Punctuation question
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- CygnusZero4
Ridiculous that I have to ask this, but I figured some of you guys might know. In the sentence below, after the word design, the comma doesn't seem right there. Should that be a semi-colon or something?
"I'm fascinated by design, its subtle complexities and deceptive simplicity."
- Continuity0
I would go with a semi-colon.
- you can't use a semi-colon there because "its subtle complexities..." is a subordinate clause.showpony
- lolCygnusZero4
- Ruffian0
I'm fascinated by design - its subtle complexities and deceptive simplicity.
- <pizzafire
- although "its" should be "it's"pizzafire
- No it shouldn't.welded
- the possessive form of it is 'its' .. that throws me all the time too..lukus_W
- it's = it isContinuity
- ffs ... i'm not waking up today. you're all right ... i'm wrong. it's one of those days.pizzafire
- A hyphen? Absolutely not. Hyphens are for merging two words. An em-dash may work, but is unnecessary. Comma.monospaced
- < use a proper m-dashChrista
- drgss0
Comma looks fine
- lukus_W0
I'm fascinated by the subtle complexities and deceptive simplicity of design.
- < if you say it simply, you can work out whether you're saying anything worthwhile.lukus_W
- <Continuity
- lukus_W0
^
i.e. what are you trying to say? .. 'subtle complexities' how?It sounds as if you're trying to say something profound (from which you hope the reader will infer that you're 'passionate about design in a non-trivial way'), but you're actually making quite a cliché throwaway statement.
I think you need to be more specific.
- monospaced0
lukus_W is right, rewrite the sentence as he suggested
- ismith0
A dash implies parentheses around the phrase immediately following– or contained in between– them. Like that.
- CygnusZero40
Glad to see im not the only one that doenst fully understand the punctuation system.
- vaxorcist0
Gotta be an EM-Dash to impress all the copy-editor-typography nazi's out there