So in a nutshell, it joins sentences, not clauses? Guess I was just used to using it as a "supercomma".

@1286 septimusHeap — scratch what i said above, apparently there's still something wrong.

• Alisa of God Eater Burst wears a sleeveless crop top that reveals the underside of her jugs. In the sequel manga The 2nd Break and God Eater 2 . her new uniform conveniently has to be zipped downwards and can't be zipped further down her chest and thus still reveals her signature underboobs. This was lampshaded by her Instant Fanclub in the manga.

Are these the culprits?(There's a period between ...God Eater 2 . her...)

On an unrelated note, I'm starting to feel a little embarrassed about using this Underboob business as an excuse to learn grammar...

edited 20th Nov '13 9:10:41 AM by ShanghaiSlave

Yes, that period would be the problem. It should be a comma, and without a space between "2" and the comma, as here. I wish bolded punctuation showed up better. Maybe I should try marking them in red or something...

Okay. The space was precisely because it's not very clear. I suggest something like <dot> and <comma>.

Public Domain Artifact

• The Ark of the Covenant, while never actually referred to as such, appears in the Xena episode "The Royal Couple of Thieves". After a weapons dealer steals it Xena and company go undercover as warlords to infiltrate the auction for the Ark and retrieve it for the Israelites.

• B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine: Kate is held captive by an immortal marquis who controls a group of demons because he wears one of Solomon’s rings. She defeats the marquis by cutting off his fingers and breaking the ring allowing the freed demons to take vengeance for their enslavement.

• Supernatural: Mjölnir is auctioned off in the episode "What's Up Tiger Mommy?". When Sam manages to get his hands on it he is able to strike down gods.

• Magicka: Weapons like Mjölner, Gungnir and Gram can be picked up and used in game. As a bonus Gram kills the boss Fafnir in one hit.

Those are all pretty good; you just have the occasional missing comma. If you start a sentence with a prepositional phrase, the phrase needs to end in a comma, setting it off from the rest of the sentence.

(Links are ignored for copying convenience.)

• The Ark of the Covenant, while never actually referred to as such, appears in the Xena episode "The Royal Couple of Thieves". After a weapons dealer steals it, Xena and company go undercover as warlords to infiltrate the auction for the Ark and retrieve it for the Israelites.

• B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine: Kate is held captive by an immortal marquis who controls a group of demons because he wears one of Solomon’s rings. She defeats the marquis by cutting off his fingers and breaking the ring, allowing the freed demons to take vengeance for their enslavement.

• Supernatural: Mjölnir is auctioned off in the episode "What's Up Tiger Mommy?". When Sam manages to get his hands on it, he is able to strike down gods.

• Magicka: Weapons like Mjölner, Gungnir and Gram can be picked up and used in-game. As a bonus, Gram kills the boss Fafnir in one hit.

edited 22nd Nov '13 11:37:25 AM by Nocturna

Eskimos Aren't Real

• South Park episode "The Tooth Fairy's Tats 2000": The American Dental Association laugh when Dr Foley tries to convince them of exactly what’s happening to the teeth, favouring their own chicken-squirrel hybrid theory. They further ridicule Foley when he says that he says that he has seen it before in Montreal, derisively asking “And where, pray, is this Montreal?”.

Healing Factor

• The people infected by the alien parasites in Alien Raiders can regenerate most body parts. When the heroes lose their usual method of telling who’s infected, they resort to cutting off the pinkie fingers of every potential host and waiting to see if it grows back.

Detentionaire

• Bland-Name Product: Cam repeatedly breaks phones at the frustration of not beating "Disgruntled Pigeons".

Western Terrorists

The "R v Mohammed" episode of Rake starts off with a old white guy blowing up in Hyde Park, the resulting firebomb contrasting with the calm bright sunny day and birdsong. As it transpires the man was a Muslim convert and episode’s client is the suicide bomber’s wife, Zuharah. She's being prosecuted under the suspicion of helping create the bomb. As Zuharah is Middle Eastern much of the episode’s theme is whether case is actually about the evidence or because she better fits the terrorist stereotype.

