SECOND POST

[hoisinsauce]

WE MADE IT!

Post about fandom or whatever else, meme isn't picky.

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Comments

Re: Writing

[(Anonymous)]

While I prefer the oxford comma, I sometimes leave it out and I've only just worked out why I choose what I choose. It's due to the way commas affect intonation. Depending on how you use the commas in a sentence, a paragraph can sound repetitive or not just by virtue of the way you're intonating your voice. I tend to write sentences to reflect the way I'd speak them. Misc silly pair of sentences to compare:

"Beyond the forest lay the mountains, the sea and faraway fluffy white clouds."

"Beyond the forest lay the mountains, the sea, and faraway fluffy white clouds."

They do have slightly different connotations imo. The first puts stress on 'mountains', implying they're more important. I think it also implies there are other things beyond those listed, and the narrator is just being romantic and thinking of those, while the second kinda implies that's the full list of things. So more factual vibe. But you've also got different pitches and rhythms going on that matter to the way the paragraph reads as a whole. In the first sentence, everything after the comma is basically a monotone. Second sentence, your pitch goes up on 'sea'. You get a better contrast with whatever follows. With the first, I think you'd want a question nearby, or something to raise the pitch, anyway. The second is also more staccato but I'm not sure how that affects things, just an observation.

Re: Writing

[(Anonymous)]

? More staccato I agree with but in the second sentence my pitch goes down at sea.

But I am an Oxford comma devotee, and I also particularly like choppy sentence rhythms, so... take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Re: Writing

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Interesting, I find with the first 'sea and' are the same note (or goes down only a little), whereas with the 2nd, it goes se-ea, the pitch like a 'u' shape with a sharp drop down to the 'and' (so then has to come up again for the last bit).