Britain's very first Independence Day!

[Pjotr]

To our British forum members: happy Independence Day tomorrow!

[rene]

independence.jpeg (10.47 KiB) Viewed 1622 times

[lsemmens]

Agreed, I hope it works well for you.

[Benedetto]

Thank you gentlemen for your kind thoughts. Living in a busy fishing port mostly surrounded by farmland means it will be an interesting time here. Only time will tell how it will work out.

[stephanieswitzer]

As an expat who visits mom, dad and the rest of the tribe every year I'm looking forward to the new future as are they. I've asked my mom if she is worried what it will bring and she simply replies "We made it through WW1 and WW2, we'll make it through this". Love my mom

[rene]

"We made it through WW1 and WW2, we'll make it through this".

And combined those only cost them a million or so lives. Really, who's counting....

[JoeFootball]

Keep Calm and Carry On.

[dorsetUK]

Hi all.

“Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”.

As it says on our new 50p coin - and I couldn't agree more.

What's really important though, is whether there should an Oxford comma in that quote?
https://theconversation.com/comma-again ... ugh-130699 Some of the comments to that article, really made me smile.

As to the future - well, I can sell you one of those 50p coins for £954. C'mon, another great British idea, and you know it makes sense.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 09211.html

Jon or Jean or Juan or Johan or Jan or Jannis ...

[stephanieswitzer]

Hi all.

“Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”.

As it says on our new 50p coin - and I couldn't agree more.

What's really important though, is whether there should an Oxford comma in that quote?
https://theconversation.com/comma-again ... ugh-130699 Some of the comments to that article, really made me smile.

As to the future - well, I can sell you one of those 50p coins for £954. C'mon, another great British idea, and you know it makes sense.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 09211.html

Jon or Jean or Juan or Johan or Jan or Jannis ...

I think the Oxford comma should be there and my Mum will have a commemorative coin for me when I next visit in July

[Pjotr]

I'd like to have such a coin! Might order one in a coin shop.

But the comma is a different kettle of fish. Isn't a comma supposed to replace the word "and", so that it's superfluous when it's followed by "and"? At least, that's what I was taught about the use of comma's in Dutch....

[Portreve]

I'd like to have such a coin! Might order one in a coin shop.

But the comma is a different kettle of fish. Isn't a comma supposed to replace the word "and", so that it's superfluous when it's followed by "and"? At least, that's what I was taught about the use of comma's in Dutch....

In English, commas are typically used to join clauses. This arises when one needs to join together a dependent and an independent clause. They are also used in a list; however, it is perfectly possible for one to find an "and" in such a list as well. I'm a particular fan of the so-called Oxford Comma because it generally serves to eliminate some degree of ambiguity which might otherwise exist.

[JoeFootball]

The way I was taught, the comma was to proceed an "and/or" when there were more than two elements. e.g., "apples and oranges" is correct (in my mind), and "apples, oranges, and bananas" is correct (in my mind).

[dorsetUK]

From 'The Conversation'. https://theconversation.com/comma-again ... ugh-130699

"As one poster on The Guardian article comments:

The use of the Oxford comma is not standard practice [in the UK], merely because of the ignorant, narrow-minded grammar school teachers we had".

Which sums things up entirely. That poster presumably went to a Grammar school where the teachers were ignorant and narrow-minded. However, as they didn't capitalise 'grammar', perhaps they were trying to to say; the school teachers who taught grammar were ignorant and narrow-minded.

Returning to the Oxford comma, personally, I don't use it, but I have no problem with anyone who does. What matters is that we communicate clearly.

When grammar terrorists took on the Hell's or Hells' Angels, their response was; We are the Hells Angels. You may miss the apostrophe, we don't. And however one were to spell; Hell's' Angels, I don't 'spose it would've effected them!

Or, should that be - affected them?

Hey ho, Jon

[lsemmens]

I find it fascinating. Surprisingly enough, I worked out to which the topic of the Oxford Comma referred without having ever learnt or read the article. To me, the comma should be there to remove all ambiguity as JoeFootball suggests.

