An irony. You "love it" when others use grammar incorrectly, but would rather not be the object of such attention yourself.
Ah, but misery loves company. Not the exploitation of one's own, of course - that's hardly ever humorous - but that of others. Does that make me a bad person, then?
If poor language skills were the worst of our problems, no one would be a bad person. But then again, poor communication might be said to be one of the two chief causes of all conflict in human history.
Incidentally, sometimes even one's own misery can be funny even before the ordeal concludes. Yesterday I knocked a box of cosmetics and toiletries onto my friend's bathroom floor, including a number of items straight into a just-used toilet. Now, you have to understand that I have some fondness for cleanliness and sanitation, so reaching into the toilet to retrieve these wayward things was not an impressive thought. Worse, my right thumb had a sore on it, so I had to reach in with my superior left hand instead. I did so, but, in the words of the great Picard, sometimes we must bow to the absurd. My swearing gave way to genuine laughter, together in the same room with my continuing misery.
As the Compendium's resident English expert
Your modesty astounds me.
Nonsense. In fact, it is modesty that I did not continue to flaunt my credentials. Nobody on the Compendium, possibly excepting our beloved Mr. Krispin, could even come close to the expertise in English I have--and this place features some beautifully articulate people. I do not claim to be an expert in sewing, or football, or medicine. But English is something I know extremely well.
What is the point of talking "sensibly" with your mates? Sure, my friends are all around fourteen, but what does that matter? IM is meant to be a text rendition of just chatting. Quick, simple and concise, so it would be more like a conversation and less like a lecture. Forums, on the other hand, are meant to be a formal discussion, or even a meeting place, and to get your point across, you must use proper language. I just can't see the point of using long, stretched, gruesome, tedious, satanic words when you can just simply say what you want to say with a shorter version. Oh damn, its not sophisticated! Oh shit, that guy said "can" instead of "may"! Is it just me, or does anyone give a fuck?
I think you should not come to the Compendium before your morning coffee. But to address your claim, I can only say that in order to express myself to the best of my ability, I need to use the full structural power of English. If nothing else, broken sentences without punctuation or capitalization are distressingly incoherent, and constitute a distraction. Perhaps you do not have conversations of importance on IM, but I do, and I need my language to undertake them.
Kill all the English experts. Then the lawyers!
I'll be ready for you code-fascists!
(http://www.lindqvist.com/kitSiPub/bilder/20030814141152.jpg)
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Lay audiences tend not to realize it, but the structure of a passage--the stylistic choices, the diction, the technique--profoundly influences their experience and subsequent perception of the work in question. Sometimes the subtlety is lost; but often it works. To master the language, an author (or orator, etc.) must control not only what is said, but how it is said.
Wonderfully said. I couldn't agree with you more. And how things are said so very often impacts what is said in return. To neglect that is to neglect half of the art of writing (after all, there is so much more to a picture than what it is - otherwise, Picasso wouldn't be considered worth anything. It's how things are done that are important. And it's like that even in writing.
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Well, I happen to be one of the aforementioned "lay" audience members. Perhaps I've got an irrational dislike of ellipses? I simply feel that the flow of the narrative is broken when they are inserted. Of course, this is a matter of personal preference.
Incidentally, sometimes even one's own misery can be funny even before the ordeal concludes. Yesterday I knocked a box of cosmetics and toiletries onto my friend's bathroom floor, including a number of items straight into a just-used toilet. Now, you have to understand that I have some fondness for cleanliness and sanitation, so reaching into the toilet to retrieve these wayward things was not an impressive thought. Worse, my right thumb had a sore on it, so I had to reach in with my superior left hand instead. I did so, but, in the words of the great Picard, sometimes we must bow to the absurd. My swearing gave way to genuine laughter, together in the same room with my continuing misery.
Somehow, your description of the event fails to convey the hilarity of it. This speaks more of my tastes, or lack thereof, however; I tend to dislike flowery, formal narrative in this sense, as the wit and meaning tend to fly by me. I'm afraid I'm not of adequate sophistication to appreciate it. My addled mind (what with being the age that I am and all) is hardly equipped for cognizance of the beauty present in literature, which means that you'll have to deal with my ignorance periodically. Hopefully, it won't be too frequently.
