Post by Malt on Dec 8, 2007 21:09:21 GMT -5
Haha. First person besides Envy to post on this sub-board. WHAT now. =3
{Note: Sorry for any typoes, this laptop keyboard SUCKS.}
Anyway. From the title, you can probably guess what this post is about. If not, uh..wow. For those unfortunate souls, this post is about grammar. Everyone luurves good grammar. Especially the mean modbot Nikki, who will steal your soul over bad grammar. Thus this post, to help all those who need it, becuase you should like your soul.
Commas
So, let's get down to it. What should we know about
grammar? We'll start with commas. When RPing, you'll be using them pretty often, so let's get to know them.
You use commas to denote pauses in a sentence, to put it simply. What we DON'T want is: Timmy, went to, the store, he, smiled, at the, lady there, greeted, her, asking for that morning's, newspaper. That sentence is just bad, in more ways than one. We also don't want: Timmy went to the store he smiled at the lady there greeted her asking for that mornings newspaper. See? You can't read that properly, either.
The proper way is; Timmy went to the store, greeted the lady behind the counter with a smile, and asked for that mornings' paper. It flows much more smoothly. The rule of thumb for comma use is that, when you want the reader to pause for a moment, use one. Say it in your head, and decide on where you want to pause. Heck, say it out loud if you want to. Though your family will most likely think you crazy. Commas are also used when listing three or more items consecutively, as well as in speech. but that has its' own rules, and there's no need to clutter this up anymore.
Speech
Speech? Hey, I just mentioned that! Why is it here? Because it's important, of course!
Speech is always surrounded by "" quotation marks, so you can tell it apart from the rest of the text in a post. Speech is used when someone is talking-and if you don't know that by now, that's pretty pathetic. Now, speech alwaysalways has a comma somewhere in the vicinity. Always. What you normally see is: Text text text "Speech," text. See? Comma.
When speech comes into play, it's hard to tell where to put your commas, and what to capitalize. That's why Malt's here! =D
Now, for an example, i'm going to steal Cherry's character, Toff, as well as give her a friend, named Jeff. Why? Because she disappeared off MSN, and I enjoy ticking her off. Toff will, against her will, with the aid of Jeff, demonstrate a few speech-iful points Malt's trying to make.
Toff turned, facing Jeff. "What did you say to me?" she demanded.
"You heard me," said Jeff. "And you know perfectly well what I said," he persisted.
So, what did we gain from that? Well, every time a new person speaks, we start a new paragraph. And, even though there's a question mark, as Toff showed us, we do not capitalize the next word, [/i]unless[/i] it's a name, or any other proper noun. I'll come back to this later, since I can't think of anything else right know, though there must be something.
Punctuation
{This section's going to be short, just to let you know. ;]} Punctuation- , . ? ; : ' " - ! Yes, all of that.
Comma (,)- There's a whole section on it above. Not going into that again.
Period (.) It ends a sentence. Moving on.
Question Mark (?)- You use them to ask a question. Holllly crap.
Exclamation Mark (!)- This is used to, well, exclaim. Use this when your character is surprised, yelling, upset...Use your imagination here. Any strong emotion.
Quotation Mark (")- See the Speech section. Not explaining that again.
Apostraphe (')- Hoo boy, this'll be fun. An apostraphe with an s after can be used to express ownership {ex. Ryo's other girlfriend...Imeeean}, or as a contraction for the phrase 'it is' {It's}
Bad example: {Grammar it it's worst!}
Why is it bad? Becuase, if you wrote that out, it would say 'Grammar at is is worst.' And that's just ick.
{/cont}
Annnd, this will be continued. Questions? Comments? Complaints? Flames? Hate letters? Threats? Other things? Post!
{Note: Sorry for any typoes, this laptop keyboard SUCKS.}
Anyway. From the title, you can probably guess what this post is about. If not, uh..wow. For those unfortunate souls, this post is about grammar. Everyone luurves good grammar. Especially the mean modbot Nikki, who will steal your soul over bad grammar. Thus this post, to help all those who need it, becuase you should like your soul.
Commas
So, let's get down to it. What should we know about
grammar? We'll start with commas. When RPing, you'll be using them pretty often, so let's get to know them.
You use commas to denote pauses in a sentence, to put it simply. What we DON'T want is: Timmy, went to, the store, he, smiled, at the, lady there, greeted, her, asking for that morning's, newspaper. That sentence is just bad, in more ways than one. We also don't want: Timmy went to the store he smiled at the lady there greeted her asking for that mornings newspaper. See? You can't read that properly, either.
The proper way is; Timmy went to the store, greeted the lady behind the counter with a smile, and asked for that mornings' paper. It flows much more smoothly. The rule of thumb for comma use is that, when you want the reader to pause for a moment, use one. Say it in your head, and decide on where you want to pause. Heck, say it out loud if you want to. Though your family will most likely think you crazy. Commas are also used when listing three or more items consecutively, as well as in speech. but that has its' own rules, and there's no need to clutter this up anymore.
Speech
Speech? Hey, I just mentioned that! Why is it here? Because it's important, of course!
Speech is always surrounded by "" quotation marks, so you can tell it apart from the rest of the text in a post. Speech is used when someone is talking-and if you don't know that by now, that's pretty pathetic. Now, speech alwaysalways has a comma somewhere in the vicinity. Always. What you normally see is: Text text text "Speech," text. See? Comma.
When speech comes into play, it's hard to tell where to put your commas, and what to capitalize. That's why Malt's here! =D
Now, for an example, i'm going to steal Cherry's character, Toff, as well as give her a friend, named Jeff. Why? Because she disappeared off MSN, and I enjoy ticking her off. Toff will, against her will, with the aid of Jeff, demonstrate a few speech-iful points Malt's trying to make.
Toff turned, facing Jeff. "What did you say to me?" she demanded.
"You heard me," said Jeff. "And you know perfectly well what I said," he persisted.
So, what did we gain from that? Well, every time a new person speaks, we start a new paragraph. And, even though there's a question mark, as Toff showed us, we do not capitalize the next word, [/i]unless[/i] it's a name, or any other proper noun. I'll come back to this later, since I can't think of anything else right know, though there must be something.
Punctuation
{This section's going to be short, just to let you know. ;]} Punctuation- , . ? ; : ' " - ! Yes, all of that.
Comma (,)- There's a whole section on it above. Not going into that again.
Period (.) It ends a sentence. Moving on.
Question Mark (?)- You use them to ask a question. Holllly crap.
Exclamation Mark (!)- This is used to, well, exclaim. Use this when your character is surprised, yelling, upset...Use your imagination here. Any strong emotion.
Quotation Mark (")- See the Speech section. Not explaining that again.
Apostraphe (')- Hoo boy, this'll be fun. An apostraphe with an s after can be used to express ownership {ex. Ryo's other girlfriend...Imeeean}, or as a contraction for the phrase 'it is' {It's}
Bad example: {Grammar it it's worst!}
Why is it bad? Becuase, if you wrote that out, it would say 'Grammar at is is worst.' And that's just ick.
{/cont}
Annnd, this will be continued. Questions? Comments? Complaints? Flames? Hate letters? Threats? Other things? Post!