Paul is right in suggesting "might" over "should". Here's an
alrernative I might use to designate the second part as a sort of
appositional explanation.
What a paradox: the internet, the very cutting edge of information
technology, is creating an anti-social society.
My other quarrel with the sentence is that it implies that technical
advances are inherently going to bring us together, which seems
questiionable. How about this as an alternative:
What a paradox: the internet, which was supposed to link us all
together, is creating an anti-social society.
I stole this use of the colon, by the way, from Annie Dillard. She uses
it often between two independent clauses when the second seems like an
appositional extension.
PAUL E. DONIGER wrote:
> I have two thoughts on this (amazing that my brain can fucntion so
> well, isn't it?):
>
> 1. If Bruce is right (and I think he is -- having thought the phrase,
> "What a paradox" was eliptical before I read his response), then 'a
> paradox' becoems s subject ccomplement for 'it'. Or, I guess, it makes
> it a subject (but iof the elided 'is' -- not the one in the clause
> about the Internet.
>
> 2. I think that Christine might have been better off to ask,
> "How might this be punctuated?" rather than "How should this be
> punctuated?" -- there are more possibilities than the two supplied.
>
> Paul
>
> Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Christine,
>
> It is hard to disagree with Herb. One little observation,
> however. I think something needs to be said about the possibility
> that "what" in an exclamative is a modifier of the article. I am
> more comfortable with the exclamative being a full NP. This would
> make "what a paradox" parallel to "many a paradox." The full
> form would be "What a paradox (it is)!" rather than "What (is) a
> paradox" (! for ?) or "What a paradox (is is)," which both seem
> vapid at best. (These last two involve the so-called headless
> relative, which I prefer to call the indefinite noun clause.)
>
> Bruce
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 8/5/2004 8:21:13 AM >>>
> Christine,
>
> I like your second version. The problem with the first is that it
> makes a difference what the subject of "is" is, to paraphrase a
> well-known Rhodes Scholar. Grammatically, the sujbect has to be
> "a paradox", and what's within commas is an appositive. However,
> "a paradox" is also the complement of "what" in an exclamatory
> sentence. Exclamations beginning with wh-words typically lack
> verbs, just "what" + NP. So "a paradox" is being asked to play to
> grammatical roles at once, something that doesn't usually work
> well. The reader is tempted to make "the Internet" the subject,
> but then the sentence becomes a comma splice.
>
> Herb
>
>
>
> Dear Group,
>
> How should this be punctuated?
>
> What a paradox, the Internet, the very cutting edge of
> communication
> technology, is creating an anti-social society.
>
> What a paradox! The Internet, the very cutting edge of
> communication
> technology, is creating an anti-social society.
>
> Christine Martin
>
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