"All the sentences I read are correct" would be a nice problem to have :-)

@DamkerngT. I did!

See you, Shahar!

*shrug* :-)

It's somewhat light on exposition.

I am a native speaker of English. Nonetheless, I talk a little bit funny.

Silly :-)

@Welling Me, I say so!

@Welling speaks

Hehe!

@DamkerngT. Oh, writing!

I have different goals. My goals aren't quite so big, though.

Let alone big comma big.

@DamkerngT. Ah, that's the impression I got from what you wrote :-)

@DamkerngT. I don't think you can use comma and semicolon like that. If you want to talk about them in general, I think you need to pluralize them.

You could use non-count comma if you made a cake shaped like a giant comma, and then gave someone a slice of comma to eat.

@Welling It's not clear to me what unborn is intended to mean in this context

That's fine, too. That's a count use.

So what I should have said is you can't use non-count comma in that way.

What?

It sounded like you were talking about commas, not about the word comma.

Well, you can only use comma like this if you're talking about the word, not about commas in general

So "the comma" and "comma" are quite different.

Then I don't think you can say "the comma"

In any case, your original sentence seems slightly hinky to me with comma

Because it didn't seem like you were talking about the word comma.

It seemed more like you were talking about commas (a comma, the comma, whatever)

I don't know, since I'm not sure what you meant anymore!

But it would also be odd (and ungrammatical) to say "I love reading because of fable."

The is a pragmatic signal to the listener that they can identify the referent of the so-marked NP, and in this case I cannot constrain it to a specific referent, which means the only option left for me to be able to identify it is taking it as referring to any fable, which means I must take it as a general reference = "the fable" = "fables in general" (what people refer to as the archetypical/prototypical usage)

"A fable" here would identify it as new information, not something I'm expected to identify

So I might reply by asking "Which fable was that?"

My understanding is that technically there is no generic fable. It's really just a non-specific reference to all fables.

Saying that it is a generic fable is a convenient simplification

Now that's specific, but it's specific to a fictional entity :-)

I think that it's somewhat idiosyncratic whether a demonym derived with -ese is taken as an adjective, or both an adjective and a noun, and also whether people consider a particular derivation with -ese to be offensive when used as a noun

I tried to come up with a general explanation once but I couldn't, so I decided instead that you'd just have to treat it on a case-by-case basis

It's probably safe to follow -ese with person like you suggest

@DamkerngT. I'm afraid I don't understand this sentence

I mean, grammatically it seems fine, but I don't understand the relationship between liking quotation marks and commas

Sometimes people call them "inverted commas"

@DamkerngT. a right font is unidiomatic, the right font is typically what people would say

It's true!

,

People seem to associate quotation marks with commas, but I never have. It's possibly because I grew up using computers without left or right quotes, only generic vertical quotes

I just got lost in a Google image search for commas, followed by snails :-)

Yes, she is

I think I have a bias toward trying to help Japanese speakers, but I don't know why

@DamkerngT. It sounds okay. I think :-)

Ahh, I see the question now

I think I might say "It was the first time I'd seen them in twenty years" or "I hadn't seen them in twenty years" or "It'd been a long time since I'd last seen them"

I answered the question about inversion, too

Fun!

Oh, StoneyB's answer is different!

I'm not planning on changing my answer though--I think there's a difference between positive and negative fronted phrases when it comes to inversion

(Of course, there are other reasons inversion is used besides just fronted negatives!)

I tried to sum up my thoughts in a comment!

But sadly, now I am out of energy for Englishing for the day.

@AwalGarg Wishful thinking?

I think that if you ease off on the capital letters a bit, it'll look a bit more polished.

@AwalGarg Instead of "let it be so", I would write "leave it like that"

That one looks okay.

@AwalGarg It's not clear to me what "Description (should have been) closed" means

So, "My description" / "This description"?

You can add off-topic.

My screen is full of highlighted "@snailboat"s!

@AwalGarg Hooray! You have successfully been silly.

@AwalGarg Oh, my apologies. You have successfully been deadly serious!

@AwalGarg The comma is fine. It was also fine without the comma. It's optional.

No, the other kind of optional.

@AwalGarg That was when I was trying to understand what your message meant.

I understand now.

@AwalGarg No, it wasn't clear to me. But I didn't know it was going to appear on your "about me" page. (I don't know whether I would have understood in that context or not.)

I thought "This description" might have been clearer

The diamond is a nice touch.

Oh, -∞！

I noticed recently that I can type ∞ on here, but not on my phone. At least, I don't know how to do it on my phone.

@DamkerngT. You probably already realize this, but once upon a time can't normally be followed by ago :-)

@DamkerngT. doesn't

I think ZZ should have a native ŋ-n contrast

Same thing in English.

Yes, wu with a dipping tone

But in Middle Chinese, it had an initial ŋ

@SantiSantichaivekin "Good evening!"

@DamkerngT. Because Teochew preserves the initial velar nasal from Middle Chinese