Grammar, syntax, and meaningful posts.

Grammar, syntax, and meaningful posts.

Sorry, mmarq, but he has a point. Perhaps English is not your first language, in which case I applaud your efforts in posting here. Either way, though, you could use some tips in grammar and punctuation.

Take your first sentence above, for example. The first phrase, "When subjects to comment depend on a so elaborated maze of interests, ..." borders on the incomprehensible -- the meaning can be extracted, with some effort, but it is masked behind grammatical errors and inconsistencies. The phrase "to comment", for example. A verb, followed immediately by another verb ("depend"). Where's the subject? Where's the object?

From context, one can eventually deduce that you probably meant "to comment" to be part of an adjectival phrase modifying "subjects", as in "When subjects on which to comment depend on ...". Better, but a little long-winded. It could be improved by dropping the phrase, or at least setting it apart with punctuation. You'll find some disagreement amongst punctuation fanatics as to which punctuation -- commas, dashes, or parentheses -- but any of the above will improve readability. For example "When subjects, on which to comment, depend on ...".

I could go on. "[A] so elaborated maze", for example. Perhaps you meant "an elaborate maze"? Or "a maze [of twisty little passages?] so elaborate that ..."?

Certainly, some things cannot be explained briefly (as the length of this post attests), but punctuation, word choice, and word order can help to make explanations clear.

Posts (or documentation!) with poor grammar or punctuation don't help anyone any more than does code with poor grammar or syntax. I'd recommend Strunk & White's Elements of Style to anyone interested in improving themselves in this area.

Cheers.