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Ahh yes, that reminds me of a pet peeve I might as well share.
Though it really isn't "bad", I dislike having to read a quarter of a page post by someone.
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Ahh yes, that reminds me of a pet peeve I might as well share. Though it really isn't "bad", I dislike having to read a quarter of a page post by someone.
Because I enforce the reading of my posts with tasers and anal pears. Take your garbage elsewhere, 22! Millions of people gave their lives, and billions more lived in squalor for thousands of years, hoping for their children a better world than they themselves would ever know. Spurn the intellect; reject the fruits of literacy--no less a bounty than the entire modern world! What a palaver! What an absolute treat!
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Post length doesn't matter unless a post consists of one huge block of text without interruption or paragraph spacing.
Ah, Encounter at Farpoint is on right now. It was on last week when SpikeTV's airings restarted as well. There is nothing like the first season of The Next Generation.
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Now you're doing it on purpose.
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Ahh yes, that reminds me of a pet peeve I might as well share. Though it really isn't "bad", I dislike having to read a quarter of a page post by someone.
Because I enforce the reading of my posts with tasers and anal pears. Take your garbage elsewhere, 22! Millions of people gave their lives, and billions more lived in squalor for thousands of years, hoping for their children a better world than they themselves would ever know. Spurn the intellect; reject the fruits of literacy--no less a bounty than the entire modern world! What a palaver! What an absolute treat!
How is it that Seneca puts that? I think I quoted it in the quote thread. Something to the effect that all these founders of knowledge have existed to bring this knowledge to us.
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OK J, if you feel special at it, then you are! In fact, we are ALL special! Now pick up your crayons kids...
I do occasionally have "important discussions" but anyone with half a mind would understand what I am talking about.
And yes, the coffee machine was broken, and I didn't feel like smashing up the coffee beans with my feet again, after that incident.
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Ahh yes, that reminds me of a pet peeve I might as well share. Though it really isn't "bad", I dislike having to read a quarter of a page post by someone.
Because I enforce the reading of my posts with tasers and anal pears. Take your garbage elsewhere, 22! Millions of people gave their lives, and billions more lived in squalor for thousands of years, hoping for their children a better world than they themselves would ever know. Spurn the intellect; reject the fruits of literacy--no less a bounty than the entire modern world! What a palaver! What an absolute treat!
I said it wasn't "bad", but when I do a quick log on here and someone posts a half a page, it's hard to read all of it and keep up with other stuff. So I'll just log on later that night to read it all. Long posts are ok!!
Ah, Encounter at Farpoint is on right now. It was on last week when SpikeTV's airings restarted as well. There is nothing like the first season of The Next Generation.
ZeaLity, you should definately get the boxed seasons soon :)
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Post length doesn't matter unless a post consists of one huge block of text without interruption or paragraph spacing.
Ah, Encounter at Farpoint is on right now. It was on last week when SpikeTV's airings restarted as well. There is nothing like the first season of The Next Generation.
I remember watching ST:TNG when I was a kid. And then they came out with DS9. And Voyager. And Enterprise. And my attention waned (that, and I stopped watching TV, so that might have something to do with it.) DS9 has some pretty good moments (the Trouble with Tribbles 'remake' was hilarious, for example), but overall, TNG is the best. Years ago I got my grandfather, who had cable, to record as many episodes as he could. I probably have a good 80% of the episodes lying around. First season way okay, but I think I like some of the later ones better. 'The Inner Light' (I think that's what it's called), for example; or Darmok, or whatever that one's called where Picard and the alien captain are together on that one world. Picard retelling the epic of Gilgamesh - doesn't get much better than that.
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Picard retelling the epic of Gilgamesh - doesn't get much better than that.
You would be partial to that sort of storyline. Widely regarded as one of TNG's best episodes, I personally considered "Darmok" to be somewhat lacking in intellectual provocation--which is the reverse side of the same coin that makes the first few seasons of TNG such powerful television in the marketplace of ideas. It was a great premise, anyhow, and had there been a bit more bite to it, I'd be with you.
