The Lemon Fool

My English punctuation is not, at all, perfect but I learnt a great deal reading the equivalent board at TMF.

That having been said, I find it difficult to ignore those, who post on other boards here, when they start a sentence with "In the 1960's ...", rather than "In the 1960s ..." or "In the '60s ...".

Would these errors be due to automated spell-checkers or something else?

Whilst here, am I wrong to include a space before an ellipsis? I find it looks easier on the eye but may not be correct.

From a student - he felt that apostrophes (in his submission) should simply be placed where he thought they looked good. And he made comprehensive use of this freedom. I'm sure he would agree with your contention that the space looks easier on the eye.

"From a student"? Do you mean a student (of yours? of English language?) saw the question and suggested a reply to you, which you are relaying in that post?

The apostrophe looks to me like those traditionally attributed to greengrocers. As for the ellipsis, I plead ignorance. I understand correct and incorrect usage may exist, but I could only guess at a particular instance (and I'm probably guilty of ellipsistic atrocities myself). Having said that, I'd be mildly surprised if your use of whitespace could make the difference between right and wrong.

Actually I think you could make a case for the 1960's by thinking of the phrase as along the lines of 'In the years of the 1960's' meaning 'in the 1960's years', thus importing a possessive! But I agree that the possessive seems wrong.

I am afraid I had to look up ellipsis. That is my new word for today.........do not know the answer to your question.

Dod

PinkDalek wrote:Whilst here, am I wrong to include a space before an ellipsis? I find it looks easier on the eye but may not be correct.

According to the BBC style guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism ... 0112740749

Ellipsis
Where part of a quote is omitted, put three dots immediately after the last word used, followed by a space (eg Prices have not merely risen... they have soared). It is
important NOT to start with a space, because this could mean a new line beginning with the dots.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

PinkDalek wrote:Whilst here, am I wrong to include a space before an ellipsis? I find it looks easier on the eye but may not be correct.

According to the BBC style guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism ... 0112740749

Ellipsis
Where part of a quote is omitted, put three dots immediately after the last word used, followed by a space (eg Prices have not merely risen... they have soared). It is
important NOT to start with a space, because this could mean a new line beginning with the dots.

Scott.

There is so much wrong with this sentence it's hard to know where to begin, so I won't try to deconstruct it.

How to write ellipsis is a matter of typographical style and there is a wide variation in those styles. It's probably a better idea to aim for consistency rather than finding the "correct" style, though typographers may argue that certain styles look better and convey their meaning more effectively. Wikipedia covers the subject reasonably well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

GS

"From a student"? Do you mean a student (of yours? of English language?)

No - from one of my wife's students, and the submission was in the business/accountancy area.
In the engineering area, with many foreign students, I was happy with any submission that I could vaguely understand.
The perfect English submissions were often cut and paste plagiary.

GoSeigen wrote:

swill453 wrote:

PinkDalek wrote:Whilst here, am I wrong to include a space before an ellipsis? I find it looks easier on the eye but may not be correct.

According to the BBC style guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism ... 0112740749

Ellipsis
Where part of a quote is omitted, put three dots immediately after the last word used, followed by a space (eg Prices have not merely risen... they have soared). It is
important NOT to start with a space, because this could mean a new line beginning with the dots.

Scott.

There is so much wrong with this sentence it's hard to know where to begin, so I won't try to deconstruct it.

Not sure what you find difficult to follow. It clearly means that if you put a space in front of an ellipsis then when the text is formatted for printing or viewing there would be a danger that a line break would be put there instead of the space. The ellipsis would then appear at the beginning of a new line and, to the reader, not obviously related or connected to the previous word. Which would look a bit daft.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

GoSeigen wrote:

swill453 wrote:According to the BBC style guide http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism ... 0112740749

Scott.

There is so much wrong with this sentence it's hard to know where to begin, so I won't try to deconstruct it.

Not sure what you find difficult to follow.

