Comma and Hyphen Police or why I hate crafting

Rhyse

So on top of being dyslexic, I struggle with the seeming obsession with the approver's overs commas and hyphens. While there are plenty of times commas are required and same with hyphens there are just as many times where they are optional. four poster bed or four-poster bed are both correct but the design police get fixated on the hyphens. Other times they just don't read things right A bright red strawberry is not A bright, red strawberry the comma changes the meaning and both are grammatically correct. Frankly, in both cases, the hyphens and commas do not impact anyone's understanding of the game or the item in question. BTW in both cases, Grammarly flags either as correct. Can someone please inject a little sanity into this process so that the many subjective things such as commas and hyphens don't become the issue. Focus on spelling, appropriate content, good basic grammar. But if you drop the design into Grammarly or other reputable grammar checker and it shows either is acceptable leave it the way the designer wrote it, approve it and move on.

Wyll

I feel as long as there aren't glaring grammatical errors and any normal person reading the design should understand it, then it should pass.

I don't know what the approval process is like now, but I remember when I first got into crafting it was frustrating to have designs rejected for stupid **** like this and then having to wait days and days again to get it down the approval queue. But, I feel you may be fighting a losing battle here, because a few of us brought it up years ago and nothing was ever changed.

Icarius

It should be 'bright-red', not 'bright red' or 'bright, red'. If you want to denote the brighter color of red? Specificity is necessary to remove ambiguity.

Kalynthari

Grammarly isn't always correct either, though.

Weird as it might look, Icarius is indeed correct when it comes to the given example. It's less about 'impacting understanding of it' and moreso about being actually grammatically correct like the guidelines ask for. If you have doubts, ask someone who's gotten designs consistently approved to look over yours before submitting it. You're gonna have more success than trusting Grammarly to follow the guidelines IRE have set.

Eta: Four poster bed is also not correct. Four-poster is the only correct one. You could have found that in literally 2 seconds of Google. Also approvers, not approver's. Apostrophes aren't used to show plural.

Jalaras

This game is FAR from perfect and I agree with Wyll and Rhyse on this. It shouldn't have to be picture perfect English to approve something of this nature as long as it's not obvious or glaring of errors to the general public. At least that's how I'm reading this. I estimate that ninety percent of us don't/won't even care too deeply on each word describing an item. Just give us something decent to use and we can generally use our imagination of what is being described without being picture perfect and crisp. Albeit yes, look to those who get their designs approved more often than not, but it is just not that crucial to be doing all that.

Gjarrus

You don't *have* to withdraw/resubmit if you get one rejection (population problems aside, not sure what the number of approvers is like lately). You can comment and see if other approvers agree or disagree before you do. If you're sure you're right and don't want to resubmit, you can escalate it.

I can't agree on the 'glaring' part of the errors being a necessity, but incorrect rejections are understandably infuriating. Some people also really struggle to understand the difference between style 'problems' and grammar errors. 'Four-poster' is conventionally hyphenated, but there's zero ambiguity with or without. Wiktionary can get out of here with 'fourposter' though. If someone tried to tell me to hyphenate 'bright red', I'd laugh.

On the plus side, you don't have to buy a clan to get 1 private submission a year or spend ~2c worth of gold after a 300c buyin just to submit the design.

Icarius

There's already an enormous amount of incorrect grammar, typos and the like around Imperian. Personally I'd rather it not get any worse. If that means being strict about approvals so be it. I can sympathise with incorrect rejections though.

Bright-red is hyphenated because bright is a modifier of the colour red, and not the state of the object itself. i.e the object is not bright in and of itself, it is the colour. Four-poster is hyphenated because poster in that context is an archaism and it is now the name of the bed, 'poster' is not used as a descriptor in modern English.

The accuracy of grammar and spelling in a text game like Imperian is one of the direct measures of its quality. The worse it gets the worse it reflects on Imperian as a professional product and a high quality roleplay environment.

Gjarrus

You don't have to hyphenate every adverb, wow. This is kinda what I was talking about. Like, even if it was a stop light - "bright, red" and "bright red" both work.

Cordilia

Icarius said:

There's already an enormous amount of incorrect grammar, typos and the like around Imperian. Personally I'd rather it not get any worse. If that means being strict about approvals so be it. I can sympathise with incorrect rejections though.

