Can some check if my spag is right please?

Why all the hate towards Natural Selection.

Reply 4

UWS

21

I actually thought you were going to ask us to rate your spaghetti bolognese :lol:

Reply 5

OP

Original post by cambio wechsel

No-one's going to correct it off a photograph. Go to the trouble of typing it in and I'll do it from the text I'll then be able to quote.

Okay, sorry I didn't realise it would be an issue :colondollar:

.

1. Sophie extolled Sam- her toddler; he had painted her a lovely picture.

2. The entire concept of 'natural selection'- as convincing as it may seem, is nothing more than a mere fabrication.

3. The entire concept of natural selection is fueled by avarice; this is not true so it must be fabricated.

4. Every demand of the husband was tended to- no matter how ludicrous; she faithfully acquiesced.

Reply 6

OP

Original post by UWS

I actually thought you were going to ask us to rate your spaghetti bolognese :lol:

Lol no. Just my writing :h:

Reply 7

OP

Original post by Mistletoe

Why all the hate towards Natural Selection.

To make my sentences are interesting? If you really want to know, I'm learning about epigentics in biology which in a way provides an argument against natural selection :tongue:

Reply 8

cambio wechsel

20

Original post by Onthedancefloor

x

1. Sophie extolled Sam- her toddler; he had painted her a lovely picture.

We extol a quality not a person. The vicar extolled the importance of self-restraint.

Better here would be 'praised'.

Your grammar is defintely nonstandard* and is excessively fussy. Sophie praised her toddler Sam for painting her a lovely picture.

2. The entire concept of 'natural selection'- as convincing as it may seem, is nothing more than a mere fabrication.

Replace the hyphen with a comma to create a dependent clause. Or shift that to the front of the sentence, ie. As convincing as it may seem,...

3. The entire concept of natural selection is fueled by avarice; this is not true so it must be fabricated.

I feel that 'avarice' must be the wrong word here.

4. Every demand of the husband was tended to- no matter how ludicrous; she faithfully acquiesced.

Why demand of the husband? The husband's every demand. Again, what do you think that hyphen is doing, again attached to the preceding word? The semi-colon here should be a comma.

*For most purposes a person could write his whole life without having need of the hyphen or semi-colon that you seem to see as needed.

Reply 9

Original post by Onthedancefloor

Okay, sorry I didn't realise it would be an issue :colondollar:

.

1. Sophie extolled Sam- her toddler; he had painted her a lovely picture.

2. The entire concept of 'natural selection'- as convincing as it may seem, is nothing more than a mere fabrication.

3. The entire concept of natural selection is fueled by avarice; this is not true so it must be fabricated.

4. Every demand of the husband was tended to- no matter how ludicrous; she faithfully acquiesced.

Only 3 seems weird to me. I'd write it:
3. "The entire concept of natural selection is fueled by avarice"; this is not true so it must be fabricated.

Reply 10

OP

Original post by cambio wechsel

1. Sophie extolled Sam- her toddler; he had painted her a lovely picture.

We extol a quality not a person. The vicar extolled the importance of self-restraint.

Better here would be 'praised'.

Your grammar is defintely nonstandard* and is excessively fussy. Sophie praised her toddler Sam for painting her a lovely picture.

2. The entire concept of 'natural selection'- as convincing as it may seem, is nothing more than a mere fabrication.

Replace the hyphen with a comma to create a dependent clause. Or shift that to the front of the sentence, ie. As convincing as it may seem,...

3. The entire concept of natural selection is fueled by avarice; this is not true so it must be fabricated.

I feel that 'avarice' must be the wrong word here.

4. Every demand of the husband was tended to- no matter how ludicrous; she faithfully acquiesced.

Why demand of the husband? The husband's every demand. Again, what do you think that hyphen is doing, again attached to the preceding word? The semi-colon here should be a comma.

*For most purposes a person could write his whole life without having need of the hyphen or semi-colon that you seem to see as needed.

Thanks for marking it, yep I also felt avarice was not the right word. I'll change them.
The purpose of that exercise was to use a hyphen or semi colon.
Obviously I didn't use them correctly. I'll try it again...

Reply 11

TimmonaPortella

21

Original post by Onthedancefloor

Okay, sorry I didn't realise it would be an issue :colondollar:

.

1. Sophie extolled Sam, her toddler, who had painted her a lovely picture.

You could do this one or two other ways but in the original the semi-colon is quite odd and the dash is just wrong.

2. The entire concept of 'natural selection', as convincing as it may seem, is nothing more than a mere fabrication.

Stop putting random dashes everywhere. A simple comma works much better here.

3. The entire concept of natural selection is fueled by avarice; this is not true so it must be fabricated.

I don't really understand what you mean here, so I'd suggest rephrasing entirely, and preferably doing so in more than one sentence.

4. Every demand of the husband was tended to: no matter how ludicrous, she faithfully acquiesced.

It shows that you're really trying to force semi-colons into your writing. It would be more impressive if you used them less, but only where appropriate.

In general your writing would be much more fluent if you kept it simpler.

Reply 12

OP

I understand what everyone's I saying but I need to include and effectively use a range of punctuation. I can't just limit myself to a comma and a full stop.

1. The teacher, who was naturally circumspect in his descision, gave James a well deserved B.

2. James took umbrage at that grade; he felt he deserves a better grade.

Is this better?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 13

chazwomaq

18

1. Sophie extolled her toddler, Sam: he had painted her a lovely picture.

You should use a colon, not a semi-colon here, because you replace it with "because" or similar conjunction.

2. Either:

The entire concept of 'natural selection', as convincing as it may seem, is nothing more than a fabrication.

Or:

The entire concept of 'natural selection', as convincing as it may seem, is a mere fabrication.

Nothing more and mere are redundant. You could replace the commas with em rules.

3. The entire concept of natural selection is fueled by avarice; this is not true so it must be fabricated.

This doesn't make sense but it's grammatically OK.

4. Every demand of the husband was tended to; no matter how ludicrous it was, she faithfully acquiesced.

Although I don't think you would tend to a demand. Perhaps "obeyed" is better.

I don't know what your dashes are doing - get rid of all of them.

Reply 14

OP

Okay, so it's safe to say, I should stay the hell away from dashes in my exam tomorrow.

Reply 15

Original post by Onthedancefloor

Okay, so it's safe to say, I should stay the hell away from dashes in my exam tomorrow.

No don't do that, just use them when they are necessary.

Reply 16

OP

Original post by Mistletoe

No don't do that, just use them when they are necessary.

Like when you add additional information that it related. Yep, I tried that, with Sarah's toddler.

Reply 17