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I'm getting a 404 on the the first reference link - http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/persus/uspersm/cb-momsn.htm - although the whole site is slow at the moment. If it doesn't improve, perhaps the OP could suggest an alternative source? --RexxS (talk) 23:57, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The URL changed a bit: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-m/cb-momsn.htm. I found it with a simple google search. Shadowlord (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh - I should have thought of that! Many thanks --RexxS (talk) 22:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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Problems with recent edits

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I've reverted this edit which made over 20 changes, several of which were either irrelevant, grammatically incorrect, or breached our Manual of style. I'll give just a couple of examples of the most problematical:

  • Changed
    Thirteen men (of thirty survivors) left the forward escape trunk: five were picked up by the Japanese; three more reached the surface "but were unable to hang on or breathe and floated off and drowned"; the fate of the other five is unknown.
  • to
    13 of the 30 survivors left via the forward escape trunk, five were picked up by the Japanese, three more reached the surface "but were unable to hang on or breathe and floated off and drowned", and the fate of the other five is unknown. ← this one

This change improperly created a run-on sentence. It also breached MOS:NUMNOTES by both starting a sentence with numerals and using a mixture of numerals and words when enumerating the same quantities. --RexxS (talk) 16:52, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@RexxS: I did not notice this section before creating the one below. Kindly explain A) which is my "run-on" sentence; and B) what "errors" I have introduced. I will point out in passing that "either" is used with only two options, not the three which you list above. I would recommend that you tread carefully when accusing me of bad writing, syntax, or grammar. It's an area of expertise. —Dilidor (talk) 17:03, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Dilidor: A) The sentence above marked "this one" is a run-on sentence. It consists of four independent clauses joined without any appropriate punctuation. You may also have heard this particular example called a "comma splice". This is not a novel employing stream-of-consciousness and we consider grammatical errors inappropriate in encyclopedic writing. Now do you understand your error.
B) Did you not bother to follow the link I gave you to MOS:NUMNOTES both above and in my original edit summary? Here's what it says:

Notes and exceptions:

