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Colon vs Comma Quotes

As someone that does a lot of quoting, I’m embarrassed to say I had to look up the grammer usage rule for a colon vs a comma when giving a quotation for my grade 5 class. I’m posting here for future reference.

There are few different rules but the main thing to keep in mind are these two rules which will help you get it right most of the time:

Rule 1: Complete sentence: “quotation.” (If you use a complete sentence to introduce a quotation, use a colon (:) just before the quotation.)

Rule 2: Someone says, “quotation.” (If the word just before the quotation is a verb indicating someone uttering the quoted words, use a comma. Examples include the words “says,” “said,” “states,” “asks,” and “yells.” But remember that there is no punctuation if the word “that” comes just before the quotation, as in “the narrator says that.”)

Rule 3: If Rules 1 and 2 do not apply, do not use any punctuation between your words and the quoted words.

And remember that a semicolon (;) never is used to introduce quotations.

The APA is supposed to have posted rules for blockquotes on its style blog, but it’s gone dark. I found, via the Waybackmachine, a copy of APA block-quotation examples(84KB .pdf).

(Link)

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Contronyms

The English language is full of words that mean two opposing definitions at the same time. These words are called contronyms.

From a list of 75 that I found online; read and behold the paradox of the contronym:

  1. Apology: A statement of contrition for an action, or a defense of one
  2. Aught: All, or nothing
  3. Bill: A payment, or an invoice for payment
  4. Bolt: To secure, or to flee
  5. Bound: Heading to a destination, or restrained from movement
  6. Buckle: To connect, or to break or collapse
  7. Cleave: To adhere, or to separate
  8. Clip: To fasten, or detach
  9. Consult: To offer advice, or to obtain it
  10. Continue: To keep doing an action, or to suspend an action
  11. Custom: A common practice, or a special treatment
  12. Dike: A wall to prevent flooding, or a ditch
  13. Discursive: Moving in an orderly fashion among topics, or proceeding aimlessly in a discussion
  14. Dollop: A large amount (British English), or a small amount
  15. Dust: To add fine particles, or to remove them
  16. Enjoin: To impose, or to prohibit
  17. Fast: Quick, or stuck or made stable
  18. Fine: Excellent, or acceptable or good enough
  19. Finished: Completed, or ended or destroyed
  20. First degree: Most severe in the case of a murder charge, or least severe in reference to a burn
  21. Fix: To repair, or to castrate
  22. Flog: To promote persistently, or to criticize or beat
  23. Garnish: To furnish, as with food preparation, or to take away, as with wages
  24. Give out: To provide, or to stop because of a lack of supply
  25. Go: To proceed or succeed, or to weaken or fail

Here are the rest.

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Zoom Helped Chinese Surveillance

Should we continue to use — and promote the use of — Zoom at institutions and organizations that stand for liberal democratic values when Zoom has been discovered terminating accounts and disrupting video calls about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy activists? Obviously, we should find something else.

From The Washington Post:

Prosecutors said the China-based executive, Xinjiang Jin, worked as Zoom’s primary liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence services, sharing user information and terminating video calls at the Chinese government’s request.

If our organizations believe in free speech then it behooves us to tell our organizations about Zoom.

Zoom continues to fail us and mark my words, this will not be the last time we hear that this corrupt company is in the news.

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Sedition!

I’d never heard of Randy Rainbow, but he’s got quite the collection of song parody YouTube videos. I especially liked this one about sedition.

It’s amazing the amount of work he must have put into this video and the speed in which he put it out. Mark Evanier suggests Randy Rainbow is a one man show:

Supposedly, he does all this himself from a not-huge apartment in New York…and he’s got to do it quickly because these days, current news has — as Jon Stewart used to say of The Daily Show — the shelf life of potato salad. “Topical Humor” used to be about something that had happened in the last month or so. Now, folks like him and Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah and Jimmy Kimmel are going on-air or on the web with material about what happened six hours ago…or less. No wonder MAD Magazine with its six-week lead time couldn’t compete.

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Kieran Healy on the Mob at the Capitol

Required reading: author and researcher Kieran Healy on what happened during the mob raid of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

From the moment he knew he’d lost the presidential election, Trump absolutely wanted to get the result overturned. Some large proportion of his own staff and Congressional Republicans thought there was no harm in humoring him. Many surely knew him well enough to realize he was quite serious about it. But most, falling into a way of thinking that Trump has repeatedly benefited from over his entire career, and especially during his Presidency, figured that he could not possibly overcome the weight of institutional and conventional pressure behind the transition of power. Still, by the first week of January he had not relented in his efforts to find some way to do it, whether through bullying local election officials, chasing wild geese through the courts, or directly intimidating state officials. That all failed, or looked like failing. The next thing on the horizon was Electoral College certification.

She points out that she doesn’t have any more information than anyone else following the story, but she does paint a coherent and plausible outline based on the facts we know of what Trump and the Whitehouse might have been thinking. I think this is exactly what happened.

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The Title of Liberty

Despite LDS church officials distancing themselves from fringe conspiracy theories and congratulating incoming President elect Biden, we still witness the embarrassment of a Mormon proudly participating in yesterday’s debacle and broadcasting their association with the church publicly by flying the “title of liberty” pictured above and cosplaying as a warrior from the Book of Mormon.

From Wikipedia:

Moroni [a character from the Book of Mormon] is associated with the “title of liberty”, a standard that he raised to rally the Nephites to defend their liberties from a group of dissenters who wanted to establish their leader as a king. Moroni was so angry with Amalickiah’s dissention and wicked influence that he tore his coat and wrote upon it, “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.” With those words, he rallied his people to defend their families and their freedom and drive out the armies of Amalickiah. Moroni put to death any dissenters who did not flee and would not support the cause of freedom, and his ” title of liberty” was raised over every Nephite tower.

I guess I’m more disgusted by the so called Saints participating in this madness than others because of my background in the church and the sensitivity church members have with regard to fighting against the United States government. See also Articles of Faith: “12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.”

There are lunatics within any large enough group of people, but I even know some — heck, am related to them — that would not surprise me to hear they went to this level. (By his body size, I certainly don’t think this is someone that I know.)

As I mentioned previously, it shocks me the level of support Mormons give Trump.

Update: These tweets sum it up for me:

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American Chess Magazine’s Favourite Show

Chess board with pieces

American Chess Magazine Releases Their List of the Top 1 Shows of 2020.

“ACM loves giving recommendations — like, where to put a knight or a pawn. Sometimes they recommend where to put a bishop or a rook; hell, even a queen. It’s wild. But a TV show to watch? I have no idea what they’re going to select,” reported Michelle Falls, an amateur chess player.

What will they possibly pick?

(via Marginal Revolution)

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