It Will Never Catch On

Groo the Wanderer "Mightier Than The Sword" follows the growth of a newspaper in the fantasy world of Groo. At one point a man, drawn like a scruffy version of the way Sergio draws himself, comes into the printers suggesting that he could draw funny images with text that they could print in their publication. After a Beat panel the printers burst out laughing and the man walks out chiding himself for such a silly idea.

edited 23rd Nov '13 2:48:16 AM by jormis29

All Girls Want Bad Boys:

• Sayaka Miki from Puella Magi Madoka Magica has this kind of flaw, in addition to being a Love Martyr towards Kyousuke Kamijou (who is technically oblivious to her love). It's a deconstruction, since her unrequited love is also a catalyst for her despair, which leads to her transformation into a witch.

Tragic Mistake:

• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Though it could be said that Sayaka Miki's deal with Kyubey is the mistake that leads to her downfall, her actual act of Hamartia is when she refuses to cleanse her Soul Gem, because she's full of despair from seeing Kyousuke Kamijou (her childhood friend) accepting Hitomi Shizuki's love confession. Her despair not only turns her into a witch, but also leads to her and Kyouko Sakura's death.

Unintentionally Unsympathetic:

• Kyousuke Kamijou from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. He is meant to be sympathetic because he's a violin prodigy who's hospialized because of an accident that broke his left arm and left him unable to play again. Unfortunately, he comes off as an aloof boy who's ignorant of Sayaka Miki's feelings, because he dislikes her for playing music which he's unable to play. His unlikableness is made even worse when Gen Urobuchi states that even if Sayaka had hooked up with him, he would've stood up on dates with her in favor of practicing his violin.

P.S. Please don't edit for me just yet, I need to bring it to the "Is this an example?" thread first after it's corrected.

edited 5th Dec '13 4:00:02 AM by Craver357

Hi. Since English is not my native language, several of latest edits have been bad, and one of the mods has asked me that I put some of them up here for criticizing.

The Second Try

• Brain Bleach: In chapter 3, Misato gets up to her old tricks and asks Shinji, Asuka, and Rei if they went for a threesome in the bushes during their hike. Asuka promptly screams that she needs a shower to get those disgusting images out of her head. It probably wasn't an act either (since she neither is lesbian nor she shares).

I wrote the two last sentences. I have troubles using neither/nor. I would appreciate help with them.

• Curse Cut Short: In the last episode a police officer begins saying "Ah... shi-", and then he caughts himself when he realizes there is a little kid in the room.

I was in a hurry when I made the edit and I wrote "caughts" accidentally. I am ashamed because I should know better.

Mazinger Z

• Armor Is Useless:
  • The series tried to avert this trope. Mazinger's cockpit offered little protection, and in the first chapters, Kouji repeatedly got hurt and even knocked out because he fought in civilian clothes (and in the manga the villains were aware of that and tried to exploit it. In an early story, Baron Ashura commanded a Mechanical Beast to grab Mazinger, fly high and drop it, knowing -as Kouji did- that the freefall's impact would kill the pilot, even if Mazinger endured it). In order to avoid that, he began wearing a Latex Space Suit to protect his body during the fights. It was more protective than plain clothes, but he still got injured while wearing it.
  • Another series of the franchise played this trope in a more straight fashion. Tetsuya Tsurugi, Duke Fleed and their allies wore sturdy Latex Space Suits to protect their bodies from harm during the battles. The often got injured nonetheless, especially Tetsuya, who was too rash and reckless.
  • On the other hand, New Mazinger averted this trope. Kabuto wore a Power Armor protected him efficiently during the whole story.

• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: For all what argue when they are together -and claim they don't need each other-, Kouji and Sayaka tend to lose it when they are apart.

• Evil Is Not a Toy: A textbook example. Dr. Hell searched and found the army of giant robots that legends rumored the lost civilization Mykene used, and thought he could control them through the rod of Rhode (a device he invented) and use them to Take Over the World. However, the Mykene civilization still existed, thriving underground... and Dr. Hell stealing their ancient weapons drew their attention back to the surface. Oops. One of them- Archduke Gorgon- confronted Hell, accusing him of stealing their Lost Technology and demanding that he returned it. Hell tried to bargain with him, and Gorgon pretended to agree, but in reality he planned to backstab Hell as soon as possible -which he did- to allow the Mykene Empire to conquer the surface world instead of Hell.