Bright-red is hyphenated because bright is a modifier of the colour red, and not the state of the object itself. i.e the object is not bright in and of itself, it is the colour. 

These are all very basic grammar issues that get rejected for a reason. You should only hyphenate compound adjectives preceding nouns and you should only hyphenate verbs that are modified by adjectives.

So in this particular instance, 'bright-red' makes no sense since 'red' is a noun and 'bright' is a single adjective. All of these things can be corrected with a simple search before submitting designs. If you're not 100% sure about something, just look it up. It'll speed up your wait time in the queue, it'll make everyone's lives easier to not have to be a manual Grammarly for simple mistakes, so just Google it yawl. Or have someone proofread your stuff before submitting. (I offer this to everyone who needs it btw, but only if you pay me in diamonds.)

Wyll

Based on this thread, I can tell who is an in-game(fight me on this hypen) approver.

Kalynthari

Wyll said:

Based on this thread, I can tell who is an in-game(fight me on this hypen) approver.

Why? Your hyphen usage was correct.
I will, however, fight you on misspelling 'hyphen' though.

By the way, in the instance described bright-red does indeed make sense, and is also the only correct way. You're using bright-red to describe colour, not as two different descriptors of what the balloon is.

I'm not an approver; I haven't played this game since February. I just know how to use proper grammar for things. People really don't know how to properly proofread their stuff, then get mad when it gets rejected. If you're wanting stuff to be approved as an item to be used in game, at least make the effort to ensure that it follows the crafting guidelines. As for correct hyphens, here you go.

Cordilia

Icarius said:

The accuracy of grammar and spelling in a text game like Imperian is one of the direct measures of its quality. The worse it gets the worse it reflects on Imperian as a professional product and a high quality roleplay environment.

I have to say I also kind of agree with this sentiment and I think we should keep holding crafting to a high standard. The quality of items designed was definitely higher when there were more of the 'bigger' designers around that have since retired. I don't think the overall quality of designs should drop to what's "acceptable" simply due to a lower population.

I also made a mistake in saying 'red' was a noun and meant to say it is not a noun (proofreading matters ) That said, I've definitely fought crafters over silly rejections of my own designs and assumptions made about the origin of certain things I mention or where I drew my 'inspiration' from.

Just because someone's design reminds you of something else, it doesn't mean it's literally designed in the likeness of that thing it reminds you of. I find those rejections way more annoying than ones for hyphens or commas because they're so subjective. 

Altheia

Gjarrus said:

You don't have to hyphenate every adverb, wow. This is kinda what I was talking about. Like, even if it was a stop light - "bright, red" and "bright red" both work.

This is incorrect.

bright red and bright, red work for a stoplight because a stoplight is both. It is both bright and red, and bright red. A strawberry however, as used in the context the OP had it, is not bright. Unless, for some ungodly reason, you've made your strawberry out of light. The colour of the berry is a red, that is bright (or vibrant). Therefore, bright red does not work.

Edit :For typo as I am bad at life.

Rokas

A "bright, red strawberry" is a strawberry that is bright and red (both 'bright' and 'red' are adjectives modifying 'strawberry') whereas a "bright red strawberry" is a strawberry that is bright red ('bright' is acting as an adverb modifying 'red').

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/HyphensEnDashesEmDashes/faq0075.html

Gjarrus

I didn't read the op too closely >.> I just saw the bright red 'object' bit, not the strawberry, or I'd not have brought up the stoplight at all

But yeah, that eliminates the ambiguity argument there unless you think it's a radioactive strawberry.

Altheia

Given that the OP himself stated that changing it to read 'a bright, red strawberry' would change the meaning of the item in question, I'm going to say that it's not in fact a strawberry that is both bright and red. So, use your hyphen.

This is a text game. If you don't want to be grammatically correct, then stick to doing things that aren't going to be seen by others.

@Rhyse Given your particular case, I can understand your frustration but English is a silly language. If you don't wanna go through a bunch of approval rejections cause you disagree with the necessity of certain grammatical nuances, then I'd advise finding a decent text reviewer somewhere online. Make sure your parameters match the crafting guidelines, and thank your lucky stars you're not trying to design in Achaea

Altheia

Gjarrus said:

I didn't read the op too closely >.> I just saw the bright red 'object' bit, not the strawberry, or I'd not have brought up the stoplight at all

But yeah, that eliminates the ambiguity argument there unless you think it's a radioactive strawberry.

