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Hijacking this to say that the use of the colon in this title and others like it is deeply offensive. It should be: "Study: Microbes Ate BP Oil Deep-Water Plum

Hijacking this to say that the use of the colon in this title and others like it is deeply offensive. It should be: "Study: Microbes Ate BP Oil Deep-Water Plume" It doesn't make any sense for it to be the other way around! Also, hurray that the worst case scenario didn't happen. I will try to remember this the next time I read sky-is-falling articles from commenters at the Oil Drum.

pohl 16y ago
s/semicolon/colon/
- houseabsolute 16y ago
  Corrected, thanks.
jacobolus 16y ago
Why do you think it doesn’t make sense? A colon doesn’t necessarily imply the format, “person: person’s statement”, or “term: definition”, but can also be used in titles with the form “title: subtitle” or “title: explanation”. I think you might just be mixing up typical uses of colons in programming language syntax with “correct” usage in English. There’s no ultimately “right” or “wrong” (or, sheesh, “deeply offensive”) usage of punctuation, only conventional or atypical. This particular usage is straight-forward to understand (were you seriously confused?), and quite common in titles and headlines of all sorts. In this case, putting “study” at the end emphasizes the first part of the title: so what?
- houseabsolute 16y ago
  You wanted a period at the end of that last sentence, not a colon. When one thing says another, for example, a study says a finding, the sayer goes on the left. For example: HouseAbsolute: That's just how it's done. as in a play, or HouseAbsolute said: that's just how it's done. in the less often seen form of this use. That's just how it is done. I dislike it being done the opposite way in titles because I think it probably misleads people into thinking it's an acceptable way to use the punctuation in a typical sentence, where in fact it is backwards from the way it should be in a typical sentence. > or, sheesh, “deeply offensive” Exaggeration: something I use occasionally. (This is the appositive form of the colon, according to Wikipedia.) > There’s no ultimately “right” or “wrong” usage of punctuation. I'm not a strong prescriptive punctuationist, but I do feel we should not use misleading punctuation when we can avoid it or when it doesn't add much. A dash would be fine here, because it's a fairly typical way of showing quotation, although not historically accepted yet. The colon, however, is not.

pohl 16y ago

s/semicolon/colon/

houseabsolute 16y ago
Corrected, thanks.

jacobolus 16y ago

Why do you think it doesn’t make sense? A colon doesn’t necessarily imply the format, “person: person’s statement”, or “term: definition”, but can also be used in titles with the form “title: subtitle” or “title: explanation”. I think you might just be mixing up typical uses of colons in programming language syntax with “correct” usage in English. There’s no ultimately “right” or “wrong” (or, sheesh, “deeply offensive”) usage of punctuation, only conventional or atypical. This particular usage is straight-forward to understand (were you seriously confused?), and quite common in titles and headlines of all sorts. In this case, putting “study” at the end emphasizes the first part of the title: so what?

houseabsolute 16y ago
You wanted a period at the end of that last sentence, not a colon. When one thing says another, for example, a study says a finding, the sayer goes on the left. For example: HouseAbsolute: That's just how it's done. as in a play, or HouseAbsolute said: that's just how it's done. in the less often seen form of this use. That's just how it is done. I dislike it being done the opposite way in titles because I think it probably misleads people into thinking it's an acceptable way to use the punctuation in a typical sentence, where in fact it is backwards from the way it should be in a typical sentence. > or, sheesh, “deeply offensive” Exaggeration: something I use occasionally. (This is the appositive form of the colon, according to Wikipedia.) > There’s no ultimately “right” or “wrong” usage of punctuation. I'm not a strong prescriptive punctuationist, but I do feel we should not use misleading punctuation when we can avoid it or when it doesn't add much. A dash would be fine here, because it's a fairly typical way of showing quotation, although not historically accepted yet. The colon, however, is not.