I don't think anyone finds it hard to follow. Just hard to agree with. The sentence is confusing several different things in a manner that demonstrates badly muddled thinking on the part of its author. It might work as practical advice for users of a particular word processor package whose limitations include lack of a typographical ellipsis and certain builtin wrapping behaviours, but that's all. It is advice along the lines of substituting £ with # on a 1990 keyboard.

I also find the example jarring: it's no more than a crutch to pure laziness. A simple comma would scan better.

As UE gets round to saying, the quoted sentence is not a good example, because I cannot imagine any word or words that are missing. A comma as he says would make the matter entirely clear. OTOH, if you are part quoting a well known saying such as 'A stitch in time...........' then an ellipsis is entirely appropriate. This is Pedants' Place after all.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:Actually I think you could make a case for the 1960's by thinking of the phrase as along the lines of 'In the years of the 1960's' meaning 'in the 1960's years', thus importing a possessive! But I agree that the possessive seems wrong.

Probably because "1960's" is the possessive of "1960", so means "belonging to 1960" or "of 1960". So "in the 1960's years" means "in the years belonging to 1960" or "in the years of 1960", both of which have a plural/singular incongruity: how are there multiple years belonging to or of the single year 1960? Not saying that you've analysed it that way consciously, of course - but the language recognition parts of your brain are probably indicating that something doesn't quite match the language structure they know...

The possessive "1960's" can be used with in contexts that do match "belonging to 1960" or "of 1960", such as "I think 1960's fashions were horrible", and as long as that really is about the fashions of the year 1960 and not those of the decade called the 1960s, I at least don't get a "seems wrong" feeling about it.

Gengulphus

Dod101 wrote:OTOH, if you are part quoting a well known saying such as 'A stitch in time...........' then an ellipsis is entirely appropriate. This is Pedants' Place after all.

Dod

Then why are you using so many dots?

Gengulphus wrote:[…

The possessive "1960's" can be used with in contexts that do match "belonging to 1960" or "of 1960", such as "I think 1960's fashions were horrible", and as long as that really is about the fashions of the year 1960 and not those of the decade called the 1960s, I at least don't get a "seems wrong" feeling about it.

Agreed. I should, perhaps, have given a longer example. Here it is (slightly amended in an attempt to protect the innocent):

Up to the early 1950's, [XX] policy in the [XX] ...

It wasn't possessive, as you indicate, and not only does it seem wrong, it is.

The possessive here is surely a red herring.

Had the subject been "1960's", it would be a fair point. The definite article makes it much harder to construe as possessive, and the preposition reinforces the strong implication that the subject is a decade. So if we are to contrive a possessive, 1960s' would seem rather more appropriate.

UncleEbenezer wrote:The possessive here is surely a red herring. ...

It is unclear to whom you are replying but I agree, in the context provided. The referenced student wasn't making it a possessive. More like trying to include apostrophes, here and there, in the hope that one or two were correct. I think Dod might well accept that his efforts in "importing" a possessive were less than successful.

Never 1960`s as the apostrophe erroneously implies possession , but `60s ,the elision indicates the missing 19- or in the case of " `twas " or " it`s " ,indicates a missing letter.


The ellipsis doesn`t need a space as it indicates a fade out of narrative ,an incomplete sentence.

marronier wrote:The ellipsis doesn`t need a space as it indicates a fade out of narrative ,an incomplete sentence.

Yes, it doesn’t need one but looks better, to me at least. Similar, perhaps, to where one places commas and the space before and/or after them. I’ve never seen the way you do the spaces, mind you, but it may be down to a dodgy keyboard.

marronier wrote:Never 1960`s as the apostrophe erroneously implies possession , but `60s ,the elision indicates the missing 19- or in the case of " `twas " or " it`s " ,indicates a missing letter.


The ellipsis doesn`t need a space as it indicates a fade out of narrative ,an incomplete sentence.

Your commas and spaces are simply wrong. On this board it needs pointing out.

Scott.

There’s a slight echo in here but you appear to be okay with the reverse apostrophe.

PinkDalek wrote:you appear to be okay with the reverse apostrophe.

Not really. The single forward quote mark we normally use may not strictly be correct, but since it appears on most keyboards I'm certainly happy with it. The back quote is, er, wronger.

Scott.