Search results for 'tag:Exclamation marks tag:Gerunds' matching tags 'Exclamation marks' and 'Gerunds'

Re: Gerund or Participle ?

Aperisic — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:58:20 GMT

Maple wrote:

Now I think I can feel free to use the expression ânow you can say that again" when I agree with the speaker.

Thanks for your clarification.

The expression is You can say that again. You stress slightly that in speach. You can say 'that again

You can add now, but you can add anything else as well: man, well, yes. (But you do not start a sentence with And for example.) Now is not more frequent in any sense. Exclamation mark is usual as well.

Now, you can say that again!
Yes, you can say that again!
You can say that again, man!
Well, you can say that again!

It is not rare to start the sentence with it

You can say that again: it is a perfect plan!
You can say that again: we deserve to win!

or when you advertise

You can say that again: $20 per month!

you can start a whole part with it

You can say that again. It was a wonderful morning and we decided to go to a holiday. I can't remember having a better holiday in my life.

The only what I do not know about is its usage in the middle or at the end of the sentence or as a separate sentence.

You said so good a solution that you can say that again because we might win a Nobel prize if we succeed.
You can say that again that she is ugly, but I knew it long ago.

I strongly doubt this usage because I did not find any.

You can say that again is a positive expression it means I totally agree and/or I know it already. It is a spoken phrase. In writing it can show enthusiasm or a well-known god or bad fact.

You can say that again is a pretty fixed phrase, you could occasionally change can to may, might, could but it is not recommendable, because, for example, you may say that again is used when you ask someone to repeat again what he just said. The same danger exists if you change that to it, you can say it again, usually means simply you can repeat what you say. again is never changed to anything else (one more time, for example).

Re: Parenthetically challenged.

taiwandave — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:59:47 GMT

Sorry for the delay -- I wanted to check first with a real editor to get an authoritative answer.

He used a gerund in his last sentence (whatever that is!).

In the above sentence, the full stop is definitely needed after the right parenthesis. The parenthetical information is part of the sentence, and is treated the same way regardless of whether it happens to be terminated with a question mark or an exclamation mark.

(Blue should never be used as the primary colour in compositions.)

If a full sentence is parenthesized, the period, as shown above, is placed inside. The purpose of parentheses is to exclude extraneous or interrupting material from a sentence or paragraph. There is nothing wrong with parenthesizing an entire sentence.

So, there you have it.

Re: Parenthetically challenged.

miriam — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 21:06:46 GMT

Hello, Laurence.
This isn't really my "field"; I'm not the best person to make comments about style. But...

- In the first sentence, I'd say that "He used a gerund in his last sentence (whatever that is!)."
The comment in parentheses starts with a lower case word, it appears to be part of the sentence. So yes, the full stop is necessary. Your example was an isolated sentence, but let's suppose you wish to go on writing. You have to separate that sentence from the next, and the exclamation mark won't do that work since it is within the parentheses, not at the "main" level of the sentence.

- In the second example, I must confess what would be correct, but a whole sentence in parentheses looks strange to me. I'd either forget about the patentheses and make it a sentence just like the others, or make the parenthetical comment part of the previous sentence. I'm only speculating here because you only posted the last part of that previous sentence, so the meaning is not quite clear.
Anyway, since parenthetical comments are -supposedly- comments about something you have just said, I would include them in the sentence you're commenting about.

I hope it helps.

Miriam