English....

Writing, as I do - more than I usually care to admit (which I am nonetheless obliged to on this occasion) - somewhat parenthetically, I have perceived, in the course of writing IT, some apparent deficiencies in English punctuation ( in addition to a lack of words for certain things and other minor irritations* with the language as a whole).

I am therefore pleased to note that I am not the only one to suffer in this way...

Here's a lovely sentence from the article A cooler way to operate atomic clocks (American Physical Society)

"Since only the phase difference of the two sidebands is detected, length fluctuations of a cavity that has a free spectral range, such that it is resonant to both sidebands, do not deteriorate the measurement."

Written here in shorter lines, the problem is not quite as apparent as it was when I first read it, but on first (and second) reading the clause "length fluctuations of a cavity that has a free spectral range" completely threw me. Reading ahead to the "such that it is resonant to both sidebands" didn't help because the un-nesting only occurs in the next clause.

I wondered whether a dash would have helped in place of the first comma... no that doesn't help. Eliminate the second comma? Possibly, but the "such..." clause should be set off somehow.

And so, at last, we come to the need for something like a double comma which serves to structure the sentence without creating a parenthetical aside as a dash would do. Here it is, re-punctuated

Since only the phase difference of the two sidebands is detected,, length fluctuations of a cavity that has a free spectral range, such that it is resonant to both sidebands,, do not deteriorate the measurement.

Much clearer! It's a pity though that ",," is so ugly. We need (at least!) one other punctuation mark.

Any ideas what it should look like - or be called?

I doubt it would catch on though - much as the "rhetorical question mark" has rather failed to gain much acceptance (who even knew there was one?)

* Why don't we have a word meaning back of the hand? Or one for the inside of the elbow? (Yes Mum, I know it's the Cubital Fossa but that's not "a" word.) I could go on, but I would have to look things up (notes etc.) and I don't have the time right now...

?~=",," Stuff?

Well, well, well...

From the OED

Care (noun 2)... 15th Century... obsolete... "a kind of stuff"

Nuff said!

A Grammatical Conundrum

Not the first, but I'm dealing with them one at a time - hence the absence of the word "conundra" in the title.

So...

"they would then have kept with you until such time as there were cause for you to be confined or, for want of proper cause, an escort were unwarranted"

"they would have" - past, conditional... "until" and then, er, the past subjunctive of "be" to convey the (unreal past) but future looking implied secondary condition?

Is that right, or is there a better way?

I would that English were simpler sometimes!

Just a quickie....

English - weird, wonderful and almost omnipotently expressive.

Almost.

If the verb "to pass" has as future perfect "will have passed", what is the future perfect of "to come to pass"? Not "will have come passed", not "will have came to pass", not "will come to have passed", not "will came to pass"... it seems as though it can only be "will have come to pass", which - dang it! - I find more than merely mildly unsatisfactory.

I dare say though that you couldn't give two hoots about such conundra, but now I think about it, maybe a single hoot would suffice.

Tense Stuff.

Long Thing Shortened

I just wanted to point out that after approximately two hours of concentrated effort and much contorted thinking this morning (in an endeavour to re-examine the underlying concept from a more illuminating angle) I have come to the conclusion that there is no single word in English for a "Long thing that is now much shorter than it was... but still quite long."

Nor could I think of any short and elegant way of referring to the long, but relatively short, remnant of something that was once much longer.

These are, I feel terrible omissions.

Likewise I have on occasion felt the need for - and been disappointed in my search for - a single word for:

• The back of the hand, and
• The hollow on the inside of the elbow

No doubt some things don't need to be referred to very often and so don't get their own word (inside elbow hollow for instance) but that can't be the whole story otherwise historians would be scouring the records of French history in search of a hitherto unrecorded plague of one-eyedness leading to the french word "borgne". Eh? I think that last bit was the wine talking.

Anyway, at least we have a word for Stuff.