Punctuation Puzzle

September 2, 2008 8:48 AM

Is this good use of punctuation? The adept poster: one of nobility, wisdom and wit, is the superior MeFite.

If this formulation doesn't work (a colon, followed by a list of qualities, followed by the predicate of the sentence), is there any way to form the same idea in a succinct way?

posted by l33tpolicywonk to education (17 comments total)

The adept poster (one of nobility, wisdom, and wit) is the superior MeFite.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 8:52 AM on September 2, 2008

I don't really see what the colon gets you. It just looks clever, but it's not correct. Just use a comma instead. Or parentheses around the list.
posted by autojack at 8:53 AM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Inspector: I'm sure you're right, but in my actual usage, I have a bunch of parenthetical citations in the middle of the list. If I could avoid double parenthesis, that would be even better.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 8:54 AM on September 2, 2008

Another choice: The adept poster — one of nobility, wisdom, and wit — is the superior MeFite.
posted by enn at 8:55 AM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

I always thought that the text following a colon should be able to stand alone as a sentence, but that appears to only apply when using it as a syntactical-deductive. When using it in an syntactical-descriptive it would look like what you've done, but I don't think you'd put the predicate at the end, it would probably be:

The superior MeFite is an adept poster: one of nobility, wisdom and wit.
posted by furtive at 8:55 AM on September 2, 2008 [3 favorites]

AskMe is amazing: barely done with the page, and I've already got four good answers. Thanks everybody!
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 8:58 AM on September 2, 2008

Commas or dashes - the standard forms of punctuation for an ellipsis - will be the best solutions, symbols which properly indicate those pauses, in this situation.

You can use the colon as you've used it, but it there has an archaic flavor; people don't tend to use colons to set off separate clauses that way now, although some used to. Nowadays, the colon is used more or less strictly as a sort of pointer to identity or equivalence, as in

This place was what he'd been looking for: a magical world of cheese.

I don't remember having seen a modern style in which you would use it to introduce a set-off clause that's ended with a comma. In your example, I think that, to use a colon, you'd have to write:

The adept poster is the superior MeFite: one of nobility, wisdom and wit.

Splitting the central phrase ("The adept poster is the superior Mefite") confuses the sentence.

Also, I have an aversion to parentheses, so I personally wouldn't use them - they always seem a bit more dramatic to me, as though the phrase they enclose is entirely disposable. They're almost a kind of footnote, I think, and that phrase is a bit more important than that in the sentence.
posted by koeselitz at 9:06 AM on September 2, 2008

One last thing:

According to most American sources (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style) and to some British sources (e.g., The Oxford Guide to Style), an em dash should always be set closed (not surrounded by spaces). But the practice in many parts of the English-speaking world, also the style recommended by The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, sets it open (separates it from its surrounding words by using spaces  or hair spaces (U+200A)) when it is being used parenthetically. Some writers, finding the em dash unappealingly long, prefer to use an open-set en dash. This "space, en dash, space" sequence is also the predominant style in German and French typography.

So while I don't know where you are, the most common American usage would be "The adept poster—one of nobility, wisdom, and wit—is the superior MeFite."
posted by Partial Law at 9:08 AM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

With colons, the first clause invoices: the second clause pays.
posted by randomination at 9:10 AM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Why not:

The adept poster, one of nobility, wisdom, and wit, is the superior MeFite.

But I like furtive's non-furtive suggestion of reordering the sentence to avoid awkward construction even better.
posted by Forktine at 9:11 AM on September 2, 2008

I like enn's version. I wouldn't use parentheses.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:15 AM on September 2, 2008

I'm a mostly self taught writer so my terminology tends to be dubious at best, but I do tend to get my punctuation more or less correct.

Colons separate a functional sentence from a mere phrase which tends to support the sentence: like this.

Semi-colons separate two phrases that would stand alone as grammatically correct sentences but are stronger when linked; this is what you see here.

Which brings us to your example:

The adept poster: one of nobility, wisdom and wit, is the superior MeFite.

What you have is a clear concise sentence with a supporting phrase stuck in the middle of it.

The sentence: The adept poster is the superior MeFite.
The supporting phrase: one of nobility, wisdom and wit

As suggested in previous comments, you have three ways to separate the supporting phrase from the sentence: commas, dashes or brackets. What you choose to use has everything to do with how much emphasis (brackets being the most emphasis) or subtlety, commas being the most subtle, you wish to bring to the supporting phrase.

Neither a colon nor a semi-colon is relevant here.

Now, I will have that coffee.
posted by philip-random at 9:18 AM on September 2, 2008

I find the structure weak for a couple of reasons. The adjectives "adept" and "superior" are close enough in meaning that you could interchange them, so you're stating the obvious. In other words, you have created a tautology. It's like saying, "The smart MeFite is the bright one."

Your real point is "nobility, wisdom, and wit", and this would be better emphasized at the end of the sentence rather than as a parenthetic split in the middle. So I would remove either "adept" or "superior" and rewrite it more directly:

The adept MeFite posts with nobility, wisdom, and wit.

This way you make your point without sounding like you're trying out for Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:47 AM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

I believe (someone stole my damn copy again) Bringhurst recommends setting emdashes closed, but with about 30 ems of space on either side for enhanced legibility.

Sorry if that's off topic, but I love — indisputably — emdashes so.
posted by Haruspex at 11:08 AM on September 2, 2008

Yet even that is better without:

I love emdashes so.

The New Yorker overdoes the commas and emdashes, as if to say, "If you can jump through our parenthetic hoops--and so many poor souls (God bless them anyway) cannot--you qualify to become one of our select readers."
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:18 AM on September 2, 2008

The New Yorker overdoes the commas and emdashes, as if to say, "If you can jump through our parenthetic hoops--and so many poor souls (God bless them anyway) cannot--you qualify to become one of our select readers."

There's nothing wrong with em dashes in general. The New Yorker uses them wrong half the time.

Seriously, the New Yorker is my go-to publication if I want to find an article full of mistakes for a copyediting assignment.

As an addendum to Partial Law's comment, AP style also sets spaces around dashes, which is one of the few things they do that doesn't involve trying to pack more text into the same amount of space.
posted by Caduceus at 12:11 PM on September 2, 2008

I probably use them incorrectly more often than not myself. But I feel that whiff of preening Byronic recklessness hovering about them yet and so (“Like boat/Of island—pirate or Mainote") love to let them loose to prick the prose.
posted by Haruspex at 12:58 PM on September 2, 2008