And then they came out with DS9. And Voyager. And Enterprise. And my attention waned (that, and I stopped watching TV, so that might have something to do with it.)
My own experience parallels this exactly--even down to the detail that when I made for college I left television behind me--except that you left out the wrenching years during which Star Trek's quality decayed, forcing me into a continual disappointment with the franchise. Star Trek helped shape me as a kid, and to see it go down the tubes was frustrating to say the least. If you have ever been forced to slowly, over a period of years, abandon something you respected greatly, and whose future you had once thought to shine quite bright, you can imagine what a lament I had to sing over Star Trek's decline, so that when Enterprise was finally cancelled, I was relieved rather than upset.
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I enjoy Star Trek because the real focus is on humanity, not drama or storytelling for its own sake. I share the belief that with the increase of technology and education, basic human vices such as hunger and greed can be erased and a future such as that can come to pass. That's why I too am disappointed with Star Trek's turn under Rick Berman and Ira Steven Behr, as the focus shifted from man's actualization and the exploration of morality to drama and space battles. I don't have a real problem with DS9; I'm going to probably watch it all the way through. But the Roddenberry element in DS9's successors seems extremely diluted, if present at all. Roddenberry is what made Star Trek work; he was fully in charge for seasons one and two of TOS, season one of TNG with dwindling involvement until his death, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The idea that humanity can truly change and better itself while exploring its own nature and desires is appealing, moreso than "arm weapons; here come some bugs!" But I'm not ragging on other science fiction in general -- just the turn Star Trek took in emulating it.
It's apparent in a lot of places. The Enterprise-D's bridge was spacious, illuminated, and curved. The uniforms openly displayed the neck; both these aspects reflected humanity's faith in itself -- Starfleet crewmembers did not don armor, and neither was their bridge an overly technical war machine. It was a vessel of exploration, built for the comfort of humanity and providing a base from which to grow. This is tossed aside with the Enterprise-E, which is a nasty little hovel filled with angles, squares, normal chairs and dim blue lighting. The D had family aboard and welcomed children there to grow rapidly through experience; one can't imagine friendly children hopping about the E's corridors. Recall "Yesterday's Enterprise," and the look the warship version of the Enterprise had in that episode. That was done for a reason -- to contrast the peaceful, mature stance of humanity in the real timeline to a warlike, defensive group in the aberration. Yet the Enterprise-E now establishes this configuration as the rule and not the exception. The uniforms have changed to look like pure thermals, and are also very bland. Whereas the Starfleet of yesteryear had colored shirts to reflect responsibility and allow ease of identification, the Starfleet of Rick Berman looks like damn platoon of clones. The individuality that Star Trek afforded its characters (well, TOS Redshirts excluded) was pushed aside for the new conformist look.
I watched "All Good Things..." yesterday again, and I was sort of disgusted. It did have a nice note -- that Picard considered a paradox and totally circumvented normal human thinking to achieve the solution -- but this was like a murmur lost in dramatic overture. Old Picard's a buffoon not worthy of very much respect, while Data has taken up a chair at a university? And then we have the putrid backdrop of the state of affairs in that timeline. All the work of Picard and Worf is completely lost; instead, the Klingons are now stupidly aggressive. The Enterprise-D is bastardized with dim lights, and the character of Riker has ironically reached the bottom of the bad slope he slipped down starting in the later seasons (Riker went from activous, bright, and ambitious in season one to some fat dude with a beard who occasionally yelled at an alien or got pissed at someone else). The episode is one frantic dramatic explosion to the next, the only highlights being De Lancie's usual great performance and the scenes from the timeframe of Encounter at Farpoint. The humanism was there, but otherwise it looked like a big mess with Picard walking around with a question marked stamped to his forehead. The Picard we left with the television series was not "Picard, considerate of past decisions (We'll Always Have Paris)", "Picard, redefining human experience (The Inner Light)", or "Picard, reaffirming his faith in ideals (Family)." It's "Picard, who happened to solve a paradox probably baffling to most of the audience with blank expression on his face for most of the feature)." He didn't grow!
