Search results for 'tag:Capital letters tag:Constructions' matching tags 'Capital letters' and 'Constructions'

ELLIPSIS

Anonymous — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:12:09 GMT

Hi,

According to a wesite named "grammar.ccc.comnet.edu" in its THE ELLIPSIS section, I have noticed a paragraph that is written like this and I couldn't understand fully:

If words are left off at the end of a sentence, and that is all that is omitted, indicate the omission with ellipsis marks (preceded and followed by a space) and then indicate the end of the sentence with a period â¦ . If one or more sentences are omitted, end the sentence before the ellipsis with a period and then insert your ellipsis marks with a space on both sides. â¦ As in this example. A coded ellipsis (used in the construction of this page) will appear tighter (with less of a space between the dots) than the use of period-space-period-space-period.

1. If an ellipsis is ending the sentence, do we need four dots?

2. What do I have to do for omitting one or more sentences? Your examples?

3. What follows an ellipsis must be a small lettered word? Can it be a word in capital letters?

eg, I went to Lotte Mart to buy some clothes for the coming summer ... There were my friends there at the Mart (mart OK??).

Louis MacNeice - Sunday Morning

Mrav12 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:28:55 GMT

Hi i have an essay to write on Louis Macneice's - Sunday Morning. I was wondering if anybody could help me analyse it as i have a very hard time reading and understanding poetry. Any help would be amazing - meaning, use of enjambment, causuras, repetition, aliteration, assonance, etc. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out.

Louis MacNeice - Sunday Morning

Down the road someone is practising scales,
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
Man's heart expands to tinker with his car
For this is Sunday morning, Fate's great bazaar,
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,

And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme.

But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Open its eight bells out, skulls' mouths which will not tire
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.

Re: The Passive (need help)

Grammar Geek — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:30:01 GMT

No mistakes in your construction of the passive.

(Where are my mistakes?)

Just remember to start with a capital letter and end with a period.

Re: UFFF ''to'' PROBLEM

Clive — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 22:13:15 GMT

Hi,

how will i decide this? i saw that both of them are used!

i want you to ''verb'' This is the common construction.

i want you ''verb'' Before we get into a discussion about this construction, you say that you have seen this used, so can you please provide a few sentences as examples that I can comment on?

Best wishes, Clive

{You don't seem to feel that capital letters are important in English. They are. It's good to get into the habit of using them.}

Re: their three questions

Clive — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 19:09:27 GMT

Hi again,

Do you say if word is being used as a title and name of a role, then no articles will be necessary?

He is President of the JC Company -- this is the case of it being used as a title. Yes

He plays president in the play. -- this is the case of it being used in reference to a role. Here, in normal speech, you need to say 'a' or 'the'. I regret speaking in terms of roles before, because I think that may be a confusing idea in some ways.

Those two sentences are rather simple in nature and lately, I have been seeing more hard-to-determine cases where the uses of them are not clear, at least to me. Can you give some examples of more precarious nature?

Like here, is this valid?

He is racist. This word can be used as an adjective, in which case this is fine. Or as a noun, in which case you have to say 'a'.

Also, when are the criteria that can be applied to discern when to put a noun "president" in lower-case letters and when to put its first letter in the capital letter? Put a capital when you are using it as a job-title. eg George Bush and Fred Smith are both presidents, but Bush is President of the US and Smith is Persident of ABC Construction Ltd. Perhaps you could think of it like this: if you are using the job name in the way that it would be written on someone's office door, put a capital.

This is not an easy area to understand, or even to explain. However, remember that, if you make a mistake, people will still easily understand your meaning.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: The Kentucky Dream

Mister Micawber — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:44:56 GMT

Your revision got rid of the two birds, but the 'competitor' line is 'way out of meter.

Iambic pentameter is simple-- it is the natural rhythm of much of spoken narrative English. The trick is that you must compose lines whose natural spoken cadence matches this form; the word stress and syllabification cannot be contorted into these five feet like a Procrustean bed.

After your initial composition, read it aloud back to yourself-- naturally-- and see whether the words fit the meter. Here is your sonnet:

u/u/u//u/u
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/uu/u/u/u
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/
u/u/u/u/u/

Most lines are fine, but I have emboldened the lines that deviate.

