Re:When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?
by ghaff on Monday March 08, 2021 @01:42PM
(#26389739)
That's probably true. I would have had to work to parse the first sentence in that article. The other thing going on is that, for many situations, the use of punctuation within long sentences to help the reader has sort of fallen out of fashion relative to breaking long sentences up. It's probably also more acceptable to use sentence fragments in certain types of prose.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?
by com2kid on Monday March 08, 2021 @03:00PM
(#26390731)
> The other thing going on is that, for many situations, the use of punctuation within long sentences to help the reader has sort of fallen out of fashion relative to breaking long sentences up.
Semicolons, colons, and dashes, are rarely used now days.
Heck I am impressed when I see a dash properly used, I myself cannot lay claim to such knowledge. I am almost 100% certain that their usage was not taught to me in either school or college.
Re:When did writing in major newspapers become so bad?
by ghaff on Monday March 08, 2021 @04:55PM
(#26392192)
I use em dashes a fair bit (and have to remember the spacing style of the publication I'm writing for). But I'm much more inclined to break a sentence in two rather than use a semicolon unless there are two very connected thoughts.