Prosodic punctuation
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Today's SMBC:
The mouseover title: "Of course, in real life if you formed a grammar club, the only attendees would be linguists looking to talk shit."
The aftercomic:
There are several related aspects of this comic that puzzle me:
- Who is the "I" in the caption that's not allowed within 100 meters of the "Grammar Club"? The person on the left, who leaves a pause between clauses? The person on the right, who wonders whether it's a "comma splice"? The cartoonist, who depicts their conflict?
- Is the "Grammar Club" made up of people who worry about "comma splices", whether in text or in speech, or rather of people who think that the question is incoherent in the case of speech and not really relevant to grammar in the case of text?
- What does Zach think that the linguists in the "Grammar Club" would be "looking to talk shit" about? Other people's violations of prescriptive rules? The foolishness of people who talk shit about other people's violations of prescriptive rules?
Inquiring linguists want to know.
With respect to the relationship between punctuation and pauses, I thought I'd illustrate with a random selection from the author's own speech, taken from the opening of his BAHFest 2013 address:
Early humans; catapulted their infants; over a nearby mountain to reach the next village over; and so it was adaptive for the babies; to become as; uh aerodynamic as possible; to reach the most genetically distinct population.
AB said,
December 19, 2017 @ 8:31 am
What about the spelling of "they're's", which would presumably be offensive to the "Grammar Club"? Does this help answer question 1?
[(myl) I think the Spelling Club has dibs on that one; the Grammar Club is like "meh".]
Mark Meckes said,
December 19, 2017 @ 10:04 am
Based on extensive research reading past SMBC comics, I think the answer to question 1 is the person on the left. That's what's most consistent with the many previous comics of this same basic form.
I have no idea what the answers to questions 2 and 3 are, but I don't doubt that the LL archives include plenty of posts that Zach Weinersmith would be happy to describe as linguists talking shit.
Haamu said,
December 19, 2017 @ 10:05 am
So many options for a second panel!
1. "I guess Victor Borge had a point."
2. A person further to the right says, "Did you just fail to hyphenate 'comma-splice'?"
3. A person further to the right says, "You mean: 'Did you just comma splice the last two sentences?" And then those two get into a fistfight.
4. A person further to the right says, "I … that question you just asked … Are you a prescriptivist making a judgment or a descriptivist collecting a data point?" to which the original questioner says "Theirs no way for you to know!" — and then in a third panel, a person even further to the right says to the third person, "I … that question you just asked … Are you a metaprescriptivist making a judgment or a metadescriptivist collecting a data point?" — and so on ad infinitum.
VV said,
December 19, 2017 @ 10:37 am
I remember being taught in grade school that ““technically””, when reading written text aloud, one is supposed to pause for one beat at a comma, two beats at a semicolon and three at a period. Is the comic referencing that prescription?
John Laviolette said,
December 19, 2017 @ 1:22 pm
@AB: 'What about the spelling of "they're's", which would presumably be offensive to the "Grammar Club"?'
Judging by the slightly larger size of the "THEY" in "THEY're", that might be part of the joke.
Which raises the question: how WOULD you indicate a deliberate misspelling of "they're" in speech? Stress and prolong the "they" portion, and trail off on the "re" part?
Adam said,
December 19, 2017 @ 2:15 pm
My parsing of the comic:
1) The person on the left.
2) The former — it's a club of prescriptivists, which is why you can get kicked out for deliberately violating shibboleths. (Note that the members are implied to be in the English department, not linguistics.)
3) The latter — they'd be talking shit about the prescriptive superstitions of the club founders.
More broadly, I think "grammar" is being used in the comic to mean "prescriptive nonsense".
Jonathan Gress-Wright said,
December 19, 2017 @ 7:44 pm
Apparently American stylists are particularly severe about comma splices; I read that in the UK they are tolerated for pairs of short sentences, particularly where they express parallel statements, e.g. "I love hockey, my brother loves soccer."
Joyce Melton said,
December 20, 2017 @ 2:34 am
Nothing wrong with a comma splice if you know how t tie a crown knot.