I hope Star Trek XI is made, and Picard gets to ride again. Despite the complete rut Star Trek is in (William Shatner remarked correctly that they should simply fire everyone in an administrative or creative role in the show, barring the excellent make-up artists and scenery guys), perhaps they'll take heed of the criticism and give Picard a good run. It is not befitting of the crew of the golden age of Star Trek to end their canonical appearances by foiling dumb Romulan intrigue and losing Data. Growth is not purely reacting to terrible circumstances; all they did was restore Starfleet to its former position in the TNG movies. Growth is about achieving something new, or enduring a terrible circumstance and learning from it. But what have we to learn with the movies? Kirk's death was stupid, and that El-Aurian guy was evil. In First Contact, Picard learned that he has an irrational hatred of the Borg (something explored well enough in the TV series and rehashed just to give him something to do). Insurrection had a lot of promise with the exploration of the moment premise, but the writers neglected to explore their own damn theme, and Picard was left with a neat experience and no real substance. And in Nemesis, they simply foil a plot. Where is the advancement of the human spirit?
So I'll be hoping Star Trek XI will be a good one, and that perhaps in the future, a new generation of true Star Trek lovers can take over the series once more. Those people who say "the idea has run its course" underestimate the creative power of the human mind. The same things were said about TNG; it proved to be the golden age of the franchise. Criticism was also made about DS9; the Dominion War arc, though not totally Roddenberry-esque, was still a good piece of drama. And I'll neglect Voyager and Enterprise, since the idea that's being described as having run its course really isn't present in those series. "Morality plays" are often described as being sappy, but Roddenberry was not afraid of making a statement and advocating ideals. IDIC, advancement, etc. number among them as core doctrines.
Dang, I really come off as crabby. But as someone who started to like Star Trek only a year and a half ago, these are my observations.
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I have created a monster! It's alive, alive!!
Seriously, Z, I couldnae have said it better myself.
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That's why I too am disappointed with Star Trek's turn under Rick Berman and Ira Steven Behr
I hold that the best part of the franchise was always the original series. Everything Rick Berman and his cohorts touched was crap.
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I hope Star Trek XI is made, and Picard gets to ride again.
It be great to have original casts in future episodes, but I can only see them as guest stars. Time is having it's affects on us, they kinda did a good job with Riker and Diana in the last Enterprise episode, and on that note, Enterprise was just a dissapointment, the only good show was the borg one in which they found the remains of the sphere from First Contact.
They could do many movies based off of TNG, I think both "Conspiracy" and "Schisms" would be excellent. But for another movie, why don't they consider the Voyager crew for the next movie? I just hope the spark of the Star Trek spirit hasn't gone out yet for future episodes and movies, but as a hardcore Star Trek fan, not only do I still play Bridge Commander, I too hope to see a new movie sometime in the future.
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I've got a few:
- People who don't understand the premis of a "Theory". Those people who just -have- to prove it 100% incorrect no matter what. They can't possibly stand the idea that it may be possible, even by the slimmest margin.
- People on forums who believe that since they have about a bazillion more posts that they are the forum god or something (I ain't talking about CC of course).
- Spammers (duh)
- When someone comes into a topic thread with a new idea or theory and instantly it has to be 20 people who shut him/her down like change is the devil incarnate in 12 font.
- (this only kinda' works with forums, more of a personal tick) When people use the word "love" like it was disposable. Mass media especially like the television we see today. A pair of teens date for a week and just because their not at each others throats it’s -LOVE-. It's one of the last pure ideals we as human beings cling to in an ever degrading society of diminished morals and stop-at-nothing tactics to succeed.
[As per usual I appologise for posting on the origonal thread topic while you've all gone off on something new, I'm slow @.@]
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The misuse of such words as lightyear (commonly misinterpreted as a measure of time instead of distance) and literally (if it's not actually happening it ain't literal you bastards!) is one of my biggest pet-peeves in writing and in everyday speech. It's a real piss-ant when you want to correct someone when you know full-well that everyone else in the room probably thought what was said was correct...But w/e...
