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I hope I'm not being overly pedantic, but: >If you think of the internet as just a series of pipes; then it’s what you push down those pipes that matters. Tha
by gabemart 14y ago
I hope I'm not being overly pedantic, but:
>If you think of the internet as just a series of pipes; then it’s what you push down those pipes that matters.
That should be a comma, not a semicolon. Semicolons are used for separating related independent clauses.
I know it doesn't really matter, but when it's the first sentence it really stands out.
- SquareWheel 14y agoAlso, the original reference is "series of tubes" if that's the illusion they're trying to make.
- Joeboy 14y agoAllusion.
- jQueryIsAwesome 14y agoIs the accepted convention that in online communication literal grammar corrections should start with an asterisk or at least be surrounded by quotes. I know how silly this is, but now you see what happens when you get too focused in grammatical mistakes.
- vhf 14y agoSee Muphry's Law [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphrys_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphrys_law
- matthewowen 14y agoIllusion/allusion isn't a grammatical mistake. They're too words that mean different things, but which are very similar syntactically (you can swap between them in a sentence and get two valid sentences which mean entirely different things). This can be a pernicious source of errors of communication. It is good to point it out.
- Legion 14y ago"Two" words. Sorry.
- SquareWheel 14y agoDidn't know that, thanks. Similar to effect/affect.
- kayloos 14y agoYou might not be overly pedantic, but you are wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage Nevertheless, I also do not take kindly to semicolon usage, because it's so vague. But that does not mean I can claim that it's wrong, without being wrong myself.
- lwhi 14y agoBoth parts of the sentence need to be able to stand alone; they can't stand alone in the described instance.
- gabemart 14y agoI'm not sure how that link supports your assertion I'm wrong. Can you be a little more specific?
- kayloos 14y agoBetween independent clauses linked with a transitional phrase or a conjunctive adverb: Everyone knows he is guilty of committing the crime; of course, it will never be proven. ... This is the least common use, and is mostly confined to academic texts. In your example, "then" is the conjunctive adverb. Edit: By the way, I love having grammar discussions on the internet. Let's make a grammar discussion club, so we can really go at it, and maybe try and keep the grammatic national socialism out of hackernews.