You're a bright-red object.

Gjarrus

while true send("You don't have to hyphenate that.") end

Quote@CMS

Consider too that when the meanings of two versions (“dark blue tie” and “dark-blue tie”) are so close as to be indistinguishable, it might not be worth your time to worry about it.

Dariella

This entire thread is hilarious. 

An awful lot of you are showing a loose affiliation with actual grammar rules.

I'd also consider taking a step back on the hyphen whip-cracking for a game with a population smaller than your average 7th-grade classroom. If you want people to improve their writing game, create in-game resources to help people learn and improve. Don't sideline judge. Especially if your own understanding is questionable. 

The list of things ruining Imperian is long. Hyphens aren't even in the top hundred.

Signed, 

A person who gets paid to write

Cordilia

Dariella said:

This entire thread is hilarious. 

An awful lot of you are showing a loose affiliation with actual grammar rules.

I'd also consider taking a step back on the hyphen whip-cracking for a game with a population smaller than your average 7th-grade classroom. If you want people to improve their writing game, create in-game resources to help people learn and improve. Don't sideline judge. Especially if your own understanding is questionable. 

The list of things ruining Imperian is long. Hyphens aren't even in the top hundred.

Signed, 

A person who gets paid to write

Damn girl, I also get paid to write but I don't think it's a job that merits being self-righteous about it. Grammar is tricky and it's not shameful to make mistakes. But it is shameful to be obstinate and refuse to admit you made a mistake instead of just correcting it.

I also don't think it's up to IRE or whoever contributes to crafting rules to create grammar guides for people who are supposed to know how to write when they get into a tradeskill, or use it to practice their writing. There are thousands of online resources to choose from and I would think it's such a waste of admin time to spend time creating scrolls to teach people elementary-level English when basically nobody reads the crafting scrolls and tips as is (there would be less mistakes submitted if people would read them imo).

Rhyse

I think it's funny to see those peeps who are likely in game approvers. Sorry anyone that thinks four-poster is required vs. four poster is wrong according to a Ph.D. in English either is acceptable.  Also bright red strawberry does not require a hyphen to be correct (though it can optionally use one) since bright is describing red. A comma would be required if I wished to indicate the strawberry was both bright and red. The fact is hyphens and commas are many time optional and the approvers are treating them as required.  If they want to add a comment in the approval to the effect that for clarity you might want a hyphen fine. Anyone that tells me reading A four poster bed vs A four-poster bed impacts the quality or enjoyment of Imperian is fighting the wrong fight with me and probably the majority of the players. 

Altheia

Disagree.

An adjective is a word that describes something. In this case, you have two adjectives - 'bright' and 'red'. When combining adjectives in this way, the general rule of thumb is 'Can you put the word and between the two adjectives and still have a comfortable, logical sounding object? So 'A bright and red strawberry'. Would anyone ever say this? 'Can you please give me a bright and red strawberry?' No. No they wouldn't. So we use a hyphen. Because a hyphen means your object actually makes sense.

I'm not an approver in Imperian, but in all honesty, if you don't think grammar matters, and you're not going to fix mistakes you make when countless people point out the logic in fixing said mistakes, then that sounds like a you problem.

Also @Dariella a lot of people get paid to write, doesn't make them good at it. Countless 'authors' can attest to that.

Rokas

Altheia said:

Disagree.

An adjective is a word that describes something. In this case, you have two adjectives - 'bright' and 'red'. When combining adjectives in this way, the general rule of thumb is 'Can you put the word and between the two adjectives and still have a comfortable, logical sounding object? So 'A bright and red strawberry'. Would anyone ever say this? 'Can you please give me a bright and red strawberry?' No. No they wouldn't. So we use a hyphen. Because a hyphen means your object actually makes sense.

Uh, what? A comma indicates that both adjectives are modifying a noun whereas a hyphen creates a compound adjective, a singular concept, that is modifying the noun. There's nothing wrong with someone saying a "bright and red strawberry." It might be odd stylistically, but it certainly isn't ungrammatical.

Gjarrus

Bright            Adverb modifying red.
Red               Adjective modifying strawberry.
Strawberry    Noun.

Mathiaus

It's an interesting thing to me that we have all these 'rules' on written language that, at its core, is made up.

I wonder how written language will look in another century, and what we'll deem right and wrong.

