英语语法：124 Ellipses Spurned
时间：2019-01-02 作者：英语课 分类：英语语法 Grammar Girl
Today I have a special show for you because it's September 24: National Punctuation 1 Day, a holiday created by an educator named Jeff Rubin.
To celebrate the day I had a punctuation contest and today's show highlights two of the winners. Other winners have appeared in the free Grammar Girl e-mail newsletter this week.
Ellipses 2 Spurned 3
The first winning entry is titled “Going Cold Turkey on National Punctuation Day” by Eileen Burmeister
I know it’s wrong to use it in such a way, and I know that’s it’s become a crutch 4, but I must admit that I’ve been having an illegitimate love affair with the ellipses for years now. Surely, I thought, I could find a support group among the many writers who have been similarly led down this particular primrose 5 path of pauses, but alas 6 … none existed.
Not to be dissuaded 7, I set out and started my own support group called “Ellipses … Anonymous 8.” I invited everyone to my house at 2000 W. Maple 9 … a place, I must confess, I bought for the address alone … and I served M&Ms in batches 10 of three. However the people who showed up tended to trail off midway through their stories, or stopped abruptly 11 before staring off into space, which seemed appropriate but really stymied 12 the healing process. It was … daunting 13.
I found myself wandering the streets that night, talking to myself, binging on one story after another without end, drinking deep from the nectar of incomplete thoughts until … I hit rock bottom.
It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t pause for breath in my prose without automatically hitting dot-dot-dot. I was ravenous 14 … a wild animal on the prowl for a pregnant pause, a thoughtful moment or a half-baked idea so I could swoop 15 in and get my fix. I was putting ellipses where a comma would suffice … ellipses when an em dash would do the trick … ellipses when a yadayadayada would convey the same idea. It was all too much and I collapsed 16 under the pressure.
I woke up the next morning in the gutter 17 outside of a Barnes and Nobles, gripping my beat-up copy of “Love is…” poems and staring in the face of one harsh reality … I needed help.
I got up out of the gutter, flipped 18 open my laptop and started writing … hair of the dog and all that jazz. What I was after was a mantra to get me through the tough spots, those times where it’s just so … tempting 19 (damn!) to use that one, single punctuation, albeit 20 incorrectly. I needed a higher power to see me through, and … amazingly … this little beauty fell out of the sky like a penny … or coin … from Heaven:
To accept the proper uses for the ellipses;
Courage to use it when I should and deny myself when I shouldn’t;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Doesn’t it seem appropriate, then, that today, National Punctuation Day, would be my quit day? I have decided 22 to go cold turkey. No more ellipses for me. I’m clean and sober starting now of course that means I can’t use any punctuation for fear that the pause in and of itself would throw me headlong into a full blown relapse from which I might never recover until I could once again use my beloved and reliable ellipses just saying the word makes this all the more harder until I simply … break … down.
They say that admitting the problem is half the battle, and I’m counting on that to be true. But right now, I have an inexplicable 23 desire to learn Morse code and eat M&Ms. And besides, as my friend Scarlett once said … “Tomorrow is another day.”
Eileen Burmeister is a corporate 24 writer and editor by day, humor columnist 25 by night, and a wife and mother around the clock. She lives, works, and writes in Southern Oregon.
You can read Eileen's columns at 。。。or follow her on Twitter at EBurmeister
The Cat Comma
OK, the next winner is Peggy Curtis with an untitled haiku-like poem. You can find Peggy at。。。on Twitter and Facebook as earlybloomer.
Afternoon break—
cat sleeping
the comma
I liked that so much that I'm thinking about ending all my podcasts with a short poem. I hope you liked it too. Happy National Punctuation Day.
- My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
- A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。
- The planets move around the sun in ellipses. 各行星围绕太阳按椭圆形运转。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Summations are almost invariably indicated ellipses instead of the more prevalent sigma notation. 在表示“连加”的式子中，几乎一成不变地使用省略号来代替更为流行的“∑”符号。 来自辞典例句
- Eve spurned Mark's invitation. 伊夫一口回绝了马克的邀请。
- With Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. 对里德太太呢，我记得我的最大努力总是遭到唾弃。 来自辞典例句
- Her religion was a crutch to her when John died.约翰死后，她在精神上依靠宗教信仰支撑住自己。
- He uses his wife as a kind of crutch because of his lack of confidence.他缺乏自信心，总把妻子当作主心骨。
- She is in the primrose of her life.她正处在她一生的最盛期。
- The primrose is set off by its nest of green.一窝绿叶衬托着一朵樱草花。
- Alas!The window is broken!哎呀！窗子破了！
- Alas,the truth is less romantic.然而，真理很少带有浪漫色彩。
- He was easily dissuaded from going. 他很容易就接受劝告不走了。
- Ulysses was not to be dissuaded from his attempt. 尤利西斯想前去解救的决心不为所动。
- Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
- The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。
- Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
- The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。
- The prisoners were led out in batches and shot. 这些囚犯被分批带出去枪毙了。
- The stainless drum may be used to make larger batches. 不锈钢转数设备可用来加工批量大的料。
- He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
- I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。
- Relief efforts have been stymied in recent weeks by armed gunmen. 最近几周的救援工作一直受到武装分子的阻挠。 来自辞典例句
- I was completely stymied by her refusal to help. 由于她拒不相助， 我完全陷入了困境。 来自互联网
- They were faced with the daunting task of restoring the house.他们面临着修复房子的艰巨任务。
- Starting a new job can be a daunting prospect.开始一项新工作有时会让人望而却步。
- The ravenous children ate everything on the table.饿极了的孩子把桌上所有东西吃掉了。
- Most infants have a ravenous appetite.大多数婴儿胃口极好。
- The plane made a swoop over the city.那架飞机突然向这座城市猛降下来。
- We decided to swoop down upon the enemy there.我们决定突袭驻在那里的敌人。
- Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
- The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。
- There's a cigarette packet thrown into the gutter.阴沟里有个香烟盒。
- He picked her out of the gutter and made her a great lady.他使她脱离贫苦生活，并成为贵妇。
- The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
- The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。
- It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
- It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。
- Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的，但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
- Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次，但他并没有气馁。
- Her face,though sad,still evoked a feeling of serenity.她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。
- She escaped to the comparative serenity of the kitchen.她逃到相对安静的厨房里。
- This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
- There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
- It is now inexplicable how that development was misinterpreted.当时对这一事态发展的错误理解究竟是怎么产生的，现在已经无法说清楚了。
- There are many things which are inexplicable by science.有很多事科学还无法解释。
- This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
- His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。