$2.16 success

Mar 01, 2011 Last reply: 2 years ago 22 Replies

Yep. Some of us can.

I make a distinction between informal communication (such as conversation with friends or Usenet posts) and formal communication (such as business letters and essays). Fiction can use either, depending on context.

I would certainly not want the impersonal third-person narrator to "speak" colloquially, but it lends a pleasing verisimiltude when characters do so, especially if they are from the "lower orders" of society, as is so frequently found in police procedurals and "hard boiled detective" novels.

It can be said for prose, as for people, "It takes all kinds."

Cindy Hamilton

Remember, every punctuation mark used is one that is not available for someone else to use. Be sparing of your punctuation so that there is enough to go around for everyone.

There's a worldwide shortage of apostrophes, because of the greengrocer's apostrophe.

Cindy Hamilton

I see you belong to the fixed-sized pie group.

I thought the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes took care of that shortage.

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