Wyll

Kalynthari said:

Wyll said:

Based on this thread, I can tell who is an in-game(fight me on this hypen) approver.

Why? Your hyphen usage was correct.
I will, however, fight you on misspelling 'hyphen' though.

By the way, in the instance described bright-red does indeed make sense, and is also the only correct way. You're using bright-red to describe colour, not as two different descriptors of what the balloon is.

I'm not an approver; I haven't played this game since February. I just know how to use proper grammar for things. People really don't know how to properly proofread their stuff, then get mad when it gets rejected. If you're wanting stuff to be approved as an item to be used in game, at least make the effort to ensure that it follows the crafting guidelines. As for correct hyphens, here you go.

Yeah, I don't exactly proofread my shitposts.

Altheia

Rokas said:

Altheia said:

Disagree.

An adjective is a word that describes something. In this case, you have two adjectives - 'bright' and 'red'. When combining adjectives in this way, the general rule of thumb is 'Can you put the word and between the two adjectives and still have a comfortable, logical sounding object? So 'A bright and red strawberry'. Would anyone ever say this? 'Can you please give me a bright and red strawberry?' No. No they wouldn't. So we use a hyphen. Because a hyphen means your object actually makes sense.

Uh, what? A comma indicates that both adjectives are modifying a noun whereas a hyphen creates a compound adjective, a singular concept, that is modifying the noun. There's nothing wrong with someone saying a "bright and red strawberry." It might be odd stylistically, but it certainly isn't ungrammatical.

Are you not reading what the OP writes? He said he doesn't want to use a comma because that would change his intended meaning. So, I'm not discussing commas. 

Edit: Also, I never said it wasn't grammatical to say 'a bright and red strawberry'. I just said no one would actually ever say that.

Rhyse

Altheia said:

Disagree.

An adjective is a word that describes something. In this case, you have two adjectives - 'bright' and 'red'. When combining adjectives in this way, the general rule of thumb is 'Can you put the word and between the two adjectives and still have a comfortable, logical sounding object? So 'A bright and red strawberry'. Would anyone ever say this? 'Can you please give me a bright and red strawberry?' No. No they wouldn't. So we use a hyphen. Because a hyphen means your object actually makes sense.

I'm not an approver in Imperian, but in all honesty, if you don't think grammar matters, and you're not going to fix mistakes you make when countless people point out the logic in fixing said mistakes, then that sounds like a you problem.

Also @Dariella a lot of people get paid to write, doesn't make them good at it. Countless 'authors' can attest to that.

Again they aren't mistakes four poster bed is just as correct as four-poster and bright red strawberry is correct as well no hyphen needed in the first on and no comma needed in the second one. These are just the two most recent examples of comma/hyphen-happy approvers. I'm happy to fix my many issues that are real issues, spelling, spacing, real comma/hyphens or other grammar issues etc..

Lartus

@Altheia got off her corn ship again.

Altheia

Rhyse said:

Altheia said:

Disagree.

An adjective is a word that describes something. In this case, you have two adjectives - 'bright' and 'red'. When combining adjectives in this way, the general rule of thumb is 'Can you put the word and between the two adjectives and still have a comfortable, logical sounding object? So 'A bright and red strawberry'. Would anyone ever say this? 'Can you please give me a bright and red strawberry?' No. No they wouldn't. So we use a hyphen. Because a hyphen means your object actually makes sense.

I'm not an approver in Imperian, but in all honesty, if you don't think grammar matters, and you're not going to fix mistakes you make when countless people point out the logic in fixing said mistakes, then that sounds like a you problem.

Also @Dariella a lot of people get paid to write, doesn't make them good at it. Countless 'authors' can attest to that.

Again they aren't mistakes four poster bed is just as correct as four-poster and bright red strawberry is correct as well no hyphen needed in the first on and no comma needed in the second one. These are just the two most recent examples of comma/hyphen-happy approvers. I'm happy to fix my many issues that are real issues, spelling, spacing, real comma/hyphens or other grammar issues etc..

I won't disagree on the strawberry part, because the comma isn't necessary and does indeed change the meaning you want.

I can't agree on a four-poster bed though, simply because you'd be hard pressed to find a reputable source that says it's correct without. 

But you do you man. If you think you can get by the approvers, then just keep submitting it, adding in a note that you don't think the hyphen is necessary.

Altheia

@Lartus You be quiet.