The Vine: March 25, 2005
Hi!
Some friends and I translate anime into English as a hobby, and being the
sticklers we are, we like to make sure that everything we do is as close
to being perfect as possible without going too far as to drive ourselves
insane. Whether we’ve crossed that line on occasion is subject to debate.
In the course of doing this, we’ve come across some heated discussions
over even the littlest bits of grammar and syntax. I respect your
expertise in this regard and also the bible of Garner, but every so often
something slips through the cracks and I just can’t find a reference for,
so I thought I’d ask.
1) “Too.” In grade school I was taught that, when you use “too” to mean
“also” at the end of a sentence (e.g. “I’m a big kid, too.”), there is
always a preceding comma. But now I can’t seem to find a satisfactory
source saying that this is (or isn’t) so. The best I can do is this:
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/adverbs.htm#disjuncts and
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/grammarlogs3/grammarlogs444.htm#7
Which seems to be a contradiction on the same site. Any thoughts about
this?
2) Our convention for interrupted speech is to use the double-hyphen
(em-dash). (For example: Joe: “Hey, what are you–” Bob: “Nothing!”)
However, there’s been some disagreement and a suggestion that the proper
usage would be a single hyphen. As far as Garner goes, the
only apparent use of the hyphen is for compound words/phrasal adjectives.
And the em-dash primarily is used for sentence interruption but only in
terms of parenthetical comments. And the en-dash doesn’t really seem to
figure here either. Is the em-dash correct?
3) This is somewhat tangential, but the section on sequence of verb tenses
in Garner seems abbreviated and inaccurate. Going over the whole section
would be unwieldly, but as an example:
“(1) When the principal clause has a verb in the present (he says),
present perfect (he has said), or future (he will say), the subordinate
clause has a present-tense verb. Grammarians call this the primary
sequence.”
But, as far as the present perfect goes, wouldn’t “He has stopped smoking
since his dad died of lung cancer” negate that rule for the present
perfect?
Thanks,
No Nifty Alias Unfortunately
Dear Nifty,
Woof. It’s Good Friday, hoss. You want to give me a break or what?
Just kidding. I’m pretty sure I just addressed the “too” issue recently…yes, here it is. I haven’t found any usage note in Webster’s, Garner, or elsewhere that backs you up on the assertion that you always need a comma before an ultimate “too.” But…I haven’t found a usage note that says you never do, either.
So, I think you’re at your leisure; you just have to keep in mind that these rules exist for the sake, ostensibly, of clarity, and apply them accordingly. Particularly if you’re reproducing dialogue, more punctuation is often better than less in terms of rendering the rhythms of speech faithfully.
The same principle applies to the em dash: what are you trying to do with it, and which use is clearer? Because if your priority is to emphasize the pause or the break in speech, you should use the em dash, but if your priority is to distinguish between that use and other uses of the em dash — i.e. as a dash, as I’ve just done — perhaps you want an en dash.
To my eye, the em dash is correct; you just want to back it up against the interrupted word and not leave a space, like thi– oh, I just interrupted myself. (My cheat in these situations is to break into the word itself so there’s no question as to my punctuational intentions, but again, you’re at your leisure.)
Tenses: Immediately under the passage you cite, Garner points to the ongoing-truth exception: “When a subordinate clause states an ongoing or general truth, it should be in the present tense regardless of the tense in the principal clause.” He’s talking about statements like “he is American” or “she is blonde,” I think, but I also think you can apply it to this example…his father’s state of living, i.e. that he isn’t, is an ongoing fact or condition.
It may depend on how you interpret “since”; I feel like, if you take it to mean “because,” then the rule doesn’t apply somehow…but I think it’s just that the tenses of death are a special case. If it’s really bugging you, just flip the sentence so that it’s “when his dad died of lung cancer, he stopped smoking,” or change the verb form to “his dad is dead” so that it’s present tense — you’ve got ways to solve this problem without forcing it to fit a vaguely stated rule. As I’ve said many times before, sometimes, you can wrassle a phrase like this, or you can just write around it. Life is short. Write around it.
Dear Sars,
My sister is driving me crazy. Where to begin? She’s self-centred and
egotistical but she’s my older sister and I love her. Even though
she’s the older one, she’s always been irresponsible and I’ve felt
like the older sister. She’s had more jobs than I can count. The
crazier she gets, the more “normal” and responsible I feel I have to
be.
A few years ago my sister developed a gambling problem and ended up
declaring bankruptcy. After that, she started saving some money and
would send it to me (we live in different cities) to put into a bank
account she had no access to. Whenever she needed money (which was
fairly often) she’d call me and I have to go make a trip to the bank
to get this money out for her then go to her bank and deposit it for
her. It was a pain in the ass, but I wanted to help her out.
