not one but two
H Gilmer
"The man owns not one but two rare gold-plated widgets."
How should I punctuate the above? No commas? Commas surrounding "but
"two"? One comma before "but"?
I'd *say* it with just the one pause, before "but", but pauses are a
terrible guide for comma placement. The single comma strikes me as
very wrong. No commas at all doesn't seem right, either, but neither
does putting a comma between "two" and "rare gold-plated widgets".
Hg
Stan Brown
gil...@uts.cc.utexas.edu (H Gilmer) skrev i meddelelsen
<6i8e9r$bji$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>:
>"The man owns not one but two rare gold-plated widgets."
>
>How should I punctuate the above?
I would punctuate it exactly as you did.
(There's a small grammatical problem: "widgets" is plural yet is modified
by "one" as well as "two". That's okay in speech, but in formal writing
you'd want to rephrase it.)
--
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Donna Richoux
H Gilmer <gil...@uts.cc.utexas.edu> wrote:
> "The man owns not one but two rare gold-plated widgets."
>
> How should I punctuate the above? No commas? Commas surrounding "but
> "two"? One comma before "but"?
>
> I'd *say* it with just the one pause, before "but", but pauses are a
> terrible guide for comma placement. The single comma strikes me as
> very wrong. No commas at all doesn't seem right, either, but neither
> does putting a comma between "two" and "rare gold-plated widgets".
The way I see it, it is the "not one" that interrupts the flow of the
sentence.
"The man owns, not one, but two rare gold-plated widgets."
I'm not completely happy with that either.
Best --- Donna Richoux
Podibanda Kuruppu
Neither am I. How about:
"The man owns, not one, but two, rare gold-plated widgets."?
By the way, the period and the question mark here raise another
question - should they both be present? (Before folks can accuse me
of not researching this question, let me head for the nearest
Barnes & Noble!)
/Podi
LLThrasher
Commas are used to set off contrasting elements which are known as
antithetical elements. Antithetical elements usually start with the
word not. When the antithetical elements are parenthetical in nature
(omitting them leaves a complete sentence); they are set off by commas:
Judy married Paul, not Pete.
Mary, not Sharon, is to blame.
Leave out the antithetical elements and you have two correct sentences:
Judy married Paul; Mary is to blame.
When antithetical elements are not parenthetical (that is, they are an
essential part of the sentence's syntax; omitting them leaves a sentence
that is either ungrammatical or doesn't mean what you want it to) they
are not set off by commas:
Judy married not for love but for money.
He acted not so much out of greed as out of spite.
Without the antithetical element the sentences are not right: Judy
married but for money; He acted as out of spite.
The man owns not one but two rare gold-plated widgets.
The antithetical element is "not one". It isn't parenthetical because
if you left it out, you'd have "the man owns but two rare gold-plated
widgets," which is not what you meant. Therefore, the antithetical
element is an essential part of the sentence's structure and no commas
should be used.
Aren't you glad you have me?
Linda Thrasher, author of:
Cat's-Paw, Inc.
Charlie's Bones
Dogsbody, Inc. (Forthcoming 1999)
Commas are used to set off contrasting elements which are known as
antithetical elements. Antithetical elements usually start with the
word not. When the antithetical elements are parenthetical in nature
(omitting them leaves a complete sentence); they are set off by commas:
Judy married Paul, not Pete.
Mary, not Sharon, is to blame.
When antithetical elements are not parenthetical (that is, they are an
essential part of the sentence's syntax; omitting them leaves a strange
sentence) they are not set off by commas:
Judy married not for love but for money.
He acted not so much out of greed as out of spite.
The man owns not one but two rare gold-plated widgets.
Antithetical element is "not one". It isn't parenthetical because if
you left it out, you'd have "the man owns but two rare gold-plated
widgets," which is not what you meant. Therefore, the antithetical
element is an essential part of the sentence's structure and no commas
are needed.
Aren't you glad you have me?
Linda Thrasher, author of:
Cat's-Paw, Inc.
Charlie's Bones
Dogsbody, Inc. (Forthcoming 1999)
Donna Richoux
LLThrasher <thra...@teleport.com> wrote:
[snip excellent explanation]
> The man owns not one but two rare gold-plated widgets.
