From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,66bc6b039f1e005d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2000-11-02 23:24:39 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.mindspring.net.MISMATCH!news.mindspring.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsmaster1.prod.itd.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3A026839.51544D4F@earthlink.net> From: "Robert I. Eachus" Organization: The MITRE Corporation X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en]C-19990120M (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en,pdf MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: E. E. Cummings (was Re: Three simple questions) References: <2BED68CA963D6D55.A78776F656DA0452.75A61ED22116F1B6@lp.airnews.net> <8sg7bj$fon$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2000 07:24:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.24.56.247 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 973236277 63.24.56.247 (Thu, 02 Nov 2000 23:24:37 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 23:24:37 PST Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:1740 Date: 2000-11-03T07:24:37+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote: > Assuming there was no missing smiley here and that Larry > was serious (which may be a silly assumption), I will say > that I know exactly what Bob means, and I do the same > myself. It is analogous to knowing that the following > sentence is malformed. > > E.e. cummings was one of the last centuries most brilliant > poets. I think it should be: "E. E. Cummings was one of this century's most brilliant poets." Normally I don't pick on errors in grammar or punctuation, but there are some errors that need a lot of stamping out: "The poet replied on 1 March 1951: "E.E.Cummings, unless your printer prefers E. E. Cummings/ titlepage up to you;but may it not be tricksy svp[.]" (from http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps2.html, which has a neat Fifth Wave cartoon to tempt you.) As to the rest of the sentence, I am fairly sure that Robert meant to use the possessive not the plural of century, but in this case both are potentially right! If I change the phrase to "of the last few centuries," now the possessive seems wrong, but if I extend the phrase to "the last few century's brilliant poets," we are back to the possessive. I could assume that it has to be the plural, since we are still in the twentieth century, but E. E. Cummings was born in 1894. My version doesn't raise quite as many questions. Back to the topic at hand, I try very hard not to start a sentence with a word which should not be capitalized, and go out of my way to avoid starting a sentence with a number: "The book, _1984_ by George Orwell..." rather than "_1984_ by George Orwell.." What do I do when I can't avoid the problem? I avoid it anyway. ;-)