The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[emm]

So you started an off topic forum! Good idea. I’ll do my best not to stray. I hope the administration will be lenient with blurred areas – it’s not always easy to split one’s thoughts into the correct categories. I’ll make it a New Year resolution but to be honest I’m not usually very successful with those. NYR#1 wasn’t very successful - that was a trial moratorium on Sudoku over the holidays – just for a test of will power. I did try but I was undone by the Times Killer book. I didn’t even like Killers after that experience with the < = > last year but one little peek and I was hooked. I got better at them too I might add and so I should have, considering how many I did, I could also add, and obviously I can since I did all those Killers. That’s a flow of thought that looped in a nice way. Is that a nice loop?

NYR#2 – learn about nice loops. Figure out just what is it about not-nice ones that they never get a mention.

PS : Funny how lots of my on-topic posts veer off and this one is sort of on.

[Pat]

Funny how lots of my on-topic posts veer off and this one is sort of on.

well, if it's on SuDoku,
then it is off OffTopic,
isn't it?

~ Pat

[emm]

Pat, tell me that black squiggly thing isn't your cheesy smile !

Or are you looking at the bottom of a tequila bottle?

[MCC]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Attack of the Killer Worms

~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~ ~~~~~
~~~~~ ~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~

Coming soon? To your computer !

Or is it, "The Tequila Nightmare"

[Pat]

Pat, tell me that squiggly thing isn't your cheesy smile

Or are you looking at the bottom of a tequila bottle?

formerly, i had been using a hyphen or dash ( whichever it is - i never do remember - shall we dig it up? i rather think someone has already explained that distinction ) with my name at the end of the message;
but you know, it just looked too horizontal.

and by the way, alcohol i've been avoiding for quite some time;
chocolate, though, is still my undoing.

~ Pat

[CathyW]

and by the way, alcohol i've been avoiding for quite some time;
chocolate, though, is still my undoing.

I'm with you there, Pat! Could quite happily not drink alcohol again but I can't give up chocolate.

Cathy

[emm]

but you know, it just looked too horizontal

Pat, there is nothing wrong with being horizontal - nevertheless I am all in favour of you going a little ~ kinky.

I don’t like hyphens and never use them. They’re constricting little punctuation marks that smack of stomach-cramps.

A dash – on the other hand – allows thoughts to flow in loose, unending, sentences and creative outpourings that run on and on – often to unexpected places – and express one’s inner – and sometimes undiscovered - self.

Thank God for the off topic forum. Pass me a Chocolate Margarita.

[Pat]

Pat, tell me that squiggly thing isn't your cheesy smile

actually it is — and i'm rather surprised you could recognize it in such an abstract form —

---a hyphen or dash ( whichever it is — i never do remember — shall we dig it up? i rather think someone has already explained that distinction )

yes indeed — someone has clarified this:

A dash is a hyphen

Though really pedantic Britons would say they are not the same:
En Dashes and Em Dashes

but you know, it just looked too horizontal

Pat, there is nothing wrong with being horizontal —

hey, you quote me out of context!
— horizontal is fine
= horizontal is great
≡ horizontal is — bliss

~ )
_≈
8_∞

Pat

[emm]

Frankly, Pat, I never knew anyone who could put together a mishmash of stuff the way you do. I hope you don’t mind me saying it – it’s actually quite intriguing.

The em/en thing is new to me. I use a lot of them though I didn’t know about the no-spacing rule and I don’t like it. It seems to defeat the purpose - which is to allow a sentence to run on over a number of paths that are related but might otherwise seem random to the reader and possibly be difficult to follow - and yet have a rhythmic flow unhindered by a lot of needless punctuation. As far as I can see, if you’re going to cramp up your ems, you may as well use a common garden comma, and be done with it.

I usually take care with grammatical etiquette - to tell the truth some of the spelling on this forum drives me nuts - but I don’t know how you can possibly get a free flow of unfettered thought if you don’t space your dashes. I absolutely need to. Some of my most freely fetterless moments have happened in open spaces and while some may be able to write from a cramped position, I think it’s unnatural and I won’t do it. I don’t care if the Bard himself did so - it’s very C16th and I think it’s time to move on.

PS : I've taken the idea of squashed ems pretty personally. Apologies for going on about it. Thanks for the link. ♥

[Pat]

Pat, I never knew anyone who could put together a mishmash of stuff the way you do. I hope you don’t mind me saying it - it’s actually quite intriguing.

I use a lot of dashes though I didn’t know about the no-spacing rule and I don’t like it. It seems to defeat the purpose - which is to allow a sentence to run on over a number of paths that are related but might otherwise seem random to the reader and possibly be difficult to follow - and yet have a rhythmic flow unhindered by a lot of needless punctuation. As far as I can see, if you’re going to cramp up your dashes, you may as well use a common garden comma, and be done with it.

I usually take care with grammatical etiquette - but I don’t know how you can possibly get a free flow of unfettered thought if you don’t space your dashes. I absolutely need to. Some of my most freely fetterless moments have happened in open spaces and while some may be able to write from a cramped position, I think it’s unnatural and I won’t do it.

I've taken the idea of squashed dashes pretty personally. Apologies for going on about it.

i'm with you — i always space them — can't stand it otherwise

~ Pat

[emm]

I have to ask, and this seems as good a place as any, what is it with other people's quotes that they need to be repeated? It's not you personally Pat, I've seen it a lot on this forum and I'm curious why one would replay someone else's words. It could be taken as a compliment, I guess, the fact that someone thinks you deserve a double airing - at least it could be, if we didn't see so much rubbish (a lot of it mine) being repeated - equally it could be taken as uncomplimentary by the next reader, the assumption that they can't scroll up one. Can anyone enlighten me? I'm in the dark on this.

[r.e.s.]

I'm curious why one would replay someone else's words.

Quoting serves to identify exactly to whom/what the person is responding -- especially helpful in case the reply gets separated from its target posting, e.g. by others replying or changing the topic.

[emm]

Yes, the selective use of a quote is v valuable when replying to a particular person or point. I was talking about the wholesale replaying of quotes without any particular reference to anything. I kind of regret making the point anyway since I didn't mean it to reflect on Pat which it looks in retrospect. Sorry! The word rubbish was also wrong but I couldn't think of a better one at the time. Me and my big mouth - this was one post the hackers could have taken!

[Cec]

For what it's worth I've had a similar view to em as to why some posts need to repeat lengthy quotations which can be easily read by scrolling up. I've never been game enough to say anything - well, at least up to now.

There probably has been the odd occasion when I've quoted half a dozen lines or so from a lengthy post but only to clarify what I wanted to respond to.

Cec

[MCC]

... The word rubbish was also wrong but I couldn't think of a better one at the time.

I can empathize with Em here, knowing that the 'word' you want is somewhere within that mass of grey matter but it will not come to you.
So you try to think of a similar word and what comes to mind is not quite what you mean, but you're stuck with it.

If you're stuck in future you could open Word, type in the word you want a synonym for, highlight it, click on Tools-Language-Thesaurus and in this case Nonsense and you come up with:

Drivel; Twaddle; Claptrap; Hogwash.


Or if you got a copy of Roget's thesaurus :

Scribble; Gibberish; Piffle; Bilge and a dozen others


MCC