Are you good at Punctuation??

Question

An English Professor wrote the words:

"A Woman without a man is nothing", on the chalkboard and asked his students to puntuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote : " A Woman, without her man, is nothing".

All the females in the class wrote : " A Woman: Without her , man is nothing.

Puntuation is powerfull.

Answer 1

I've always liked that example.
Maybe you'll get a kick out of this:

Dear John Letter-

Good Version

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy—will you let me be yours?

Gloria


Bad Version

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours,

Gloria

AND what about this one?

A teacher said to her little student Suzy, "Punctuate the following sentence: Fun fun fun worry worry worry."

Little Suzy thought for a moment and began her reply, "Let's see. Fun period fun period fun no period worry worry worry!!!"

Answer 2

I was told in grade school that ; if you break the sentence down, then you could determine the right way to punctuate the sentence. The sentence should still maintain a complete though. It should have a subject and a predicate to be a sentence. So lets look here:

"A woman without a man is nothing"

1. A woman without is nothing.
2. A woman is nothing.
3. A woman is
These three sentences are complete with subject and predicate.

Therefore, a man is really not important to the sentence to make it complete.

"A woman without, a man, is nothing"
."A man without ,the perfect woman, is nothing"

Answer 3

Ahem, where's the question? Furthermore, I would say it was a class of ninnies, since the professor wrote "A Woman without a man is nothing" and they wrote "A Woman without her man is nothing." Apparently they can't copy correctly. Further, your professor is not too big on the smarts, for "woman" is not capitalized here. As for the punctuation, I don't thing the use of the colon is at all correct since it would be used to introduce a series and so forth. I don't even think its a semicolon since it joins two dependent clauses and I don't think "a woman" qualifies. The correct punctuation would be "A woman, without her man, is nothing."

Answer 4

So they didn't correct the capitalisation of 'Woman' and they changed the the words from 'without a' to 'without her'? Puntuation is powerful but not as powerful as a keen eye.

Answer 5

There is a brilliant punctuation quiz called eatsshootsandleaves.com based on the book

The book "The Elements of Style" is fantastic - by William Strunk jr and E.B. White

Answer 6

A woman without, > a man with nothing! (female answer)
A woman without a man is < nothing. (male answer)
Is < and > considered punctuation?

Answer 7

Very good, but the change in meaning wasn't just down to punctuation, you changed words too, 'a man' to 'her man'. enjoyed reading your answers though.

Answer 8

No good bringing that subject up on here, most people can't even spell propper like wot I kan.

Answer 9

An English professor and he didn't know.

Answer 10

Yeah, but capitalisation is the difference between:

I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse.

and

I helped my uncle jack off a horse.