Sentence Fragments and Run-on sentences

[Clevernick]

Isn't discussion as good as feedback?

Yes it is, and that's why I'm leaving your comments up here instead of deleting them or closing the thread. But I'll be merciless, too, since you're challenging the whole basis of my instructions here. Beware.

Sure I only quoted two examples, but I could have cited more. So bafflegab looks to me like a way of belittling the question before offering a response that is somewhat dubious.

You could quote any number of difficult bits of English to make people's heads ache, and it wouldn't in any way make the rules less valid or useful. The fact that you're quoting these difficult bits in order to support your insupportable thesis that basic rules "don't apply to simple phrases" shows that you have nothing important to say. You are arm-waving. You begin with a radical thesis that basically says all rules are useless, and then support it by quoting rules that have difficult exceptions, or are becoming outdated. Or worse, strawman rules you made up yourself. This is not argument or even discussion. It's trying to confuse, and playing to emotion instead of reason.

Hence my well-chosen label of "bafflegab". If you wish to support your ridiculous thesis, don't quote examples of difficult or apparently contradictory rules. Tell me why "simple phrases" (whatever those are) don't need to follow English grammar rules. Learn to argue (premise, support, conclusion, remember?) and you'll get respect.

Why is it necessary to avoid confusion with the plural form of a pronoun that has no plural? (I'm aware that one is also a noun, but its plural is rare and unlikely to cause the confusion you suggest.)

LOL. I wanted to give you three examples, but all the ones I could think of were just too rare and obscure. Oh, wait.... *snort*

You made a strawman rule that possessive pronouns take no apostrophe. No such rule exists. Strunk says: "The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and oneself have no apostrophe." That's it. The rule you made up is incorrect so tearing it down proves nothing.

Obviously, "one's" does take an apostrophe. "Its" does not. Making a strawman and then tearing it down to prove that rules are confusing proves only that rules are confusing. Which wasn't your thesis. Pretending it was in retrospect is again, bafflegab. And that's a polite word in this case.

But I accept entirely that publishers' standards have to be observed, or you don't get published. Publishers don't care about why apostrophes exist, only that you use them the way they want.

Sounds like a bitter bit of sour grapes to me.

In reality, publishers are in business to make money, not to correct your grammar. They want the apostrophes to look right, and tenses to match, and continuity to be good, because if they don't, some readers will *pop* out of the story in confusion, thinking "that didn't look right", or "wasn't she on her back a minute ago?" or "is this a flashback or not?". And if they pop out too much, they'll get bored with the book and not buy the next one.

And if your publisher hasn't moved on from 1918, then who am I to comment?

Insofar as you haven't shown a single valid example of what's different in these rules since 1918, you're apparently nobody to comment. If you want to argue with grown-ups, you had better argue like one.

And there you go. No mercy. You're in the big leagues now, MMI. Come on, try again.