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From: Neil <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Punctuation error
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2018 10:23:41 -0500
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>


> On Sep 19, 2018, at 9:43 AM, Tom Lane <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> =?utf-8?q?PG_Doc_comments_form?= <[email protected]> writes:
>> This sentence should not use a semicolon: "Both the ADD TABLE and DROP TABLE
>> operations are transactional; so the table will start or stop replicating at
>> the correct snapshot once the transaction has committed."
> 
> That looks perfectly fine to me.  Moreover, there are a *lot* of places
> in the PG docs that we'd have to change if we got persnickety about this
> sort of thing.
> 
>> You can either
>> change it to a comma, or else leave out the "so" that follows the semicolon.
>> The text that follows a semicolon must be a complete sentence that stands on
>> its own.
> 
> I am unfamiliar with this grammar "rule", and vigorously dispute that
> anyone follows it in the real world.
> 
> 			regards, tom lane
> 

Seems Tom is correct for at least the last 100 years or so.  From Strunk & White, Elements of Style 1918, Rule 5 (available on-line). Not saying this is the definitive PG writing guide, but most of us in the US used it for college writing.

“Note that if the second clause is preceded by an adverb, such as accordingly, besides, so, then, therefore, or thus, and not by a conjunction, the semicolon is still required.”

“I had never been in the place before; so I had difficulty in finding my way about.”

Neil

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