Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Punctuation in the news

The Blast (whatever that is) reports that Olivia Jade Giannulli risks having her trademark applications rejected because of poor punctuation. “Proper punctuation in identifications is necessary to delineate explicitly each product or service within a list and to avoid ambiguity,” says the United States Patent and Trademark Office. And: “Commas, semicolons, and apostrophes are the only punctuation that should be used.”

But look at this sentence from The Blast itself:

Officials from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office claim Olivia Jade’s applications for “make up kits” with “moisturizer” and “concealer” is too broad and needs to be specified.
Agr, I would have to scrawl in the margin. Or, if I were in a more expansive mood, s-v agr.

March 28: People has the problem-punctuation passage:
make up kits comprised of moisturizer, primer, concealer, foundation, make-up powder, make-up pencils, eye make-up, eyeshadow, eye liner, mascara, blush, highlighter, bronzer, make-up setting spray lipstick lip gloss, lip stains, make-up remover.
[Olivia Jade Giannulli: daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, sister of Isabella Giannulli, all caught in the recent college-admissions scandal.]

comments: 1

Elaine said...

Is our children learning?