  • Avoid beginning a sentence with a figure:
    • Use: There were many matches; 23 ended in a draw. Or: There were many matches. Twenty-three ended in a draw.
    • Not: There were many matches. 23 ended in a draw.
  • ...
  • Comparable values should be all spelled out or all in figures, even if one of the numbers would normally be written differently: patients' ages were five, seven, and thirty-two or ages were 5, 7 and 32, but not ages were five, seven and 32.
Now, I've humoured you enough, despite your attempts to patronise me. Your mistakes are clear for all to see. You also made over 20 changes in a single edit, making it difficult for a reviewing editor to unpick which are worth keeping. This is a collaborative project and your edits and attitude are not compatible with that way of working.
Finally, we use a convention called bold, revert, discuss. You made an overly bold edit; it was reverted. You next step is discussion, here on the talk page, yet you have singularly failed to discuss the reasons for your edits and have failed to understand the problems pointed out to you. I've answered in detail the questions you asked. Now I expect you to provide me an explanation of why each of your 20+ changes is worth keeping. We may yet find some of them worthwhile. --RexxS (talk) 19:17, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@RexxS: I'm not sure what you consider "appropriate punctuation". Commas are, in fact, the exactly appropriate punctuation, whereas the previous sentence misuses semicolons. But the larger problem here is your offensive and belligerent attitude. "Now do you understand your error." Note that you cannot even correctly punctuate your own snarky condescension. "We may yet find some of them worthwhile." Ah... the Royal We. I think we're getting close to the root of the issue now. "Now, I've humoured you enough, despite your attempts to patronise me."The irony here is so palpable that I won't comment on it. But your spelling reveals the core of the entire problem--you're a Brit! That goes a long way in explaining both your condescension and your ignorance. Your belligerence, condescension, rudeness, and arrogance make it not worthwhile to attempt an intelligent, adult-level conversation. So "we're" done here. —Dilidor (talk) 10:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Dilidor: Do you understand how wikilinks work? I gave you the link to run-on sentence and you couldn't be bothered to follow it. It explains what appropriate punctuation is when combining multiple independent clauses without conjunctions, and a comma is not one of them. The semicolon is absolutely correct in that context, and if you can't write in grammatically correct English, you have no business attempting to copy-edit articles. We're done indeed. --RexxS (talk) 13:40, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @RexxS and Dilidor: In my view, you're both wrong. Commas may be used instead of semicolons in order to make clear that the clauses form part of a list; however, it's risky because someone may not see that that's the intent, and instead focus on one of the commas as a comma splice. (Not everyone uses the term "run-on sentence" to include comma splices, but you've established above that RexxS was referring to a comma splice—the use of a comma rather than a semicolon to join two independent clauses.) If it had been just "Five were picked up by the Japanese, three more reached the surface 'but were unable to hang on or breathe and floated off and drowned', and the fate of the other five is unknown." I would have said, storm in a teacup, although the semicolons were already correct and clear, so why monkey with the sentence? However, the first clause, "13 of the 30 survivors left via the forward escape trunk", is not the first in a list; rather, it refers to the group as a whole, parts of which are then dealt with in the list. 5 + 3 + 5 = 13. So the colon was much better than a semicolon, and the comma was incorrect and has mucked up the meaning of the sentence. (And why omit the bit about the officer's face mask?) Grammar doesn't exist in isolation from meaning; nor do MOS rules, which are not a straitjacket but a set of guidelines for our house style. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:32, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Yngvadottir: do you then believe that our Manual of Style is optional? Can an editor simply ignore MOS:NUMNOTES: "Avoid beginning a sentence with a figure" on their whim? If so, what is the point of having a Manual of Style? --RexxS (talk) 15:31, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I was addressing only the "comma splice" issue and associated sentence that was debated between the two of you here. And while the prohibition on starting a sentence with figures is sensible, the rest of the guidance on when to write out numbers is less than clear, and no manual of style can legislate matters such as when to use a semicolon rather than available alternatives. Yes, our Manual of Style is necessary in order to minimize conflicts between editors who write in different varieties of English and whose teachers may have adhered to different schools of thought on punctuation, capitalization, and style, but it is not a straitjacket nor yet a statute book, but a set of guidelines, while the meaning of what is being said, and clarity in setting it out on the page, must always come first. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:57, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Yngvadottir: In that case, can you explain how I was wrong in reverting the use of the comma splice? I prefer to think of the Manual of Style in the same way as other Wikipedia guidelines: a documentation of agreed best practice that carries project-wide consensus. It becomes anarchy when editors are allowed to choose whether or not to follow the Manual of Style for no other reason than they want to do it their way. The MoS contains guidance about the comma splice at MOS:COMMASPLICE:

    Correct:

    Oranges are an acidic fruit; bananas are classified as alkaline.

    Incorrect:

    Oranges are an acidic fruit, bananas are classified as alkaline.

    It calls the latter sentence "This incorrect use of a comma between two independent clauses". So what are your grounds for criticising my use of semicolons, which I believe are fully compliant with the guidance in that section of the MoS? --RexxS (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You ignored or failed to spot that Dilidor was making it into a list; hence their (incorrect) assertion that commas were better than semicolons. As I said above, that's an exception to the comma splice rule that is occasionally invoked. The MOS is not a statute book. But Dilidor was wrong in their analysis of the sentence, failing to see the import of the colon, so in fact you were misapplying your criticism: they'd changed the meaning, and that was the big reason to revert their punctuation change. Meaning comes first; usually this applies to MOS in terms of choices between alternatives, but in this case the revised sentence was simply wrong, because of the arithmetic. And that's far more important than whether a sentence begins with a number in digits. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I failed to spot that, and that's possibly because I think I wrote the original, so I had the meaning from the source in mind. I can see that commas may be used in a list, but obviously (to my eyes) a series of independent main clauses can't be a list, so that didn't occur to me. I absolutely agree that meaning is paramount, but I'm rather old-fashioned about grammar, and I like to see that accurate as well (or at the very least consistent with with our guidance at MoS). I've always thought that clarity in meaning and good grammar actually went well together, rather than anyone having to make a choice between the two. As for the digits, they just look amateurish in my eyes. I hope that no decent copy-editor would ever consider that an acceptable amendment to make. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 01:20, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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