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| Thread ID: 62626 | 2005-10-14 04:27:00 | An English question | Renmoo (66) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 395975 | 2005-10-14 04:27:00 | Greetings PF1, I am wondering should I put a capital "D" for the word "draconian" whenever it is being used as an adjective even though it is not at the beginning of a sentence? I always thought that it is compulsory to put a capital "D", but after reading yesterday NZ Herald's World section, in which a sentenced claimed "In many US states, draconian laws stipulate that being present at the scene of a murder can be equivalent to being guilty of the murder", this had made me re-think. Have I got a point here? Or is this word a flexible-typed? Cheers :) |
Renmoo (66) | ||
| 395976 | 2005-10-14 04:34:00 | It's flexible as far as I know.. Doesn't depend on the context, just whether you can be bothered pressing shift or not. | roddy_boy (4115) | ||
| 395977 | 2005-10-14 05:03:00 | By convention it is a capital James, but by current usage lower case. If Granny Herald didn't use a capital, it's a safe bet that you can make your own choice. Cheers Billy 8-{) |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 395978 | 2005-10-14 05:43:00 | By convention it is a capital James, but by current usage lower case. If Granny Herald didn't use a capital, it's a safe bet that you can make your own choice. Cheers Billy 8-{) So, both are correct, then? :illogical Cheers :) |
Renmoo (66) | ||
| 395979 | 2005-10-14 06:04:00 | yeap | Prescott (11) | ||
| 395980 | 2005-10-14 06:52:00 | How about the term "cutting-edge"? At times, I see the term appears as "cutting edge" (without the dash). Cheers :) |
Renmoo (66) | ||
| 395981 | 2005-10-14 07:02:00 | As a colloquial expression James, it requires the hyphen. Note that it is called a hyphen, not a dash. Looks the same, same key, different purpose. Cheers Billy 8-{) Sorry James, that was a bit cryptic. A dash marks a break in sense A hyphen joins words together or divides a word into parts, eg re-enter |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 395982 | 2005-10-14 07:35:00 | The newspapers are hardly reliable as far as english is concerned. Whenever I read my local newspaper, I usually find several spelling/gramatical errors. I'm no grammar Nazi - just an ordinary guy - so I hate to think what a grammar Nazi could find. One of my tutors is a real grammar Nazi, but he is also an American. It did not go down well when he marked down a group for using spelling/grammar (forget which) that is correct in NZ, but incorrect in the US. |
Greven (91) | ||
| 395983 | 2005-10-14 07:46:00 | There's a book called "Eats Shoots and Leaves" which is quite a good book on grammar. It's intended as a "fun" book to read, but I could only make it through about half of it. In saying that, the half which I did read was quite useful. | somebody (208) | ||
| 395984 | 2005-10-14 09:58:00 | From: http://dictionary.reference.com/ "Exceedingly harsh; very severe: a draconian legal code; draconian budget cuts." It is not normally with a capital D, not as far as I have known it to be used and according to the dictionary. |
Strommer (42) | ||
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