4 ms·

> there's one other person, a production assistant, and two cats. A bit pedandic, but since we're talking about grammar anyway, that should probably be: > the

by a1369209993 5y ago

> there's one other person, a production assistant, and two cats. A bit pedandic, but since we're talking about grammar anyway, that should probably be: > there's one other person (a production assistant), and two cats. As written, it sounds like the production assistant is separate from the person.

sodality2 5y ago
Alternatively: > there's one other person- a production assistant- and two cats.
- dvt 5y ago
  Because we're being pedantic, what you'd want is an em dash (—), not a hyphen (-). You would also omit the spaces. > there's one other person—a production assistant—and two cats.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    Or a spaced hyphen ( - ), if you want to stick with ASCII/keyboard characters. > there's one other person - a production assistant - and two cats.
lvh 5y ago
Thanks, I've edited my comment.
felipemnoa 5y ago
>>As written, it sounds like the production assistant is separate from the person. Interesting, when I first read it I did understand that the production assistant was the person he was talking about. But yes, I can see why it could be confusing.
iudqnolq 5y ago
A bit pedantic, but a parenthetical can be indicated by em dashes, parentheses, or commas. https://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html https://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html (rule 3)
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  That's fine in isolation, but mixing that inside a comma-separated list is not a good idea.
  - iudqnolq 5y ago
    I agree, but that's a matter of style. It's technically correct. I did say pedantic.
    - a1369209993 5y ago
      Well, it's technically incorrect in that same way that system("echo "Hello, World!""); is incorrect - it mixes syntax in a ambiguous/incompatible way. It's a bit more amenable to silent autocorrect though, so YMMV.
      - pabs3 5y ago
        system() in general is incorrect, there are much better ways to run other programs, like posix_spawn, fork+exec, libpipeline etc.
        a1369209993 5y ago
        For a non-constant argument, sure, but I was talking about the malformed string literal.
        pabs3 5y ago
        Even for a constant argument; it is better to just start the program than to start the shell and tell it to start the program like system() does. Ack about the string literal.
      - lmm 5y ago
        It's not. There is a C specification that requires quotes to be escaped within strings; there is no such specification for English. One can write English sentences that require arbitrarily distant pieces of context to be parsed correctly (much like perl, where one can write lines which may or may not be comments based on the state of some other part of the program), and such sentences may be unwise, but are by no means incorrect.
chalst 5y ago
> As written, it sounds like the production assistant is separate from the person. Of course you are the best judge of what English usage is ambiguous to you, but your suggestion of introducing a comma there is at odds with the convention that you can tell whether a noun following a conjunction is a subject (i e., starting a new independent clause) or an object (ie. the conjunction is bringing together two objects into one collection) by whether it follows a comma. I think your proposed cure is worse than the disease; personally I didn't find lvh's sentence at all difficult to parse. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-and/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-and/

sodality2 5y ago

Alternatively: > there's one other person- a production assistant- and two cats.

dvt 5y ago
Because we're being pedantic, what you'd want is an em dash (—), not a hyphen (-). You would also omit the spaces. > there's one other person—a production assistant—and two cats.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  Or a spaced hyphen ( - ), if you want to stick with ASCII/keyboard characters. > there's one other person - a production assistant - and two cats.

lvh 5y ago

Thanks, I've edited my comment.

felipemnoa 5y ago

>>As written, it sounds like the production assistant is separate from the person. Interesting, when I first read it I did understand that the production assistant was the person he was talking about. But yes, I can see why it could be confusing.

iudqnolq 5y ago

A bit pedantic, but a parenthetical can be indicated by em dashes, parentheses, or commas. https://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html https://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk.html (rule 3)

CydeWeys 5y ago
That's fine in isolation, but mixing that inside a comma-separated list is not a good idea.
- iudqnolq 5y ago
  I agree, but that's a matter of style. It's technically correct. I did say pedantic.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    Well, it's technically incorrect in that same way that system("echo "Hello, World!""); is incorrect - it mixes syntax in a ambiguous/incompatible way. It's a bit more amenable to silent autocorrect though, so YMMV.
    - pabs3 5y ago
      system() in general is incorrect, there are much better ways to run other programs, like posix_spawn, fork+exec, libpipeline etc.
      - a1369209993 5y ago
        For a non-constant argument, sure, but I was talking about the malformed string literal.
        pabs3 5y ago
        Even for a constant argument; it is better to just start the program than to start the shell and tell it to start the program like system() does. Ack about the string literal.
    - lmm 5y ago
      It's not. There is a C specification that requires quotes to be escaped within strings; there is no such specification for English. One can write English sentences that require arbitrarily distant pieces of context to be parsed correctly (much like perl, where one can write lines which may or may not be comments based on the state of some other part of the program), and such sentences may be unwise, but are by no means incorrect.

chalst 5y ago

> As written, it sounds like the production assistant is separate from the person. Of course you are the best judge of what English usage is ambiguous to you, but your suggestion of introducing a comma there is at odds with the convention that you can tell whether a noun following a conjunction is a subject (i e., starting a new independent clause) or an object (ie. the conjunction is bringing together two objects into one collection) by whether it follows a comma. I think your proposed cure is worse than the disease; personally I didn't find lvh's sentence at all difficult to parse. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-and/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-and/