@Kei:

Don't worry. I actually regretted mentioning that after I turned off the computer and went over something I was working on. I did a face-palm and cursed at myself. *rolls eyes* Leave it to me when you need someone to make a total fool of themselves. -_-'

@SomeGuy:

If it's something that people would like to read about, then sure, I suppose I can do something about it...

@Kei:

I propose you tell us all about them in a future Tuesday!

@Nehszriah:

Ah, actually, that's not exactly true. At least, not the way I was taught.

In my experience with formal training (for an award-winning paper, I might add), we always fix sentence fragments and things like that. The only reason there might be sentence fragments in a wide-spread paper (like for a city of region) is for the sake of space.

That being said, the reason that a single simple sentence would constitute a single graph is for the sake of appearance. In several readership testings that have been conducted by newspapers, trends have been found that readers tend to skip over large blocks of text. Therefore, we break up large graphs (and sometimes end up with single sentences acting as graphs) to make the text seem smaller and more digestable.

Heh, sorry if that seemed a bit zealous, but there are a lot of misconceptions that people have about newspapers...

@SomeGuy:

Ok, I get it... Thanks.

@:

Hoo... big question! Haha...

I'm totally not qualified for this, but probably I'd have to say a good starting point would be to pick traits from other existing cities first and then work from there. Also, remember that even though there are many different kinds of cities, more often than not you can find many different kinds of places in them.

The easiest example would be New York, as people use it so much for so many things (including pretty much every single Marvel superhero). When people hear New York, they immediately think of fast-paced city life with tall buildings, subways and bridges over rivers. But even within the city there are areas like Queens that have a lot of suburban living in smaller houses and the like; you have Manhattan with the big lights; you have the Bronx with its "tough guy" reputation.

I'm not sure exactly how well this could help, but I was also thinking that maybe instead of trying to picture a city for your characters to live in, work backwards: think about what your characters need in their city. Do they need a big, urban concrete jungle? Bam, you've got downtown. Does a car need to be driven off a pier? Bam, your city just became coastal or got placed on top of a river. You need some desert to bury some bodies? Alright, alright, push it a little further inland and give everyone hot, dry weather. As these necessities come together, your city should start to form.

There's definitely a lot of places you could go with this. If more people don't respond to this this week, bring it up again next week and let's see what else we can get!

@SomeGuy:

pff... I see no line that says it's limited content! xD

@SomeGuy:

Oh, ok. So...how's your life?

@somegirl:

Haha, nice . . . and no, I haven't done that yet. Yet, anyway.

That said . . . that's probably not the right kind of question for this particular post. Still, thanks for the laugh!

@SomeGuy:

*raises hand for question*
Mr. James- yes I hear you love to fight..
Have you ever done this before?: Link

... Oh so looks fun but the bad news is your insurance doesn't cover being hard-headed-

I did not know that about journalism. Most interesting . . .

Alright, I'm sold; I'm doin' run-on sentences and comma splices next week.

@NightBeck:

*shrugs* Okay, you win. ^_~

@Sabrina:

Did you know that sentence fragements are everywhere in the newspaper? According to my one teacher, sentence fragments will most likely be accepted as a normal part of writing within 20-40 years. Journalists usually enjoy fragments so their writing has an important, urgent feel that commands attention. That's also why sometimes they have one simple sentence as an entire paragraph.

Seems strange, but it's true. *shrugs*

@Sabrina:

I'll second that request since I struggle with that too. >_>

~*Aaryanna*~

@SomeGuy:

... That ain't fair.

Okay, so I'm in the midst of typing up a fic, but I'm having a bit of a brain lapse: it's I think you might need it more than I not I think you might need it more than me... right?

I'm really bad about not spotting sentence fragments, so I'd love to see a workshop on what to look for and how to fix them. So that's my question/suggestion.

-Sabrina

@gaaragirl911:

What whole subject? If you actually want help you'll need to be more specific than that, because right now I have no idea what you need help with.

Help with a specific workshop? Help with how to ask a question here? Help with life? Please specify and we'll do what we can to help you.

@:

I'm a big fan of "alright" and I use it a lot. But yeah, "alright" is another one of those nonstandard words that is so widespread and commonly used that the dictionaries have accepted its existence but still feel it's not quite proper or whatever. So yeah, for formal writing, definitely stick with "all right".

As for worse versus worst...

The main point with worse and worst is that they're two different types of adjective. Worse is the comparative form of "bad"; worst is the superlative form.

Adjectives in general have three forms:

• Positive - the usual, basic adjective (eg. Naruto is bad at chakra control.)
• Comparative - the one that compares the subject to something else (eg. Naruto is worse at chakra control than Kakashi.)
• Superlative - the extreme version of the adjective (eg. Naruto is the worst at chakra control.)

That's the other thing to remember: "worse" and "worst" are forms of the positive/basic adjective "bad" (like, "bad" doesn't formally progress to "badder" and "baddest").

I think I'll keep this on a list for future workshops, though. This would be a good one... but yes, if you were to say something like "expect the worst," you would use worst; if you use a comparative form of an adjective, you'll pretty much always have a "than..." thing afterwards ("expect it to be worse than usual.").

@jomz:

Regarding your question about "regard" versus "regards", I'm still working on it.

The closest thing I have so far is that it's a mishmash of two separate phrases:

"In/with regard to..." and "As regards..."

Also "regards" is what you use for when you're wishing someone well or something like that:

"Hey kid, give your hot mother my regards."

There's probably a ton more, so I'll try to find more (unless someone else can save me and answer this better).

I'm like mentally confused on the whole subject so...helpo.

@somegirl:

Only thing you'd have to consider is that since it is a slang/informal/nonstandard word, it won't be the appropriate choice for certain situations.

@jomz:

Sorry xD i couldn't help myself.

My question:

In using the word "regard" in this sentence, which is more correct?

1. With regards to anime, people should be more open-minded.

2. With regard to anime, people should be more open-minded.

I was corrected in a formal paper, and had the "s" removed in a similarly structured sentence.

Thanks.

@somegirl:

You beat me to that question. I was planning to ask that, and was waiting for the Friday Open Questions to ask it, too. XD

@somegirl:

Yes it is, actually. According to Wiki, it arose around the end of the 17th century along with most other contractions in the English language.

It was used originally just for “am not”, but can include “is not”, “are not”, “has not”, or “have not”, as well as “do not”, “does not”, and “did not” in certain dialects.

Is "Ain't" a word?
Why not?