• One-Person Birthday Party: In episode 19, Small Name, Big Ego Butt-Monkey Boss is trying to get people purchasing tickets to attend to his birthday party. However everyone run away from him, and he can not figure out why. Kouji tries to explain to him people does not like getting bullied into paying for attending a party they do not want to go to start with. Finally Kouji out of pity agrees to attend Boss' party and even performing a couple of tricks with his bike so more people comes to his birthday. However, during the party, Kouji gets summoned to the Institute, and he leaves. As a result, everybody else leave too, leaving Boss alone.

That is some of them. I look forward to your replies and advices.

Food Pills

Fringe: Etta gives a green pill to a hungry Peter in the “The Recordist”. She clarifies that it was an “apple”.

edited 2nd Dec '13 11:35:07 PM by jormis29

Magical Particle Accelerator

One sets up most of the plot of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Repairs". The team believe that an accelerator explosion gave Hanna, a safety inspector working at the facility, telekinetic powers. It turns out that the accelerator was being used in an attempt to recreate the rifts from Thor: The Dark World and another employee, Tobias, got caught one such rift created during the explosion. Tobias is now constantly moving between worlds, turning him into a pseudo ghost and he is "haunting" Hanna.

No reply to me in #1308 so far.

I don't have the presence of mind to nitpick on grammar ATM, but re: your second example, Examples Are Not Arguable.

@Desdendelle: Sorry about that. I shall change it to prevent natter.

Hoo boy. Okay, each of you is going to get a separate section. Tell me if I miss anything. Also, I'm not going to put in any links or spoilers because that would take a long time; just assume all the links are fine unless otherwise specified.

Jormis29

I'll add these to articles tomorrow if I'm not beaten to it.

Your first and third posts are fine. Good work! In general, try to keep sentence structure simple — you haven't really made mistakes but it can become confusing if it happens too much. (I often fall afoul of this myself.)

Second post:

• The "R v Mohammed" episode of Rake starts off with an old white guy blowing up in Hyde Park, the resulting firebomb contrasting with the calm bright sunny day and birdsong. As it transpires the man was a Muslim convert and the episode’s client is the suicide bomber’s wife, Zuharah. She's being prosecuted under the suspicion of helping create the bomb. As Zuharah is Middle Eastern much of the episode’s theme is whether case is actually about the evidence or because she better fits the terrorist stereotype.

• Groo The Wanderer: "Mightier Than The Sword" follows the growth of a newspaper in the fantasy world of Groo. At one point a man, drawn like a scruffy version of the way Sergio draws himself, comes into the printers suggesting that he could draw funny images with text that they could print in their publication. After a beat panel the printers burst out laughing and the man walks out chiding himself for such a silly idea.

Fourth post:

• One sets up most of the plot of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Repairs". The team believe that an accelerator explosion gave Hanna, a safety inspector working at the facility, telekinetic powers. It turns out that the accelerator was being used in an attempt to recreate the rifts from Thor: The Dark World and another employee, Tobias, got caught in one such rift created during the explosion. Tobias is now constantly moving between worlds, turning him into a pseudo ghost, and he is "haunting" Hanna.

Craver 357

• Don't capitalise the "d" of "deconstruction" in that first entry.

• Kyousuke Kamijou from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. He is meant to be sympathetic because he's a violin prodigy who's hospitalized because of an accident that broke his left arm and left him unable to play again. Unfortunately, he comes off as an aloof boy who's ignorant of Sayaka Miki's feelings, because he dislikes her for playing music which he's unable to play. This^note "unlikeableness" isn't a proper word, though it should be is made even worse when Gen Urobuchi states that even if Sayaka had hooked up with him, he would've stood up on dates with her in favor of practicing his violin.

SRW Fan

Your English is generally very good and errors are small. Good luck with your learning!

First part:

I'm not very good at explaining this, so I suggest you use Google to find a proper information page about using neither-nor. As a very quick guide, though.... First, don't split up the noun/pronoun (whichever is used in the sentence) and the verb with the "neither". Second, the part following the "neither" should usually have the same structure as the part following the "nor". Third, if the noun/pronoun is outside the neither-nor structure, you don't usually need to use it again inside that structure if it's a simple sentence.

