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

Re: passive voice

Cool Breeze — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:51:51 GMT

Huevos
Goodman
football is a popular sport played almost in all Asain and European countries. There is no direct agent here but it's still a passive structure.
That sentence is not in the passive voice.

Football is a popular sport [which/that is] played in almost all Asian and European countries.

The sentence consists of a main clause and a relative clause, which has been reduced by omitting the relative pronoun and the passive auxiliary (is). I call such structures clause equivalents, but terminology is unimportant here. The relative clause - or its equivalent - is in the passive voice.

A sentence ends with a full stop / period, an exclamation mark or a question mark. A clause need not have any punctuation after it, which is the case after the main clause in this sentence.

Please, which is the correct way?

Brunces — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:10:51 GMT

Hello, friends.

Please, which is the correct way and why?

Doubt #1

"color of the car" x "car color" x "car's color"
"leg of the cat" x "cat leg" x "cat's leg"
"pizza of yesterday" x "yesterday pizza" x "yesterday's pizza"

I've heard that Genitive Case is used only with nouns which are "living creatures" (humans, animals, etc.)? Is that true? So, "car's color" would be incorrect because "car" is not a living creature. So, when do I have to use OF, Genitive case or "nothing"?

Doubt #2

Sometimes, I see periods which contain direct speech within quotes. For example:

The father arrived home and said "Honey, I'm here!", then he dropped his briefcase on the couch.

1) Is the writing this period correct? Shouldn't I use colon before the direct speech?

The father arrived home and said: "Honey, I'm here!", then he dropped his briefcase on the couch.

2) When the direct speech is at the end of the sentence, where should I put the period? Example:

The father arrived home, dropped his briefcase on the couch and said "Honey, I'm here!" (???)

Do I have to put a period after the final quote? ... "Honey, I'm here!".

Is the exclamation mark considered the final punctuation of the sentence? ... "Honey, I'm here!"

What if the direct speech final punctuation is a regular period? ... "Honey, I'm here." (???)

Do I have to put another period after the final quote? ... "Honey, I'm here.".

Is the first period considered the last punctuation of the sentence? ... "Honey, I'm here."

Thank you very much for your attention, guys.

Hugs,

brunces

Re: English/ Spanish/ French/ German Phrases & Sentences!

Forbes — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 22:41:02 GMT

The reason is that many Spanish questions can have the same form as a statement and inversion of subject and verb is quite common in statements. Also subject pronouns are not usually expressed. In speech the difference between questions and statements is apparent from intonation. In writing the upsidedown question mark is to warn you a question is coming. I suppose they decided that if they were going to have upside question marks they may as well have upside down exclamation marks too.

Examples:

Usted es my amable. You are very kind.

Es usted muy amable. You are very kind.

Â¿Es usted espaÃ±ol? Are you Spanish?

Â¿Usted es espaÃ±ol? Are you Spanish?

Eres loco. You are mad.

Â¿Eres loco? Are you mad?

Punctuate your posts, says research

matthewg — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 19:21:03 GMT

Focus Magazine, September 04:

Correspondence is taking longer to read because of poorly punctuated email, according to optometrists at the University of Bradford. They discovered that missing fullstops and capital letters are behind the time-wasting trend.

View the full press release here.

By not punctuating your posts on the forums, you are also wasting everyone's time. It is very easy to capitalise letters on a PC keyboard, so while laziness is excusable for SMS messages, it isn't for posts. Common habits which are very annoying include:

Multiple question marks/exclamation marks, where one will do. Example here.
Converting the personal pronoun "I" to "i." Example here.
Dot overload. Example here.
No spaces after punctuation marks. Example here.
Minimalist punctuation. Example here.

Please add your own pet hates.

Re: Using Colon inside Quotes?

rommie — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 07:55:33 GMT

Well, both or neither, really, because "rules" governing punctuation aren't really "rules" in the sense that rules govening nouns, verbs and adjectives are rules. Punctuation "rules" vary considerably, often from publisher to publisher, or from newspaper to newspaper.

I can tell you that QUESTION MARKS and EXCLAMATION MARKS should go within quotes if they refer to the quoted material only; outside otherwise.

I can also tell you that COMMAS and PERIODS are usually place inside the quotes, but there are some exceptions in British English, and sometimes also when using monospaced fonts.

But I can't tell you a rule for COLONS, as I simply am not aware of one. Personally I'd place it outside the quotes - but that's just me.

The good news, though, is that whatever you choose to do, no-one can ever really tell you that you're wrong. The most important rule of all here is CONSISTENCY. Whatever you decide to do, stick with it throughout the whole document. If you chop and change, that will make it appear as though you don't know what you're doing.

Rommie