Anyway, things have been pretty good the last year or so and I thought
she’d dealt with her issues and was fine now, but she’s just called me
and said that she’s depressed, gambling again, close to bankruptcy
again and wants me to start holding onto her money for her again. And
I really don’t want to. I don’t even want to talk to her. She’s 40 and
can’t manage her own finances. Her craziness stresses me out and,
despite the fact that she doesn’t realize it, I have my own issues.
Plus taking the time out of my day to run around to the banks is a
pain. I have a pretty stressful and busy job, so it’s not always easy
to run off at a moment’s notice.
But mostly, I don’t want to do it
because she’s not actually dealing with the issue — that she has a
gambling problem. She’s only dealing with a result of the problem but
not the problem itself. She needs therapy, not a personal assistant.
She’s gone to GA before and didn’t stick with it. She’s gone to
therapy, but didn’t stick with it. At this point, I don’t know what to
do, but I’m sick of the crazy and don’t want to deal with it anymore.
Family is family, however, so I feel like I should help her out in
whatever way I can. I’d hold onto her money for her if she were going
to therapy and getting help and addressing her problems in order to
support her while she worked it out, but how can I be sure she is?
Help!
Thanks in advance,
Fratricide is not the answer
Dear Try Intervention,
No…seriously. It might be time to contact an interventionist and lay some tough love on your sister.
I don’t blame you one bit for not wanting to enable her anymore, because that’s what this sisterly savings account is — it lets her gamble and behave irresponsibly with no consequences. And I don’t blame you one bit for participating in it, either, because yes, she’s family and I know the thought of leaving her without a safety net isn’t something you’re comfortable with.
The problem, though, is that sometimes removing the net is the only way to get addicts to deal with the fact that they’re in over their heads and need help. You have to stop countenancing the behavior.
How you go about doing that, I am not really qualified to tell you, but you could start at the Gam-Anon website, or maybe go to a support group or do some research in your area — just find a counselor who can tell you the best way to handle the situation. But I think it’s time you stopped helping her out, because if you keep doing it, she’ll keep needing it, and if you really want to help her, I think you have to let her see that she’s out of options.
Hello Sars, from yet another long-time reader and first-time writer.
I am in my third year of college, and I recently found out my boyfriend of over a year cheated on me over the summer. Pretty straightforward, right? Well, it was cheating via cyber-sex.
We both attend college together, so we see each other pretty regularly during the school year. However, this past summer I worked at a summer camp for eleven weeks, and I saw him twice during the summer. We sent letters somewhat regularly, and we talked on the phone once a week or so. I never suspected anything during the summer.
When I returned from camp, we picked up right where we had left off, seeing each other all the time, and I still had no clue that anything had happened during the summer. One night, however, I was playing around on his computer with him, and I found several archived conversations in Yahoo Messenger that were, well, pretty explict, leaving no room for speculation as to his habits over the summer.
He swears that he never met any of them, and he has taken Yahoo Messenger off of his computer, and has told me numerous times how much better he feels now that the weight of the secret is off him. I love him, I love spending time with him, and I don’t want to give up on our relationship because of cyber-sex. However, I still think about it every now and then (it’s been about a month since I found out), and I wonder when this…wondering…will go away. We are both religious, which has helped us both out lots, but I wish there was something else I could do to put this behind us quicker. What do you think of this whole situation?
As Fun As It Can Be, Why Was Yahoo Messenger Invented?
Dear Yahoo,
I’m not sure what I’m being asked here. “Wondering”…about what, exactly? Why he did it? What it means? I mean, what do you think of this whole situation? Because that’s what’s at issue here, not what I think.
Everyone puts the cheating line in a different place. For some people, everything up to sex is okay; for others, everything’s off-limits, including porn. And everyone’s handling of cheating is different, too, and every cheating situation is different blah blah blah IM-cakes. I think you have to decide, first, whether you view this as cheating, and second, whether you can move on from it and trust him again.
I’m of the opinion that cyber-sex is not as mortal a sin against the relationship as most things; it’s more like porn, because it’s more…impersonal, I guess. On the other hand, he treated it like a secret, so in his mind, it may have been cheating, and if he had an ongoing conversational thing with the girl, then you’re in a weird area where it was kind of a relationship…I mean, again, I can’t tell you how you feel about this stuff, because everyone’s tolerance for it is different. But it does sound like it’s not something that’s okay with you, and if he did breach your trust, that takes time to rebuild. And, sometimes, can’t be rebuilt.
