User talk:Bufftractor53

John Mayer edits - "Sophomore"

Hey mate, I noticed you've been converting the word "sophomore" to "second" in many pages. I'm reverting all of these as the term "sophomore" is misused in these cases. The term actually refers to a "second year". In albums released by an artist in their "second year" this would be correct. You've better off avoiding using jargon, as the term is, and substituting for standard english (not simple english, though nor jargon). Keep the middle ground, basically. Otherwise, your edits are constrructive, but this is a matter that was discussed a long time ago where the consenses, based on the word's actual meaning, was to use the term "second" instead of "sophomore". --linca linca 06:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Well, that's weird, 'cause I have heard it used a lot in that case...I don't think it is jargon, though. Where was this decided? This is so strange.

What do you mean by, "In albums released by an artist in their 'second year', this would be correct."? Do you mean that the word is used when the artist is working on music their second year of being an artist? That is confusing! Bufftractor53 04:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bufftractor, this is not my fight, but I did want to clarify what is going on a little so you won't feel like you're going crazy. The word sophomore doesn't mean second year, it means second - period. Sometimes this applies to a second year of study, a horse that is over three years old (thus ready for its second season of racing) or, as you were using it, a second album. Here's the rub: We in the US (argurably North America) are pretty much the only people that use that word, and it confuses the heck out of everybody else. So recently, a movement has sprung up at Wikipedia (mostly courtesy of the British) to replace every instance of the word sophomore with second. Personally, I don't care. Alternately, some wikilink the word, so that those who are unfamiliar with it can quickly check its meaning. I personally think that's even better, since there are boatloads of words I (and others) don't know, but I can't replace them all with words I do know...Anyway, that's the story. Tootles.--Esprit15d 12:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Editing

Thanks for being such a devoted editor to the John Mayer articles. I hope to make this a featured topic someday, although we're a long way off at the moment. However, I noticed one error you consistently make—in your use of commas. You often add them where they don't belong, for example, after reference tags, before quotation marks without any reason, and other instances. You might want to check the Manual of Style to get some ideas on correct comma usage. There are also some great online sources for this as well. If I find some, I'll let you know. Thanks again.--Esprit15d 13:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again. Just to clarify, I didn't revert any serial commas uses or appropriate pauses to bracket off dependent clauses. For example, in the example you gave:

His song, "Gravity", was featured on "House", in the episode, "Cain and Able."

all of the commas are incorrect. I see what you were going for with the commas around "Gravity". But Gravity should have only been sequestered by commas if it was proceeded by a pronoun, as in:

It, "Gravity", was featured on...

The commas would be needed in this case because the sentence would without commas have had two subjects and be incorrect. The commas, then, would indicate that the item in commas is only specifying what the preceding pronoun is. As your example reads now, "His song" really serves as an adjective, and thus "Gravity" needs no commas.

The other set of commas around "in the episode" are also wrong, since (a) their is no need to pause in the reading,(b) they do not contain a dependent clause that would break up the flow of the sentence, or (c) they aren't serial. There is an argument that the first comma doesn't hurt anything, but the second comma actually breaks up a complete prepositional phrase, so it should not be used.

In answer to your other question, I thought that was a great idea for you to wikilink plectrum since it isn't a very common word. But direct wikilinks are preferred over piped links, so I just directly linked to it, instead of piping "guitar pics" like you did. For the reader, it will make no difference.

Don't take this as criticism, since I've learned boatloads about grammar and a ton of other things in my two years at wikipedia. I just wanted to let you know. See you around!--Esprit15d 13:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Two really quick comments: I said the phrase "his song" (in this sentence) is an adjective — or even more accurately, a modifier phrase. Also, this is piping: [[Emotions (Mariah Carey song)|Emotions]]. That middle line is called a pipe. You wikilinked plectrums (again, great idea), but you piped it to guitar picks, instead of just plectrums. Which is fine, but it is better to just wikilink directly if that is possible.

I'm only answering your questions, but these really aren't big deals. I just wanted to give you little pointer :) --Esprit15d 12:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]