Sometimes the noun/pronoun and verb switch places. I don't know how to describe the rule for this, but the last bit of the Brain Bleach entry should be "since neither is she a lesbian nor does she share".

Second part:

Yes; the verb should be "catches" because the sentence is present tense.

Third part:

• Armor Is Useless:
  • (The first bullet point is fine.)
  • Another series of the franchise played this trope straighter^note "in a more straight fashion" works but is very clumsy phrasing. Tetsuya Tsurugi, Duke Fleed and their allies wore sturdy Latex Space Suits to protect their bodies from harm during the battles. The often got injured nonetheless, especially Tetsuya, who was too rash and reckless.
  • On the other hand, New Mazinger averted this trope. Kabuto wore a Power Armor which protected him efficiently during the whole story.

• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live without Them: For all that they argue and claim they don't need each other^note moving this part here makes the sentence easier to follow when they are together, Kouji and Sayaka tend to lose it when they are apart.

• Evil Is Not a Toy: A textbook example.^note This is Word Cruft. Dr. Hell searched for and found the army of giant robots that legend rumored the lost civilization Mykene used, and thought he could control them through the rod of Rhode (a device he invented) and use them to Take Over the World. However, the Mykene civilization still existed, thriving underground... and Dr. Hell stealing their ancient weapons drew their attention back to the surface. Oops. One of them — Archduke Gorgon — confronted Hell, accusing him of stealing their Lost Technology and demanding that he return it. Hell tried to bargain with him, and Gorgon pretended to agree, but in reality he planned to backstab Hell as soon as possible — which he did — to allow the Mykene Empire to conquer the surface world instead of Hell.

• One-Person Birthday Party: In episode 19, Small Name, Big Ego Butt Monkey Boss is trying to get people purchasing tickets to attend to his birthday party. However, everyone runs away from him and he cannot figure out why. Kouji tries to explain to him that people do not like getting bullied into paying for attending a party they did not want to go to in the first place^note "to start with" is normally fine, but here the "to" gets confused with the "to" from "to go to" so a different phrase is better. Finally Kouji agrees out of pity^note this phrase is smoother here to attend Boss' party and even perform a couple of tricks with his bike so more people come to his birthday. However, during the party Kouji gets summoned to the Institute, and he leaves. As a result, everybody else leaves too, leaving Boss alone.

("People" is plural if you're talking about many persons. It's only singular if you mean "a people" like a tribe.)

edited 4th Dec '13 2:49:42 PM by Telcontar

@Telcontar: Sorry about the small mistake that I made in the first entry. But why it's sometimes wrong to capitalise "deconstruction", and sometimes, a trope name in an example of an article?

"Deconstruction" (and other nouns) is capitalized whenever it's part of a wiki link, or if it's at the start of a sentence.

Isn't there any other websites or places that I can go get help with English, beside talking in this thread?

Loan Shark

Black Company: Krage and his successor, Gilbert, both deliberately make loans to the desperate Marron Shed that he couldn’t repay so that he would have to give them his Inn in repayment. Gilbert goes as far as get one of his prostitutes to trick Shed into a relationship with her so he would waste money on expensive gifts for her, driving him further into debt.

edited 5th Dec '13 8:54:34 PM by jormis29

Pretty good, just one error here: "Gilbert goes as far as getting one of his prostitutes to trick Shed into a relationship with her..."

@Craver: Not that I know.

Craver: I avoid capitalising single-word trope names (and other terms like "deconstruction") in the middle of sentences because I think it looks strange and breaks the flow. However, I don't know whether this is an actual rule, so it may be fine after all.

As for other sites to get help with English, you could try http://lang-8.com/ . I believe it works like this thread. If you don't want something like this thread, I'm sure Google can help you find a different resource.

@Telcontar: Thanks for your words of advice.

edited 6th Dec '13 2:29:09 AM by Craver357

One answer to a headscratcher in Pokemon Origins:

• The original Japanese version, at least, mentioned immunities or Abilities exactly zero times- implying, that despite being more faithful than more adaptations, Pokemon Origins ignored them. Is this different in the dub?