User: Polynova

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Contents

1 About Polynova 2 News 3 Subjects of interest 4 Articles to write 5 Stubs in need of expanding 6 Pictures needed 7 Pet peeves 7.1 Hyphens & dashes 7.2 Commas in dates

About Polynova

• Resident of Washington, DC.
• Graduate of The Pingry School and the University of Arizona with a bachelor's degree in psychology, minor in philosophy.
• Fan of the New Jersey Devils and D.C. United.
• Works in cable television.

News

My recent new article, American Art Museum, has made the "Did You Know..." section of the main page. I'm kvelling.

Subjects of interest

• Professional sports
  • Soccer: D.C. United of Major League Soccer
  • Ice Hockey: New Jersey Devils
  • Chess
• Linguistics: Esperanto, Spanish language
• Literature: Franz Kafka; W. Somerset Maugham, esp. his short stories and novel Of Human Bondage; Vladimir Nabokov, especially his novel Pale Fire; Ayn Rand, esp. The Fountainhead and her philosophical writings; Philip Roth
• Numismatics
• Politics of the United States: Libertarianism
• Geopolitics: The Middle East, Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Zionism, Kemal Atatürk, The European Union
• Geography: Washington, DC, New Jersey, American rivers
• Personal finance and investing
• Vexillology (the study of flags)

Articles to write

Victoria Abril - Columbia Heights, Washington, DC - John Harkes - The Pingry School - City Museum of Washington, DC - 1968 riots - McMillan Commission - Aharon Appelfeld - Diagramming sentences - International Spy Museum - hamantashen - Bobby Holik - African-American Civil War Memorial - National Museum of American Art - The Phillips Collection - The Ghost Writer - Hakoah Vienna - Meridian Hill Park - Diner (movie) - Theodore Roosevelt Island - The Newark Museum - National Theatre (Washington, DC) - Manhattan Murder Mystery - National Museum of Women in the Arts

Stubs in need of expanding

A Bend in the River ~ Of Human Bondage ~ National Building Museum ~ Hakoah Vienna

Pictures needed

MLS Cup | Columbia Heights, Washington, DC | International Spy Museum | K Street | Theodore Roosevelt Island, in particular the majestic statue of TR in the island's memorial | Robert F. Kennedy Stadium

Pet peeves

Hyphens & dashes

The hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (—) have 3 seperate functions.

• Use the hyphen to hyphenate compound words.

ex. The Boston Redsox are five-time losers in the World Series.

ex. Voltaire is the pen name of François-Marie Arouet.

• Use the en dash to connect numbers indicating a range such as two dates.

ex. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772–July 25, 1834).

ex. Psalms 18:26–29.

• Use the em dash to indicate a parenthetical break in the thought of a sentence, especially those that require internal commas.

ex. New Jersey's institutions of higher learning—such as Princeton, Rutgers, and Seton Hall, to name a few—have made it an attractive location for many Fortune 500 companies.

It may seem like a quibble but the appropriate punctuation can make your writing much clearer.

To create the en dash, type: –
To create the em dash, type: —
The hyphen is just the regular "-" next to the zero on your keyboard.

See: Dash & Hyphen.

Commas in dates

We all know that it is standard American style to write dates thusly:

March 3, 1971

with a comma between the date and the year. The reason should be obvious. Separating the two numbers avoids ambiguity.

Unfortunately, the following is common:

March, 1971

This is wrong. That comma is completely unnecessary. This is cleaner, simpler, and correct:

March 1971