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Assume v. Presume

Black Hole said:
standards must be on their knees.
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They are. I'm not the most skilled user of punctuation but I notice declining standards. The number of real mistakes in the local newspaper (as opposed to my ignorance - the Piste Office incident) is growing. I'd expect journalists to be professional writers with various editors to correct mistakes. But no, the whole process seems to be slapdash. (It was always so. Hence the Grauniad!)
 
gomezz said:
... unless not done as an artistic use of language ...
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So the little dears are "being artistic"? :rolling:

I have previously reported they view full stops as passive-aggressive, and if their primary writing experience is text/WhatsApp/Instagram then they won't get capitals without the full stop (their thumbs won't reach the shift).
 
Not buying that as messaging apps these days auto-capitalise the first words of sentences which can sometimes be not what you want.
 
trog said:
"Likewise readers will find many quotes from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

I know this is not the grammar Nazi thread but Shirley that should be Hitchhiker's" ?
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Yes, you're right, but personally I dislike the concatenation of the two words into one, and would prefer a hyphenation at the very least. English is not German!
 
I can never work out whether something is two words, one long word or hyphenated. Chances are I've used all three in any contributions. Ich bin ein Dummer.
 
Black Hole said:
Yes, you're right, but personally I dislike the concatenation of the two words into one, and would prefer a hyphenation at the very least. English is not German!
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According to the Economist Style Guide, word concatenation that results in a repeat letter merits hyphenation, for example book-keeper, but bookseller. Thus hitch-hiker would be the preferred style in this case. But, as it also points out, in all things grammatical, it's usage that counts, not theoretical rules.

Or, if you prefer, the OUP Style Manual: "If you take hyphenation seriously, you will surely go mad."
 
Black Hole said:
"Incase"? Is that a thing???
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Debatable. There is a website incase.com which appears to sell cases for tech. Couldn't be a***d to find whether it's also a brand name for their products. In any case ( :rolling: ) not relevant in the context of the article. I'd expect, obviously wrongly, autocorrect to catch that one. (It doesn't on this phone).
 
To my mind:
"I'm sorry I haven't a clue" = "I'm sorry that I haven't a clue"
"I'm sorry, I haven't a clue" = "I'm sorry but I haven't a clue"
So what is the title of the programme supposed to be? Discuss.

Going to find some leaves for lunch.
 
I would go with the latter, but the sources seem to agree there is no comma. However: I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again seems to date from an earlier era when punctuation was considered important!
 
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