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For one thing, unlike most folks, l not only can use the most-crucial punctuation mark in the English language—the semicolon—but l also teach it to high school students who dearly want to attend a quality university—but have a tougher time doing so if they can’t use that mystifying-to-many punctuation mark.
I say that because the folks who operate the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which high schoolers must do fairly well on in order to interest universities in accepting them, are bound and determined to ensure that college students can wield the semicolon correctly, so they can avoid committing the most-common mechanical mistake made by people using the King’s English: the run-on sentence.
I see zillions of run-on sentences, written by even the most-articulate people, from parents to friends and relatives to even NamePros members.
Basically, the run-on sentence is exactly what the name implies: two complete sentences incorrectly combined into one sentence. It’s easy to avoid this glaring error by inserting a semicolon between the two sentences—for example, “Most folks can’t even identify a semicolon often the problem is not one of their English teachers ever taught them how to use this pivotal punctuation mark.”
The last sentence, l bet you guessed, is a run-on sentence. Here’s the corrected version: “Most folks can’t even identify a semicolon; often the problem is not one of their English teachers ever taught them how to use this punctuation mark.”
If you’re still with me, and l wouldn’t blame any of you who dismissed me and this message as being elitist—l’m writing this post only because I’m sure most of you will look down at me when l tell you l don’t know what a common term used on this site means. Specifically, what the hell is “hand-registration?”
Please don’t belittle me for not knowing!
Thanking you in advance....
I say that because the folks who operate the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which high schoolers must do fairly well on in order to interest universities in accepting them, are bound and determined to ensure that college students can wield the semicolon correctly, so they can avoid committing the most-common mechanical mistake made by people using the King’s English: the run-on sentence.
I see zillions of run-on sentences, written by even the most-articulate people, from parents to friends and relatives to even NamePros members.
Basically, the run-on sentence is exactly what the name implies: two complete sentences incorrectly combined into one sentence. It’s easy to avoid this glaring error by inserting a semicolon between the two sentences—for example, “Most folks can’t even identify a semicolon often the problem is not one of their English teachers ever taught them how to use this pivotal punctuation mark.”
The last sentence, l bet you guessed, is a run-on sentence. Here’s the corrected version: “Most folks can’t even identify a semicolon; often the problem is not one of their English teachers ever taught them how to use this punctuation mark.”
If you’re still with me, and l wouldn’t blame any of you who dismissed me and this message as being elitist—l’m writing this post only because I’m sure most of you will look down at me when l tell you l don’t know what a common term used on this site means. Specifically, what the hell is “hand-registration?”
Please don’t belittle me for not knowing!
Thanking you in advance....