Re: CHAT: The Conlang Instinct

At 14:38 -0500 3.12.1999, Steg Belsky wrote:
>
>Well, my favorite punctuation mark in my writings seems to be the dash.
Me too.  I also insist -- in spite of dominant Swedish usage -- that it
must look different from a hyphen.  I like using different marks for
parenthetical clauses and subordinate clauses, and parentheses won't do.
Parentheses are for parenthetical information, and parenthetical clauses
needn't be parenthetical information.

>A few english teachers i've had have told me to use periods or semicolons
>instead
Strange.  My Swedish teachers always lambasted me for using semicolons at
all, and one even suggested dashes as a substitute.  But then they all
thowt I used dashes too extensively.

Too bad the only leterary authority for dashomania is Jack Kerouac --
"*Wespectabl* witews don't use those!"
(The stereotypical Swedish prescribist pedant uses rolled uvular R's.  The
closest way to parallel that in English is Elmew Fudd!)


/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <bpj@...> <melroch@...>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__
            Anant' avanaute quettalmar!               \ \
   __  ____ ____    _____________  ___ __   __ __     / /
   \ \/___ \\__ \  /___  _____/\ \\__ \\ \  \ \\ \   / /
   / /   / /  /  \    / /Melroch\ \_/ // /  / // /  / /
  / /___/ /_ / /\ \  / /Melarocco\_  // /__/ // /__/ /
 /_________//_/  \_\/ /Eowine__   / / \___/\_\\___/\_\
I neer Pityancalimeo\ \_____/ /ar/ /_atar Mercasso naan
~~~~~~~~~Cuinondil~~~\_______/~~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~
|| Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda cuivie aiya! ||
"A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)