These things take time; trying to put them behind you faster is a natural instinct, but it can bury feelings that you should heed. Just try to muddle through, and don’t ignore what your gut tells you.
Dear Sars,
This is another one of those boy-troubles letters. Because they’re in such short supply.
Anyway, I have this friend who’s had a hopeless, all-consuming crush on Guy for about two years. She was always too scared to tell him about her feelings, even though she had strong suspicions he reciprocated them. She told me that he flirted with her all the time and occasionally said or did things that seemed to suggest that he was looking for more than friendship.
But, as I said, she did nothing, and he has since graduated high school and recently got a girlfriend at college. My friend was crushed and I advised her to try getting over Guy, because it didn’t appear to going anywhere anytime soon, and it was making her incredibly unhappy. I also suggested that she maybe trying hanging out with and/or dating some other guys casually, just to see what it was like. Guy was her first real romantic entanglement and I thought maybe trying things in a more casual way might help her move on a little.
Enter Dude. Dude is the new object of her affection, and I was a little dismayed to discover that she was applying to him the same laser-focus to him that she had to Guy…and the same inability to articulate her feelings. Up until now, I haven’t said anything, because this is, after all, kinda what I suggested she do; and she said he returned her flirtations.
Recently, I had a chance to observe them both for a long period of time, and I began to get a little worried. Dude is, without question, a flirty guy, but from what I saw, his flirting didn’t seem to be indicative of a real desire to be with any given person. He treated all the girls (including Friend) more or less the same. More troubling, he occasionally seemed to realize Friend’s feelings (she’s not terribly subtle) and was actively trying to put her off. Friend didn’t seem to see it that way at all, and I began to wonder if she hadn’t been misinterpreting Guy’s behavior as well. From what I knew of Guy, he was also rather friendly in that way.
Also worrying, Friend has a pretty intense need to be liked by a certain group of people that Guy happens to be a part of. I noticed the same intensity and desperation in her interactions with those people that I do in those with Guy. I’m beginning to wonder if she doesn’t see Guy as emblematic of this group, rather than as a person.
Now, here’s my dilemma: Do I tell Friend what I think? On the one hand, I can easily see this becoming Guy 2: Dude Boogaloo, and she seems to be turning this into a huge Days of Our Lives-ish debacle. That was not at all what I intended when I made my dating suggestion; I thought she’d go to a few movies or whatever and get more comfortable with guys and romance in general. Instead, I think she’s setting herself up to get hurt again. Conversely, I don’t really know Dude all that well, perhaps I’m reading him totally incorrectly and he’s really madly in love with her. And it really isn’t my business, should I just keep my nose out of it altogether, even if it means another painful crash and burn?
Sincerely,
Bystander
Dear By,
Ah, yes: When Friends Act Pathetic. It’s a dilemma, because you feel that, you know, friends don’t let friends act pathetic…but then, how to tell a friend, “Friend, you’re acting pathetic,” without hurting or losing said friend?
Because the fact that Guy, or Dude, or whoever, isn’t interested? She’s not trying to hear that. So, you’re, like, obligated to try to tell her that, but it doesn’t work anyway, and you do want to be supportive, so…where does that leave you?
Well, this is a somewhat unorthodox suggestion, but if what you think she needs is a dose of reality and if she won’t take it from your spoon, it might work. And it’s this: get a guy friend to tell her what’s what. I can’t really explain why, but I have seen it many times — a girl is sort of dithering about a guy situation, her girlfriends tell her various things that aren’t sinking in, and then a guy says it to her and she’s like, “But I…oh. Okay.” Straight guy, gay guy, close friend, guy at the bus stop, doesn’t matter. For some reason, in some situations, someone with a Y chromosome will get through where you can’t, reading from the same script you’ve had for months, and again, I don’t want to generalize as to why this is true because I don’t know for sure. But it can work. It has worked on me. Female Friend #1: “I think he’s just an asshole.” Sarah: “But blah blee bloo excuses w/r/t his parents’ divorce.” Female Friend #2: “I think he’s just an asshole.” Sarah: “But flap fling flooey afraid of his feelings.” Mr. Stupidhead: “I think he’s just an asshole.” Sarah: “But — huh. Well, shit. All right. Check, please.”
It depends on what you want. If you want to keep the peace, mostly, well, you might have to let it be; it’s not like there’s nothing to be learned from this shit blowing up in her face. But if it’s the explosion you want to avoid, see if you can’t get a card-carrying boy to drop some knowledge on her.
Tags: boys (and girls) friendships grammar the fam
