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Eddie88 Posted 18 years ago
Grammar
What is wrong with this sentence
It seems inevitable that the Internet, with all of its potential, will be ubiquitous in the future - for technology can both distract us and focus us, make our lives easier and clog our lives with a perplexing array of choices - but the effect it will have on the quality of our lives is still undetermined.
Looking at this sentence grammatically, I feel that the hyphens are either incorrectly used or used poorly. Hyphens are used, like commas, to sparate information from a sentence. However, commas reduce the importance of the words 'set off' and hyphens are used to emphasize the words.
In this case, the words set off is an adverbial clause, correct?
Because of this, I feel it would be better if the first hyphen was omitted, and the second hyphen was replaced with a comma.
What do you think?
Thanks.
Looking at this sentence grammatically, I feel that the hyphens are either incorrectly used or used poorly. Hyphens are used, like commas, to sparate information from a sentence. However, commas reduce the importance of the words 'set off' and hyphens are used to emphasize the words.
In this case, the words set off is an adverbial clause, correct?
Because of this, I feel it would be better if the first hyphen was omitted, and the second hyphen was replaced with a comma.
What do you think?
Thanks.
Top answer
Not hyphens ; n-dashes . They are used in place of parentheses (they are less formal than the latter and are increasingly popular). As such, they need not enclose any matter syntactically incorporated with the rest of the sentence.
- Not hyphens ; n-dashes .
- They are used in place of parentheses (they are less formal than the latter and are increasingly popular).
- As such, they need not enclose any matter syntactically incorporated with the rest of the sentence.
- Your suggested alternative, if both n-dashes were replaced by commas, would be structurally fine but awkwardly long and breathless for the reader.
- I would leave it as it is.
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5 Answers
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Not hyphens; n-dashes. They are used in place of parentheses (they are less formal than the latter and are increasingly popular). As such, they need not enclose any matter syntactically incorporated with the rest of the sentence.
Your suggested alternative, if both n-dashes were replaced by commas, would be structurally fine but awkwardly long and breathless
Not hyphens; n-dashes. They are used in place of parentheses (they are less formal than the latter and are increasingly popular). As such, they need not enclose any matter syntactically incorporated with the rest of the sentence.
Your suggested alternative, if both n-dashes were replaced by commas, would be structurally fine but awkwardly long and breathless
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I think these would be called "dashes." The only thing that bothers me is that the thing you're setting off with the dashes is a double whammy - the first one in apposition to the main clause, and the second one in apposition to the first one (or both in apposition to the main clause). So you have two pairs of contrasting ideas, all set off by dashes. I find the separation between the two
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Hi,
I read a comment some time ago by someone who said, roughly speaking, 'Anyone who uses a lot of dashes is saying that he can't be bothered to use the correct pronunciation or sentence structure, so he is just going to leave the reader to try to figure out the intended meaning'.
Perhaps this is a slightly extreme view of dashes
I read a comment some time ago by someone who said, roughly speaking, 'Anyone who uses a lot of dashes is saying that he can't be bothered to use the correct pronunciation or sentence structure, so he is just going to leave the reader to try to figure out the intended meaning'.
Perhaps this is a slightly extreme view of dashes
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Clivethe comment I was referring toYup. That's why I use dashes -- all the time!
CJ
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