FanPost

Notes on Grammar

There's been a lot of chatter about grammar around here lately. I think it started when the "Plea to the McCoven" scolding went out, though I'm not entirely sure. One quick opinion: I think of Internet posting (and I'm excepting Grant from this because he's the author of the site) as being held to a different standard than the writing you might do for fun or professionally or whatever. So while I am a proud owner of an Oxford English Dictionary and always have a copy of "The Elements of Style" close by, i think it's absolutely OK to post in all lower case letters.
Anyway, I'm interested in grammar in general, and the influence of the Internet in particular. That was my first inspiration for this post. My second was a cheesy, team-building exercise where you take all the people in a room and ask them to name the presidents in order. There's never one person who can do all of them (although my dad could do it in 2 minutes or less) but if you let the people work together it's actually pretty easy.

So, I was thinking that all of us have one or two grammar rules that we remember, but you remember them in plain English, i.e. "a semicolon is usually between two things that could be standalone sentences," not "a semicolon attaches an indpendent clause to..." or whatever the exact rule is.

If everyone were to list their favorite grammar rule or rules, I bet we could get a pretty good list going. I'm thinking just your rules of thumb. Don't go pick up the grammar book just to look smart. (Such an exercise would have the added benefit of further distinguishing everyone as a total nerd.)

Here's one I remember from somewhere.
When using a colon, the first letter after the colon is lower case, unless what comes after the colon could be a sentence all by itself, in which case that first letter is capitalized.

Here's a news flash: This post is so lame that each and every MCCer should be forever embarrassed.

This is how I feel after posting this rubbish: forever embarrassed.

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