>
> The antithetical element is "not one". It isn't parenthetical because
> if you left it out, you'd have "the man owns but two rare gold-plated
> widgets," which is not what you meant. Therefore, the antithetical
> element is an essential part of the sentence's structure and no commas
> should be used.
>
> Aren't you glad you have me?
Why, yes. Thank you for an example of prescriptivism at its best --
there was a genuine question, you knew a convincing rule, you explained
it well.
Gratefully --- Donna Richoux
Geoff Butler
Podibanda Kuruppu <po...@seegiri.nsd.3com.com> writes:
>tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) writes:
>>
>> H Gilmer <gil...@uts.cc.utexas.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm not completely happy with that either.
>
>Neither am I. How about:
>
>"The man owns, not one, but two, rare gold-plated widgets."?
The basic statement is "the man owns two rare gold-plated widgets",
so it is immediately obvious that the parenthetical element, which can
be removed without changing the sense, is "not one but". Parenthetical
elements are set off by commas, so the correct punctuation is undeniably
The man owns, not one but, two rare gold-plated widgets.
-ler
Mark Barton
In article <yENmhFAy...@gbutler.demon.co.uk>, Geoff Butler
<ge...@gbutler.demon.LoseThisBit.co.uk> wrote:
I venture to deny it. Putting a comma after "but" doesn't work at all for
me. It doesn't seem to me to be a case of parenthesis but of contrast
between two concepts of the same type. "But" is acting as a coordinating
conjunction between two determiners ("one" and "two").
More generally, I don't think this is a problem with just one right
answer. The no-comma version seems fine to me provided you don't want to
emphasise the contrast very much. Conversely, the three-comma version
could be appropriate if you really wanted to underline the point. Of the
possibilities with two commas I prefer
"The man owns not one, but two, rare gold-plated widgets."
Cheers,
Mark B.
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a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Mon, 04 May 1998 19:19:58 -0700,
mba...@icrr.no.u-tokyo.spam.ac.jp (Mark Barton) wrote:
>"The man owns not one, but two, rare gold-plated widgets."
>
Why not be Churchillian about it and leave the wretched commas
out? They are not needed.
Lars Eighner
In our last episode <35552123...@news.hal-pc.org>,
the lovely and talented dcran...@hal-pc.org (Dave Crane)
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
|save ink by leaving out commas. Prepositional phrases are not separated from
|the rest of the sentence. I found at least three examples in the first essay.
This is a non sequitur. Even in rigorously close punctuation there is
reason prepositional phrases in general should be set off with commas.
|Is this a TIME trend that we need to resist or have things gone to hell
|everywhere?
Open style is widely used and encouraged.
--
Lars Eighner 700 Hearn #101 Austin TX 78703 eig...@io.com
(512) 474-1920 (FAX answers 6th ring) http://www.io.com/%7Eeighner.html
Please visit my web bookstore: http://www.io.com/%7Eeighner/bookstor.html
* I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once.
Dave Crane
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
>On Mon, 04 May 1998 19:19:58 -0700,
>mba...@icrr.no.u-tokyo.spam.ac.jp (Mark Barton) wrote:
>
>>"The man owns not one, but two, rare gold-plated widgets."
>>
>Why not be Churchillian about it and leave the wretched commas
>out? They are not needed.
The current issue of TIME magazine (money on the cover) seems to be trying to
save ink by leaving out commas. Prepositional phrases are not separated from
the rest of the sentence. I found at least three examples in the first essay.
Is this a TIME trend that we need to resist or have things gone to hell
everywhere?
a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca
On Sat, 09 May 1998 23:44:41 -0500, eig...@io.com (Lars Eighner)
wrote:
> dcran...@hal-pc.org (Dave Crane)wrote:
>|a1a5...@bc.sympatico.ca wrote:
>|>mba...@icrr.no.u-tokyo.spam.ac.jp (Mark Barton) wrote:
>|>
>|>>"The man owns not one, but two, rare gold-plated widgets."
>|>>
>|>Why not be Churchillian about it and leave the wretched commas
>|>out? They are not needed.
>|
>|The current issue of TIME magazine (money on the cover) seems to be trying to
>|save ink by leaving out commas. Prepositional phrases are not separated from
>|the rest of the sentence. I found at least three examples in the first essay.