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One of my writing pet peeves is totally avoidable bastardization of basic science and meaningless technobabble in an attempt to appear scientific. Voyager is by far the worst offender in this regard, but every Star Trek series from TNG onwards is guilty of this, quite possibly because of Rick Berman's influence; they have the science consultants, they just don't listen to them. And because of this, you get reactor output in teradynes, an event horizon being a physical thing instead of a mathematically defined boundary, and people thinking that Federation starships are somehow immune to lasers and other EM-based weapons, even if the wattage is enough to take out an entire galaxy in ten seconds. But what's more, I've never held with the concept of a perfectible human race, mainly because every human has a different idea of what perfection is. I never liked the pseudo-Communist economics behind the Federation, either; people have the basic desire to obtain all that they can materially. Kirk and Picard's conceit that people work only to better themselves in the future is misplaced; most people perceive the acquisition of tangible goods as bettering themselves. To differentiate the two concepts is, from an economic perspective, the height of folly. The only way to actually make such an economy work is to have Culture-level technology, and the sci-fi civs who can accomplish that are numbered in the single digits.
Another thing that irks me is, on a related note, the conceit that writing a fantasy world is a license to do whatever you want regarding politics, combat, and any number of other issues, without providing any in-universe reason why it should be different from what we know.
As far as the actual writing style goes, I'm not particularly a fan of using larger words when smaller ones will get the point across. I suppose that I'm more interested in the actual content of a story than in how it's presented. Attempting to seem smart with your vocabulary, one of the main sources of technobabble, can actually diminish the story's content by distracting from it. Suppose someone was to come up with a science fiction epic the likes of which the world has never seen or even conceived of. Now, suppose that this someone decides to write this story in a style approximating that of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's style, that of flowery words and ten pages of analogies where two sentences will do, could in theory work in a science fiction setting, but not in any universe that I'm familiar with. The plots of most of his works are in reality exceedingly basic, though this can be said to be a relic of the times rather than to stem from any particular limitation of his.
Finally, I hate it when people try to seem philosophical without actually having any idea of how philosophy works. Your average Matrix fanboy fits well with this archetype. Philosophy isn't posting on livejournal about how there is no God because you can't get laid. Philosophy deals with basic questions of existence itself, and works according to rigorously defined, objective principles. I forget which episode of TNG it was that had Data talking to that one girl on the planet that was about to blow up or something, but somehow the crew managed to turn it into a debate on God. Not only was it annoying and out-of-place, the answer is not only obvious but objectively factual; it is a moral wrong not to render aid to a being in danger of dying through no fault of their own when there is zero risk to you and you are well within your power to do so. In real life, there would have been no debate about whether it was right or wrong to help a girl in imminent peril of death, and in real life, God would not have even begun to enter into the equation of a practical course of action regarding the lives and welfare of other sentient beings. A so-called "evolved civilization" would have been long past the stage of uncertainty in that regard. The only debate would have been about whether or not it was practical to do so, which is a realm entirely removed from that of philosophy.
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As far as the actual writing style goes, I'm not particularly a fan of using larger words when smaller ones will get the point across. I suppose that I'm more interested in the actual content of a story than in how it's presented.
I think the tendancy to use larger words in that fashion tends often to be the mark of either egotism or inexperience. I used to be a bit like that, but nowadays I use whichever word seems to work best with the feel - often being shorter and more common words. However, I tend to use them in a certain style and syntax. That ties into the second part of what you said. For me, the presentation is as important as the content. There are very few, I believe, who think like that, but I love to craft sentences in a clever manner - I think there's a beauty to writing that's often left behind in favour of being concise. After all, while I won't make words unneccessarially complex, I will very often use two, or ten, words where one would suffice, because it simply sounds better.
Finally, I hate it when people try to seem philosophical without actually having any idea of how philosophy works. Your average Matrix fanboy fits well with this archetype. Philosophy isn't posting on livejournal about how there is no God because you can't get laid. Philosophy deals with basic questions of existence itself, and works according to rigorously defined, objective principles.
Good point, and a problem I often run into myself. I like serious writing over escapist type, usually, and as such try and actually say something in what I write. However, I've often found myself falling into that selfsame trap that you speak of: using something merely as an excuse to say something. Well... it's possible to do so, but one must be extremely careful that it always works within context, eh?