THEN, you have to review again to check the sense-- is what you said real and natural? Is the 'so' in line 1 naturally occurring, or is it just there to fill the iamb (which didn't work anyway!)? 'Construction made to last'-- does that fit the tone of the poem, or does it sound more like a building contractor's advertisement? Is 'hoofbeats' one word or two? 'Shifts into a higher gear'-- is that what horses do, or automobiles? Do you mean 'ream' or 'dream'? This is the kind of thing you must do in reviewing what you have written-- before you ask others to evaluate your creation.

Punctuation! It goes with the language; all rules are not waived when you write verse instead of prose. If you have difficulty envisioning it, write it out as prose:

With graceful movement, heart beating so fast, The rider mounts his nervous bounding speed,
So surely built, construction made to last The sleekness constitutes his every need A flight across the barren ground, his dream Sweet songs of hoof beats driven in the ear The strength of which no man could ever ream So smoothly shifts into a higher gear A need to run, the muscles strain for more Catharsis of emotion in two beasts A race with the soaring competitor The money of the win is loved the least So race with me a little while more And ease the fever induced pain and sore

There-- you should be able to punctuate that more easily and accurately, and just as you would a paragraph-- including purging all the capital letters. Starting each line with a capital is no longer fashionable.

Re: Fragmented Sentences

rvw — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 13:44:25 GMT

By a fragmented sentence I assume you mean a group of words that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, exclamation point, or question mark, but that does not have all of the pieces that grammar requires. Common sentence fragments may be divided into verb sentences and verbless sentences.

A. Verb-sentence fragments.
--1. The imperative construction is considered standard. Still, an explicit subject is missing.
-----[You] Run to the store.
-----[You] Jump!
--2. In spoken English, one may encounter sentence fragments with omitted subjects.
-----(It)Seems cruel, doesn't it?
-----(I)Had a pretty bad night last night.
--3. A transistive verb or copula (such as "be," "become," or "seem") without a complement is a true fragment and is not standard English.
-----Edgar struck.
-----The chair recognized.
-----Barnwell seems.
--4. "Some intransitive verbs are felt as incomplete unless they are modified in some way."
-----"He lay." feels like a fragment, unlike "He lay quietly" or "He lay on the sofa."
--5. "If the verb and its subject are subordinated to some other construction they do not constitute a sentence."
-----"That I may go." is a fragment. "I may go" is a sentence.
-----"While I answered promptly" is a fragment. "I answered promptly" is a sentence.

B. Verbless-sentence fragments. These are common and understandable to the native speaker, but they pose problems for the learner of English.
-----Phooey!
-----Ouch!
-----Okay.
-----If only I had taken Mother's advice[, things would have turned out better].
-----The insults I had to put up with [at the office]!
-----The nerve of some people [is too much to bear]!
-----[I did it] Because I wanted to.
-----[I bid you] Good morning.
-----[This is] A pretty kettle of fish.
-----[I'll do] Whatever you say.
-----[Have you] Had enough?
-----To all intents and purposes, none [of the suggestions were helpful].
-----[Their readiness was] Not anywhere near good enough to meet the situation.
-----[It is] Probably so.
-----[Their praise was] Music to an author's ears.
-----[She had only] Conversational awareness.
-----[Hearing about it was helpful] But not the same [as being there].

Quotations and paraphrases of Understanding Grammar by Paul Roberts.

Re: Phrases

miriam — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 18:34:14 GMT

Hi, Malory.

1. "Preserving rare and valuable books and documents is one of the challenges FACING THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS."
The construction in capital letters is a participial clause (present participial); it functions as post modifier of "challenges". It is what's also called a "reduced relative clause"; the complete clause would be "... the challenges (that are facing the library of Congress)". There, you have a relative pronoun introducing the clause, and also a conjugated verb (are facing).
"Preserving rare and valuable books" is a gerundial clause, acting as subject of the sentence.

2. "Refreshed by the cool breeze, I didn't object to GOING BACK TO WORK."
Here, you have (in capitals) a gerundial clause acting as direct object of the main verb.
"Refreshed by the cool breeze" is a past participial clause.

