[TIP] Curmudgeonly OT thoughts

[Ben Finney]

Olemis Lang <olemis at gmail.com> writes:

> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 9:34 PM, C. Titus Brown <ctb at msu.edu> wrote:
> > Not to mention the ellipsis filter that I apparently need to put
> > in place for Olemis -- only one ellipsis allowed per paragraph,
> > max!
> 
> I dont understand this very well, but please, any suggestions you
> all have about my posts ... please, let me know in order to make
> your life much better ...
> 
> About my problems replying to lists ... well it seems that I'm a
> disaster (many lists, many policies, not much time ... :( ...). I
> apologize ... so I'll try to behave ... just let me know what to do
> in detail ... ;)

An ellipsis, ‘…’ or commonly typed in ASCII as ‘...’
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis>, is used to indicate
either elision of material or, sometimes, a deliberately interrupted
sentence.

Your writing has far too many of them, such that it's very difficult
to understand the structure of your passages on a first or second
reading.

We have punctuation rules in written language for a reason: that
reason is to make the intended structure of the writing easier to
follow visually. Please learn to use punctuation more conservatively;
you can start by never using an ellipsis, since there is pretty much
always a better alternative.

For example, your two paragraphs above would be much easier to read if
punctuated like this:

=====
> I dont understand this very well, but please, any suggestions you
> all have about my posts, please, let me know in order to make your
> life much better.
> 
> About my problems replying to lists: well it seems that I'm a
> disaster (many lists, many policies, not much time :( ). I
> apologize. So I'll try to behave. Just let me know what to do in
> detail ;)
=====

As you can see, it's a matter mostly of making clear with full-stops
(‘.’) where your sentences actually end, and capitalising the
beginning of each sentence.

-- 
 \      “Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too |
  `\                                                long.” —Ogden Nash |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney