The mistakes that I never used to make

[Glizdka]

Have I made any mistakes?

"My spelling is progressively deteriorating. The mistakes that I never used to make, I now make on a daily basis."

 

[jutfrank]

1) I don't like the use of progressively. It doesn't collocate with the verb, and it doesn't add any meaning that the progressive tense does not already show.

2) The definite article is not justified.

 

[Rover_KE]

I'd lose the comma as well as the definite article.

 

[jutfrank]

I'd lose the comma

Why's that?

The comma serves the sentence very well to show the marked pause effected by the sentence structure. The 'normal' word order of this thought would be:

I now make mistakes that I never used to make on a daily basis.

 

[Tarheel]

I might say:

I make mistakes I never used to make, and I do it every damn day.
;-)

A true story. I once took a geography test, and I missed one question. The class took the test again, and again I missed one question. But it was a different one.

 

[Phaedrus]

"The mistakes that I never used to make, I now make on a daily basis."

Regarding "never used to make," I have a slight preference here for "would never have made before":

Mistakes that I would never have made before, I now make daily.

 

[Rover_KE]

The comma serves the sentence very well to show the marked pause effected by the sentence structure.

I'd read it without a pause as it's a simple inversion.

 

[Glizdka]

I'd read it without a pause as it's a simple inversion.

Works for me, both with and without a pause. Funny... I originally wanted a pause, hence the comma. Thanks! I'll remember it's unnecessary.

 

[jutfrank]

I'd read it without a pause as it's a simple inversion.

Well, you can say it without any perceptible pause, yes, but you still need to mark that point in the sentence with some kind of prosody. Listen to how your intonation changes between the clauses when you read out loud. The comma is what helps the reader do that.

I'm not sure I follow your point about a simple inversion. The 'inverted' word order is precisely the reason that a comma helps.

 

[Phaedrus]

I parse it as topicalization (fronting) of the direct object of make rather than as inversion. Compare:

I make mistakes. I don't make cookies.
--> ? Mistakes I make. Cookies I don't.
--> Mistakes, I make. Cookies, I don't.

Without the comma, Mistakes I make can easily be parsed as a noun phrase (Mistakes [which] I make) rather than as a sentence.

 

[Tdol]

I see nothing wrong with keeping the comma.

 

[Glizdka]

Well, you can say it without any perceptible pause, yes, but you still need to mark that point in the sentence with some kind of prosody. Listen to how your intonation changes between the clauses when you read out loud. The comma is what helps the reader do that.

I'm not sure I follow your point about a simple inversion. The 'inverted' word order is precisely the reason that a comma helps.

I parse it as topicalization (fronting) of the direct object of make rather than as inversion. Compare:

I make mistakes. I don't make cookies.
--> ? Mistakes I make. Cookies I don't.
--> Mistakes, I make. Cookies, I don't.

Without the comma, Mistakes I make can easily be parsed as a noun phrase (Mistakes [which] I make) rather than as a sentence.

I will keep using that comma, then. I don't like to hurt commas; they're vulnerable.

 

[jutfrank]

You might not know, Glizdka, that Rover_KE used up his life's quota of commas decades ago.

 

[GoesStation]

You might not know, Glizdka, that Rover_KE used up his life's quota of commas decades ago.

It's a tragic and painful story.

 

[Rover_KE]

At 81, you can't be wasting precious nanoseconds typing commas you believe to be unnecessary.:-|

 

[Glizdka]

You might not know, Glizdka, that Rover_KE used up his life's quota of commas decades ago.

It's a tragic and painful story.

I think I once read a post on this forum about dying when you use up your life's quota of commas. What's the story?

 

[jutfrank]

It's a tragic and painful story.

It was that one particularly convoluted thousand-word sentence back in the winter of '63 that did it.

 

[GoesStation]

I think I once read a post on this forum about dying when you use up your life's quota of commas. What's the story?

I like to make people aware of their lifetime allocation of keystrokes and the severe repercussions of exhausting it. Is that what you're thinking of?

 

[GoesStation]

It was that one particularly convoluted thousand-word sentence back in the winter of '63 that did it.

He should have thought of that before undertaking that translation of Proust. He wrote sentences where the subject and object were in different time zones.

 

[emsr2d2]

Well, there are a few full stops left over for the rest of us to use after someone wrote a 1000-page book that consisted of just one sentence.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/23/booker-prize-longlist-2019-1000-page-novel-one-sentence/

I've discovered it's not the first either. Someone else wrote a 224-page book consisting of one sentence.

https://www.express.co.uk/entertain...l-Solar-Bones-Mike-McCormack-Goldsmiths-Prize