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Effective writing: If presidential candidates debated use of punctuation
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Wouldn't it be fun to hear the two Democratic candidates and the Republican candidate debate one another? To keep things balanced, we've asked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to join. Rather than discuss the future of our nation, they will address the issue on everyone's mind: correct grammar and punctuation:
Q What are your thoughts regarding the appropriate use of the semicolon?
Sen. Barack Obama: Our movement is real, change is coming to America and the time has come to use semicolons appropriately.
Sen. John McCain: Although I've never minded the role of the underdog, we must get used to the idea that semicolons are the front- running punctuation mark.
Huckabee: A lot of people have been trying to say this is a two-mark contest between semicolons and colons. Well, you know what? It is. And I like them both.
Sen. Hillary Clinton: People of all ages, all colors, all faiths and all walks of life are excited about semicolons.
Q What about my question?
Obama: The semicolon is best used in antithetical statements, as in "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
McCain: Even as it separates, it suggests connection.
Huckabee: But to avoid sentence fragments, make sure you have a complete sentence on either side of it.
Clinton: An elegant mark, the semicolon is more than a comma, less than a period.
Q What do you consider the most common error in American business writing?
Obama: Comma splices: sentences spliced together with a comma, as in "I didn't vote for the war, however, some of my opponents did."
McCain: Placing a period after, rather than before, closing quotation marks, as in "They want to increase the size of government, raise taxes and withdraw from Iraq for political expediency".
Huckabee: Unnecessary apostrophes added to form a plural noun, as in "If Americans want a president who doesn't believe in God, there's lots of choice's."
Clinton: Lack of subject-verb agreement: "There's lots of choices" rather than "There are lots of choices."
Q Why does correct grammar matter?
Obama: All across the country we're seeing huge crowds because we've been laying out a substantive agenda for clear and correct communication.
McCain: I haven't forgotten my conservative roots, and those roots help me figure out the meaning of words such as "reconcile" from the Latin conciliare.
Huckabee: The Second Amendment, a model of clear and unambiguous writing, should be respected as much as the First Amendment.
Clinton: We need someone who is ready on day one to command language with clarity, emphasis and style.
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