Full stop may be the English language\u2019s most annoying term these days.<\/p>\n
For centuries, a period at the end of the sentence or the dropping of one\u2019s voice has signaled the same thing: the thought ends here. It\u2019s over. But today, many seem inclined to toss in the term \u201cfull stop\u201d at the conclusion of a sentence. As though the listener didn\u2019t quite understand what he or she was saying. I\u2019m even seeing the term in print.<\/p>\n
If the two words are supposed to be for emphasis, it might be more appropriate to say: \u201cIf you didn\u2019t get my meaning, let me restate it \u2026 this nonsense has to end now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine Shakespeare writing: \u201cTo be or not to be. That is the question. Full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m trying to remember the first time I heard the term. I think it was within the last two years that I noticed a dear friend\u2014a Brit\u2014had a particular fondness for it. It was quaint; part of his personality. Now that it has exploded in popularity, I am definitely over it<\/em>. (Another one of those sloppy terms that creeps into the English language.)<\/p>\n When I looked up the term \u201cfull stop\u201d on the Internet, it showed me a picture of a large period. Exactly, I thought. And then I remembered a time when people would say \u201cperiod\u201d at the end of a sentence. I suppose that was the precursor to \u201cfull stop.\u201d<\/p>\n I can still hear my fathering growling: \u201cYou are not<\/u> going to that party. Period.\u201d I didn\u2019t need to hear the word \u201cperiod\u201d to know that the discussion was over.<\/p>\n The search engine Bing explains that \u201cfull stop\u201d is sort of a younger cousin to \u201cat the end of the day,\u201d which began as a\u00a0Britishism\u2014to the annoyance of many in the UK\u2014and, of course, is now common here.\u201d<\/p>\n If the British were irritated, they should have done away with the term before it had a chance to travel across the pond to the U. S.<\/p>\n I say let\u2019s stop with the \u201cfull stop\u201d and move onto tackling the current propensity to misuse the pronoun I. I\u2019m not talking about anything having to do with gender, but the phrase \u201cyou and I.\u201d When the I follows a conjunction, such as \u201cwith,\u201d it is supposed to be \u201cme.\u201d As in, \u201cAre you going to town with Mary and me.\u201d Not, Mary and I.<\/p>\n I know it\u2019s not easy, but I think we should all try to get this one small thing right. Or should I say, correct? Then maybe we can move on to \u201chave went.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Full stop may be the English language\u2019s most annoying term these days. For centuries, a period at the end of the sentence or the dropping of one\u2019s voice has signaled the same thing: the thought ends here. It\u2019s over. But today, many seem inclined to toss in the term \u201cfull… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2345,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions\/2345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanhanafee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}