How to write a sentence

Whatever your english teacher taught you about run on sentences is wrong. In fact your teacher was a moron. Take a lesson from my mentor James Joyce

He felt the deathchill touch the extremities and creep onward towards the heart, the film of death veiling the eyes, the bright centers of the brain brain extinguished one by one like lamps, the last sweat oozing upon the skin, the powerlessness of the dying limbs, the speech thickening and wandering and failing the heart throbbing faintly and more faintly, all but vanquished, the breath, the poor breath, the poor helpless human spirit, sobbing and sighing, gurgling and rattling in the throat. No help! No help!

-From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

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You’re currently reading “How to write a sentence,” an entry on Ink Refinery

Published:: 08.07.06 / 4pm

Category:: Writing

Tokyo Mo 09.08.06 / 10am

Let me begin by stating how very much the word “ass” is both important when stating an opinion, and funny when… well no matter what.

Run on sentences kick ass.

Also, I may be the only one fighting on this matter, but I have a beef with commas. For example: “On my pizza, I like olive, pepperoni, and bacon.” Notice the comma before the and. It pisses me off how I was taught as a young lad that you ALWAYS put the comma before the and when listing off anything in a sentence. Most people I work with debate me on it as you don’t need to put it in. They are right, you don’t need to, but if you don’t you’re a jackass and should be slapped and or punched in the throat. The comma before the and is grammatically correct. And thus I get so damn riled up.

Ninjoe 09.08.06 / 1pm

I hate commas, unless they are useful, then I don’t, but most of the time I do. I would rather leave them out and use colons: like so. Or I could use semicolons; I truly love a well used semicolon.

How to write a sentence

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