>
>This is a non sequitur. Even in rigorously close punctuation there is
>reason prepositional phrases in general should be set off with commas.
>
>|Is this a TIME trend that we need to resist or have things gone to hell
>|everywhere?
>
>Open style is widely used and encouraged.
>
So is intelligent proof-reading: your second sentence is a joke.
And "rigorously close" for punctuation! Style, laddie, style!
If you mean "rigidly followed rules" say so.
Lars Eighner
In our last episode <35552123...@news.hal-pc.org>,
the lovely and talented dcran...@hal-pc.org (Dave Crane)
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
|>
|>>"The man owns not one, but two, rare gold-plated widgets."
|>>
|>Why not be Churchillian about it and leave the wretched commas
|>out? They are not needed.
|
|The current issue of TIME magazine (money on the cover) seems to be trying to
|save ink by leaving out commas. Prepositional phrases are not separated from
|the rest of the sentence. I found at least three examples in the first essay.
This is a non sequitur. Even in rigorously close punctuation there is no
reason prepositional phrases in general should be set off with commas.
|Is this a TIME trend that we need to resist or have things gone to hell
|everywhere?
Open style is widely used and encouraged.
Sandra
Rule-citing LLThrasher, for example, suggested a reading where "not one" would be considered an independent element, either parenthetical or essential, then determined it would indeed be essential and so would require no commas.
Others have suggested that, rather than being either parenthetical or essential elements, "not one" and "but two" are both modifiers of the noun "rare gold-plated widgets", and as both modify their noun to the same degree, they must be separated by a single comma to set them apart (unlike "rare" and "gold-plated", which require no comma between them because they modify "widgets" to different degrees).
I agree this particular sentence a difficult case because, as H Gilmer earlier pointed out, the number agreement with "widgets" differs between "one" and "two". So in order to be strictly correct, you might need an expanded sentence looking something like this: "The man owns not one rare gold-plated widget, but two rare gold-plated widgets."
I'm proposing a single comma in that expanded sentence because the "but two..." phrase seems to me to be a clarifying phrase akin to an appositive--it reflects back on the "not one..." phrase, effectively re-defining it. (That is, "two..." could be equally substituted for "not one..."; both mean the same thing. The "but" in this case is just a conjunction which disappears if the sentence is split apart, hence the reason for the "'two' is equal to 'not one'" equation rather than a "'but two' is equal to 'not one'" equation.)
As Lars Eighner also stated, though, "open style" seems to be in strong use these days (for better or worse), so totally omitting the comma and leaving the meaning up to context would also be acceptable, I think.
As for the original, shorter sentence, I'm going to opt not to bother about the number agreement at all, because the only way to fix the number agreement problem would be to restructure the sentence entirely (as I did above, for example), but all we're really wondering is how best to punctuate this not-this-but-that construction. So since that's out of the way, in keeping with the pseudo-appositive spirit of my earlier example, my suggestion is this: "The man owns not one, but two, gold-plated widgets."
And there I conclude.
However, if you want to keep playing with the sentence to see if you can come up with other arguments for various punctuation strategies, I have one bit of food for thought that I want to just throw out there: reverse the placement of the "one" and "two" phrases. Try this variation, for example: "The man owns two--not one--gold-plated widgets."
Happy editing. ;)
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Well, it's certainly been well-illustrated so far that, even with a clear r
> ule cited, people will still find ways to argue and disagree about "correct
If there is anything worth discussing in this great pile of verbiage
(527 words according to my text editor, but that's probably an
overestimate as it doesn't wrap properly), could someone identify it?
> --
athel
Peter T. Daniels
The original sentence, with no commas, was just fine.
Tony Cooper
I'm not going to scroll around to find it.
If the Subject is an indicator, she's asking about "Not one but two"
vs "Not one, but two".
Who knows, though?
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL
braveint...@gmail.com
> If there is anything worth discussing in this great pile of verbiage
> (527 words according to my text editor, but that's probably an
> overestimate as it doesn't wrap properly), could someone identify it?
>
> > --
> athel
philip...@gmail.com
The man owns not one rare gold-plated widget but two.
It takes in consideration that awkward pluralization of widget in the original.