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Subject:Re: Fun Pairs and RE: Word Usage (or vs nor) From:Jan Stanley <jstanley -at- ROADSHOW -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 24 Sep 1997 13:35:02 -0400
TO: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
(With apologies if either thread has been banned--I'm on digest.)
-----
Melissa Fisher's pet peeves (including "ya'll" instead of "y'all")
reminded me of the sign I once saw on a "fixin's bar" at a hamburger
place: "Fix 'um the way you want 'um."
-----
In response to Cassandra Parker's query
> Can someone help me with:
> or vs. nor
> EX: I understand I am under no obligation to stay nor the company to
>keep me.
Someone (sorry, lost track of who) said
> I'd change it to "I understand I am under no obligation to stay, nor is
the
> company obligated to keep me."
Call me a foolish stickler for parallelism in all things, but I'd write
it as
"I understand that I am under no obligation to stay, and that the company
is under no obligation to keep me."
To my mind (migraine-battered though it is today), that gets rid of the
"nor" problem and makes it immediately clear that both parties have like
obligations.
-----
Do any of you learned and exacting folks have a problem, as I do, with
there being no "that" in cases like "I understand (that) I am under..."?
It's bugged me for years, but so far I've been too lazy to do the
research needed to figure out whether I'm bothered for a legitimate
reason or just because I'm a little goofy.
Regards,
Jan
I'm on digest; please respond to me directly: mailto:jstanley -at- roadshow -dot- com
Jan Stanley
Sr. Technical Writer
ROADSHOW International, Inc.
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