3. "The United States, a true 'melting pot', has been greatly enriched BY MANY DIVERSE CULTURES."
"by many diverse cultures" is a prepositional phrase acting as agent (the sentence has a verb in the passive voice).
"a true 'melting pot'" is a noun phrase acting as apposition of 'the United States'.

There aren't any examples of infinitive clauses in these sentences.

Miriam.

Re: Do I use a capital letter if I am writing a list?

wumanfu — Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:33:46 GMT

Hi, If my child was marked down because she used a capital letter for words in a spelling test, Iâd be angry with the teacher. When I went to school, my spelling exercises tested for spelling not style. However, if your child is a high school student and if the teacher was marking hard, then maybeâ¦ In any case, there is information about how to write words in a list on the internet. It comes from a component of Merriam-Websterâs Unabridged resource called Style Guide. The relevant section is called Lists and Outlines. Iâve dumped more information than you need. I hope the information helps explain issues related to stylistic conventions in the United States.
If you get bored before you reach the end, then maybe the following section is best:
Items that are syntactically dependent on the words that introduce them often begin with a lowercase letter and end with a comma or semicolon just as in
a run-in series in an ordinary sentence.
However, you could argue that a spelling test could be considered to be like an outline. In the case of an outline, then capital letters are appropriate:
Outlines standardly use Roman numerals, capitalized letters, Arabic numerals, and lowercase letters, in that order. Each numeral or letter is followed
by a period, and each item is capitalized.
My own opinion is that the teacherâs style is unhelpful and discouraging.
Sincerely, Wu

Here is a dump from the Merriam-Webster Style Guide
21. Both run-in and vertical lists are often numbered. In run-in numbered listsâthat is, numbered lists that form part of a normal-looking sentenceâeach
item is preceded by a number (or, less often, an italicized letter) enclosed in parentheses. The items are separated by commas if they are brief and unpunctuated;
if they are complex or punctuated, they are separated by semicolons. The entire list is introduced by a colon if it is preceded by a full clause, and often
when it is not.
Among the fastest animals with measured maximum speeds are (1) the cheetah, clocked at 70 mph; (2) the pronghorn antelope, at 61 mph; (3) the lion, at 50
mph; (4) the quarter horse, at 47 mph; and (5) the elk, at 45 mph.

The new medical dictionary has several special features: (a) common variant spellings; (b) examples of words used in context; (c) abbreviations, combining
forms, prefixes, and suffixes; and (d) brand names for drugs and their generic equivalents.
22. In vertical lists, each number is followed by a period; the periods align vertically. Runover lines usually align under the item's first word. Each
item may be capitalized, especially if the items are syntactically independent of the words that introduce them.
The English peerage consists of five ranks, listed here in descending order:
Duke (duchess)
Marquess (marchioness)
Earl (countess)
Viscount (viscountess)
Baron (baroness)
The listed items end with periods (or question marks) when they are complete sentences, and also often when they are not.
We require answers to the following questions:
Does the club intend to engage bands to perform in the future?
Will any bands be permitted to play past midnight on weekends?
Are there plans to install proper acoustic insulation?
Items that are syntactically dependent on the words that introduce them often begin with a lowercase letter and end with a comma or semicolon just as in
a run-in series in an ordinary sentence.
Among the courts that are limited to special kinds of cases are
1. probate courts, for the estates of deceased persons;
2. commercial courts, for business cases;
3. juvenile courts, for cases involving children under 18; and
4. traffic courts, for minor cases involving highway and motor vehicle violations.
A vertical list may also be unnumbered, or may use bullets (â¢) in place of numerals, especially where the order of the items is not important.
Chief among the advances in communication were these 19th-century inventions:
Morse's telegraph
Daguerre's camera
Bell's telephone
Edison's phonograph
This book covers in detail:
â¢ Punctuation
â¢ Capitalization and italicization
â¢ Numbers
â¢ Abbreviations
â¢ Grammar and composition
â¢ Word usage
23. Outlines standardly use Roman numerals, capitalized letters, Arabic numerals, and lowercase letters, in that order. Each numeral or letter is followed
by a period, and each item is capitalized.
The United States from 1816 to 1850
Era of mixed feelings
Effects of the War of 1812
National disunity
The economy
Transportation revolution
Waterways
Railroads
Beginnings of industrialization
The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1850-77