Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 January 3

= January 3 =

"if ... then" stranding
More and more I'm seeing instances of "if ... then" constructions split into separate sentences. Example:
 * If man is descended from apes. Then why are there still apes?.

It's hard for me to fathom why anybody would do this. I suppose lack of proper teaching might explain some cases. But surely people in general must understand that these are two sides of the same coin and belong together in the same sentence, no? -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * It's interesting you see it as an emerging phenomenon, because my immediate aesthetic impression is that it is an writing tic. From my understanding, the 19th century was essentially the peak of people writing in English the way they spoke (and arguably not earlier, since the early modern period was a literary smorgasbord, and earlier than that you had to struggle a bit to be understood due to huge spelling variations etc.) which includes using what we like to consider semantically-specific punctuation more singularly as prosodic markers. I surely don't think the issue is that the statements aren't seen as connected—the very words chosen indicate an understood connection—it's just punctuation isn't being used to reflect that.  Remsense  留  09:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This is also surprising to me, because I don't remember ever seeing this construction either in old or current writing. --142.112.220.136 (talk) 10:33, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Those who think they know me fairly well by now might be shocked to learn that I often amuse myself by perusing the utterances found on social media, to see what proportion of them actually qualify as "writing". That god-forsaken place is where I tend to find these atrocities. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:38, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't cite this one, but certainly "a sentence split by a full stop into two fragments on a prosodic basis" plenty. Remsense  留  19:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Actually, I can see some value in this construct. Adding a full stop in the middle subtly nudges the reader to think about the implicit question “what then?”. Not a bad idea in our fast-paced times. (That doesn't apply to your sample sentence, though. But maybe whoever you took this from copied the construct unthinkingly from a statement where it was useful.) ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 10:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Adding a full stop in the middle. Not so subtly jars this reader into doubting the punctuational competency of the writer. --Lambiam 13:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)}
 * Not so bad as adding a full stop in the middle, then continuing without a capital letter, which I have seen. 2A00:23C7:9CC0:F901:E5FB:171C:8FDE:8F18 (talk) 13:23, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Could it be a typo as the "," and "." keys are adjacent, or laziness as some onscreen keyboards have "." on the main keyboard but "," on an auxiliary symbols screen? cm&#610;&#671;ee&#9094;&#964;a&#671;&#954; 04:58, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The example of the OP has a full stop after a clause, followed by a full sentence starting with a capital letter. The capitalization cannot be explained by fat finger syndrome or laziness. --Lambiam 21:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It can be by either a habit of capitalizing at the start of a sentence (admittedly while not making a sentence from an independent clause, or by an autocapitalization feature, which is pretty common on phones and other devices. Remsense  留  21:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Some phone keyboards will transform (space + space) into (fullstop + space + capitalise next input character), but I agree with Clarityfiend below that the final ?. is the less explicable anomaly. Folly Mox (talk) 18:09, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Grammar Police citation for excessive punctuation: "?." Clarityfiend (talk) 13:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It was them what made me do it. Their behaviour is toxic. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Grammar Police, I've given all I can. It's not enough... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)