RoR: Forum

Attention, Mr. Stolyarov,

These kinds of debates always remind me of a distant relative of mine:

DEXTER, TIMOTHY (1747-1806), American merchant, remarkable for his eccentricities, was born at Maiden, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of February 1747. He acquired considerable wealth by buying up quantities of the depreciated continental currency, which was ultimately redeemed by the Federal government at par. He assumed the title of Lord Dexter and built extraordinary houses at Newburyport, Mass., and Chester, New Hampshire. He maintained a poet laureate and collected inferior pictures, besides erecting in one of his gardens some forty colossal statues carved in wood to represent famous men. A statue of himself was included in the collection, and had for an inscription, "I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World." He wrote a book entitled Pickle for the Knowing Ones. It was wholly without punctuation marks, and as this aroused comment, he published a second edition, at the end of which was a page displaying nothing but commas and stops, from which the readers were invited to, "peper and solt it as they plese."

By the way, he was in extraordinarily successful entrepreneur and actually made money sending "coals to Newcastle." Obviously not a modest man, he must nevertheless be admired for his complete solution to the punctuation problem, and I'm sure Mr. Stolyarov would be quite impressed with his "rational" approach to spelling.

Regi

Post 21

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 7:41am

Why should punctuation be treated differently from parentheses (for example, like this?)

BTW, when I was a grad student, one of my professors submitted a single-author manuscript to a prestigious journal. He used the editorial "we" throughout the article. The editors sent it back, saying that it was unacceptable to use "we" when there was only one author. So, instead of changing "we" to "I" everywhere in the manuscript, he added a second author: his cat. The article was published with the authors J. H. Hetherington and F. D. C. Willard, where the initials F. D. C. stand for Feline Domesticus Cat.

Thanks,
Glenn.

Post 22

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 10:24am

I should add that I prefer American spellings and use them in my work whenever I can.

Post 23

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 9:21am

Just for fun, I wondered how much effort it would take me to automate the process of converting back and forth between the two conventions:) Below is the first result, it took me only about five minutes. I am sure there are programs that do a better job.

My point is, if the editors insist on a particular convention, let the technology do the work for you.

coaltontrail

--------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
# punctuate.sh
# usage: ./punctuate.sh -british|-us
# Created by coaltontrail; Copyright 2004 coaltontrail. All rights reserved.
# This program may be copied, modified and redistributed under the
# GNU General Public License, which can be obtained from
# http://www.fsf.org/licenses/licenses.html.

case $1 in
-british ) sed -r -e "s/([\'\"])([,\.])/\2\1/g" $2;;
-us ) sed -r -e "s/([,\.])([\'\"])/\2\1/g" $2;;
esac

Post 24

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 10:03am

Linz writes: "Tonight's article on prisoner abuse by Tibor is an obvious case in point."

I am shocked and saddened to hear that Tibor has been engaged in prisoner abuse!

Post 25

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 2:55pm

Roderick -

That was just my cunning ploy to deter Tibor or anyone else from ever writing about serial killing or bestiality.

Linz

:-)

Post 26

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 3:04pm

Linz wrote: "You're all missing the point. Commas & periods will go *inside* quote marks because that is what *I* am used to. Linz :-) "

It's about time we take the velvet glove off. This is a beneficent dictatorship---what the hell is wrong with you people? Jesus! Don't you understand that we don't have to provide reasons for this! Damn.

And, I should add: As Assistant Editor of FREE RADICAL, I'm afraid that I've given my full sanction to this arbitrarily-imposed standard. I just finished proofing #62... and you will all have to just deal with my enforcement of it. Bad enough I have to deal with the fact that FREE RADICAL allows both the Queen's English and Brooklyn English in the same magazine! I just can't get used to all these "favours" and "theatres" and such. Fuhgedaboudit!

Post 27

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 3:23pm

"Brooklyn English" is, of course, a contradiction in terms. Indeed, on the basis of my whirlwind tour of Brooklyn, with Dr. Diabolical Dialectical as my guide (I'd given him the day off from his FreeRad duties), I can attest that "Brooklyn English" is not a language at all, but a series of noises, most accurately described as somewhere between a whine & a grunt, replete with aggressive overtones that infallibly & inexorably conjure up visions in the mind of the listener of concrete boots & harbour beds.

Linz

Post 28

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 3:37pm

Ah, I remember that tour well. For those of you who want to actually see all the photos we took, start here. You shoulda heard me talkin dat day! I couldn't be shut up---until, of course, Linz threatened my life if I was not silent during the Mario Lanza CD session. Unfortunately... my sobbing couldn't be controlled. :)

Post 29

Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 4:23pm

Greetings.

Mr. Firehammer, the story of Lord Dexter is indeed an interesting one. When searching the Internet for more information, I did find refences to his unique spelling (and examples thereof), but I have not yet stumbled upon any description of his systematic approach toward it. Commercially speaking, he does show the marks of an ingenious man, and I certainly have no quarrel with his immodesty but I, of course, do not see the merit in his discarding of punctuation entirely.

Seeing as language must reflect reality, its foremost structural objectives are systematization and consistency. Spelling words haphazardly or placing/omitting punctuation marks at whim violate this, but a conscious, reasoned, and and thoroughly applied alteration of a given convention does not. I am essentially in agreement with Mr. Humphreys' stance on the quotes issue-- allow both styles so long as they are employed consistently within a given work. It is one thing to persuade an individual to use a style other than he is accustomed to. (I have done so myself, of course.) The individual has the full prerogative to accept or reject the advice. But it is entirely another to alter his deliberate style as a matter of editorial policy. This is in some way analogous to adding columns to the buildings of Howard Roark; it dilutes another's creation by attempting to improve upon it, something Ayn Rand would recognize as an impossibility in this case, as it compels the creator to act against the conclusions of his own mind. And, I ask, what is next: mandatory spelling conventions? Given SOLO's support for individualism, this would be quite a filosofical error.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 30

Sunday, May 16, 2004 - 4:49pm

Mr. Stolyarov,

I'm glad you found the story of Lord Dexter interesting. He really was a distant relative, although no one else in the family ever claimed him. I happen to be partial to eccentrics, what else could explain my fondness Linz?

As you undoubtedly gathered, the post was at least partially tongue-in-cheek. The very individualistic spelling did make me think of your own, but I'm quite aware the reasons are very different. If you have read much of anything from that period in American history, there was very little consistency in spelling, or punctuation. There must have been a real shortage of dictionaries.

For my own writing, punctuation and format are dictated by The Chicago Manual of Style (since it is the most universally recognized standard) and spelling by any good dictionary (because they are the most universally recognized standard). My reason is simple, to avoid confusion. By using sources available to everyone, anyone can find out the intention of my punctuation or meaning of my words simply by looking them up.

If others do not choose to, "standardize," that is their choice. In the end, however, those things which are written (and spelt) according to the most widely accepted standards will be understood by the widest audience (and accepted by the most publishers and editors). I have discovered no punctuation or spelling standard that in any way limits style or meaning. To me, they have no more affect on the content than type-face. (On the other hand, bad punctuation or spelling can make a piece incomprehensible.)

Regi

Post 31

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 9:24am

i'm very surprised to see objectivists with senses of humor. and i thought i was the only one

Post 32

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 7:01pm