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How long can a sentence be without looking...ridiculous? Is there a general limit to the amount of commas, semi-colons, and ellipses that can be used to turn a paragraph into a sentence? I thought one maybe two at the most, but a combination of all three looks a bit tacky in my opinion. What do you think?
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Well my grammar checker yells at me if I have more than 35 words regardless of punctuation. To me though one semicolon and about three commas (not counting ones for adjectives). Ellipsis I prefer only at the end of sentences but maybe one in the middle is ok. I've seen some of these "one sentence" contests that are simply ridiculous. A full paragraph in one sentence.

I'm not a flowery writer so I keep most of my sentences short sweet and simple anyway, even in those contests. -
I've been reading a lot of older literature since I started my Survey of English Literature class, and they use long sentences. After so many commas, I have to go back and see why they put a verb in and to what it describes. Seriously.
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trying to fit a full paragraph into one sentence is almost like... trying to learn how not to write correctly.
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Read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Some looooong sentences in that one....
The first three *paragraphs*
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
© Lewis Carroll
copied from http://www.literaturepage.com/read/aliceinwonderland-1.html -
I want to read Alice in Wonderland, but I haven't gotten around to finding the book.
As to perverse though, they made an... um... 'musical' about Alice in Wonderland. It features Alice as an... um... 'garden object' (meaning a ho, lol,) who likes to have sex, A LOT.
LOL.
What are you talking about?!
); sorry, I guess I didn't make that very clear, but then long sentences aren't supposed to always be clear: are they?

CactusJack
Apr 3 8:20 AM
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