Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 June 9

= June 9 =

Comma placement
In the sentence "Jane Doe hopes that someday her work will benefit mankind", is a comma needed after "someday"? In the book (of correct English usage) there's no comma, but why do I feel there should be a comma there? (<<non-rhetoric question). Grazie. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 17:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You could separate "someday" with a comma on either side to emphasise it, but with a comma after someday and not before it looks wrong to me... - file lake  shoe  17:52, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I was going to say the exact opposite thing.  "Jane Doe hopes that someday, her work will benefit mankind," sounds a lot more correct than "Jane Doe hopes that, someday her work will benefit mankind."  If it were me, I'd phrase it, "Jane Doe hopes that her work will benefit mankind someday."  Kingsfold   (Quack quack!)  17:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * [ec] It certainly does not need a comma. If you really felt a need to set someday off with commas, you would need one before and one after someday, since that should not be separated from the clause that it introduces except by words or phrases set off at both ends.  Marco polo (talk) 17:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * To me it's best without a comma, although adding commas (as in Marco polo's suggestion) is not wrong. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 18:36, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, two commas would be needed, and the emphasis would be almost parodic. μηδείς (talk) 18:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Consider the sentence without the word "someday": Jane Doe hopes that her work will benefit mankind. There is no case for a comma there at all.  Now, if the word "someday" were returned, what purpose would it serve?  Jane is still hoping her work will benefit mankind, but is accepting that that benefit will not necessarily come in the short term.  So, if "someday" is embedded, we could regard it as parenthetical, in which case it needs a comma on either side.  Or, we could regard it as an integral part of what Jane is hoping - which is somewhat redundant since all things that are going to happen, or someone hopes will happen, will happen "someday".  If it were "tomorrow", what would we write - Jane Doe hopes that her work will benefit mankind tomorrow, or Jane Doe hopes that tomorrow her work will benefit mankind?  I would choose the former, where the time marker is at the end.  Using that template, I'd reword the original sentence to place "someday" at the end, and avoid the issue of commas altogether.  But if it had to be embedded, I'd prefer to regard it as parenthetical and have two commas.  Having no commas is grammatically correct, but gets us into the area of redundancy, which is sub-optimal.  Having only one comma would be unacceptable to me.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:24, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * See section 4 at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 23:48, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The bottom line being that Jane pretty much admits what she is doing is useless. μηδείς (talk) 18:17, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * How the heck do you arrive at that conclusion, irrelevant as it is to this thread? A lot of academic research has no obvious immediate benefit, but that doesn't make it "useless".  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Won't somebody please think of the children!؟ μηδείς (talk) 16:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

In the sentence "Jane Doe hopes that someday her work will benefit mankind", is a comma needed after "someday"?

No there is no need of a comma after someday. After reading the entire question, I came to an understanding that you are going through either an entire page, or an entire paragraph in which this sentence comes and at that point of time it comes to the mind and that too, because of the narrative pattern that exists in the text, that a comma after "someday" must be placed.

Also "someday" represents the fact that it is indicating time, hence also it comes to the mind that comma must be inserted, but there is no need of comma. The sentence works perfectly without a comma. 05:19, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Luxury yachts' original names?
I heard on the news that Jefri Bolkiah, the brother of the Sultan of Brunei, owns three luxury yachts whose names translate to English as Tits, Nipple 1 and Nipple 2. Does anyone know what are their names in the original language? J I P &#124; Talk 18:38, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * From googling around it appears the yacht's name was actually the English word "Tits". It is now known as the "Samax". --Cam (talk) 03:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Our article Jefri Bolkiah says that Nipple 1 & 2 are lifeboats of Tits, not yachts. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 15:59, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The article I read the news from says Nipple 1 and Nipple 2 are yachts. I was only going by the information in that article.  J I P  &#124; Talk 20:32, 10 June 2011 (UTC)