[Mcbeeff]

Wow! Happy independence day! For those who voted no.....just celebrate anyway. rainbows it.

[smurphos]

I'll be stroking my shiny new Irish passport at 11pm tonight whilst continuing to plot my escape...

[Portreve]

I wish I could so readily escape, too. At least I have a passport, which I gather puts me in the minority as far as Americans go.

In a sentence which contains a comma-separated list, one can potentially have ands sprinkled throughout. z.B.:

“My favorite meals are lasagna, pesto chicken, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, steak, spaghetti and meatballs, and pizza.” The ands prior to the terminal one (which contains the Oxford comma) are each joiners of one whole object (i.e. “peanut butter and jelly sandwiches”).

[Pjotr]

z.B.:

Zum Beispiel.... You're mixing English and German.

“My favorite meals are lasagna, pesto chicken, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, steak, spaghetti and meatballs, and pizza.” The ands prior to the terminal one (which contains the Oxford comma) are each joiners of one whole object (i.e. “peanut butter and jelly sandwiches”).

That's indeed convincing and would apply in Dutch as well, I think.... A logical rule for every language, in fact.

[cliffcoggin]

I'll be stroking my shiny new Irish passport at 11pm tonight whilst continuing to plot my escape...

My passport is due for renewal, but I shall wait until the existing stock of red ones have been used and I can get a blue one. I bet it will not have the delightfully old-fashioned text of the old type which begins "Her Brittanic Majesty's Secretary of State requests and requires that the bearer of..."

[Portreve]

z.B.:

Zum Beispiel.... You're mixing English and German.

Yeah, I do do that here because of the international setting that is LMF. I am slowly still going through the process of listening and learning when it comes to German.

[at the risk of hijacking this thread]

It is somewhat difficult to do this in real life, or "IRL" as it is sometimes Internet acronymed, because the U.S. is kind of monolithic particularly where language and certain other things are concerned. Obviously, some of this is due to our comparatively geographically isolated location from the rest of the world. That's not to say I cannot possibly find people with whom to speak German; I can, but nevertheless I cannot trivially do this because I don't have existing appropriate personal circumstances.

The U.S. is kind of schizophrenic where several things are concerned, one of those areas being language. On the one hand, we like to think of ourselves as a monolingual culture, with such concepts as "Learn English if you want to live here!" not hard to uncover if you scratch the surface. Yet, on the other hand, we are getting close to something like a dual-lingual culture because of the inescapable influx of people from Spanish-speaking countries. I use the term "dual-lingual" as opposed to "bilingual" because bilingualism implies a culture which uses both of two different languages, and what we have is a main culture which is English-only, and a (reasonably large) subset of that culture which speaks either just Spanish or both Spanish and English, and there really isn't quite the convergence of both of those groups. Understand, however, that I am not offering an opinion here as to how things ought to be, nor even whether I like how things are. This is purely descriptive, not prescriptive.

In any event, were I to wish to casually practice second language skills, that second language would need to be Spanish, not German. As my second language of choice is German, that does introduce some limitations. Therefore, when the chance to use any of it at all presents itself (enter LMF), I avail myself of said opportunity.

There is a local German American Social Club, but I'm not in a position to join at the moment, and in any event I find it hard to engage with others using German simply because my German vocabulary is too limited. This, naturally, can be cured by me applying myself and learning more words.

“My favorite meals are lasagna, pesto chicken, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, steak, spaghetti and meatballs, and pizza.” The ands prior to the terminal one (which contains the Oxford comma) are each joiners of one whole object (i.e. “peanut butter and jelly sandwiches”).

That's indeed convincing and would apply in Dutch as well, I think.... A logical rule for every language, in fact.

One thing I have learned about the German language is there are significant (to me) differences in the formulation of clauses. Ergo, I assume nothing and take nothing for granted in going into the language. I have often wondered what "American German" would be like today if we had decided to abandon our British English roots, given the differences which exist between British and American English. Would we have decided at some point to put units after tens as is the case in spoken English? That is, would twenty-one be zwanzig-eins? Zwanzig-und-eins? Or would we have kept the original eins-und-zwanzig order?