Test drove my first 135i ...

[iminhell1]

Seems like a good idea to drive a car I think I want, right?
LOL
http://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/de...3350/overview/

Took that one for a spin.
It's not what I'm looking for at all but it's a 135. I could at least sit in the M seats (love them) and feel how the car rides and the power delivery. AND how the auto feels ... From a performance/cost standpoint I think I want the manual; but the auto does seem to fit the car/me well.
The one thing I did notice with the trans was it felt like the 2-3 shift hung for too long. Could be any number of things and I don't think it typical.

I'm glad no one was watching me. I have never been in a car with a push button start. I'm pushing on the key, hitting the button and nothing is happening. Press the brake and push the button. LIFE.
Come back and now how do I turn the damn thing off? Hit the button again. It turns off. LOL

The side mirrors seem rather useless. Especially vs what I have been driving, 2001 Chevy PU.
The steering felt a bit heavy at very low speeds. Once moving it felt natural and correct.
I don't think it had the good stereo. If it was, I'm not impressed at all. It read professional, whatever that is.

But driving one pretty much sold me on the car. Now I just have to find the correct 1 for me.

[Olgeezer1]

Have a 128i Sport Pkg. 6MT same color. Love it. Always been a manual trans. guy even though if you're talking performance the DCT trans. is faster. Personally I don't care, it's all about the fun. From what I understand of 135's you might want to look for a newer model with the N55 single turbo engine, apparently less problems/more reliable. These cars are lots of fun - get one while you can as you're not likely to see something like this from BMW again.

[SD_E88]

That auto tranny isn't all that great in the earlier year models. The DCT in the 11 + years is definitely something to think about. The N55 in the latter years is the way to go as well. Showing to be a more reliable set up all the way around. 135 truly is a great car. Had mine for about 6 months now and it's honestly the most fun to drive car I've ever owned.

[Esteban]

Been driving a 135i for seven years. Currently on my second one. I feel extremely comfortable in it and everything about the car really suits me. Can't really see myself in anything else. Especially love it's looks, size, the sounds, the sport seats and the M steering wheel. The N55 engine is torquey and the DCT is fast and fun. With that said, just a little jealous of the guys with the 6-speed manual.

[ShocknAwe]

Driving one makes all the difference! Glad to hear it started your search. Good luck!

[tock172]

Originally Posted by EvenEsteban

ith that said, just a little jealous of the guys with the 6-speed manual.

Some might crucify me for saying this, but these cars are almost more suited to the DCT than the manual. My experience might be jaded, because I came from an E36 with a fully refreshed transmission, but I can't help but feel that the clutch pedal is vague and that I'm not getting to experience the car's full potential at times. I need to do a CDV delete.

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by tock172

Some might crucify me for saying this, but these cars are almost more suited to the DCT than the manual. My experience might be jaded, because I came from an E36 with a fully refreshed transmission, but I can't help but feel that the clutch pedal is vague and that I'm not getting to experience the car's full potential at times. I need to do a CDV delete.

CDV delete, BMS clutch stop, better transmission mounts, and Redline MTL fluid will likely change how you feel about it.

[tock172]

I'm sold on doing the CDV delete and a fluid change, on the fence about the clutch stop. What mounts do you recommend?

[iminhell1]

I really don't understand why I keep getting people offering advice as to what I should buy. IMHO, it seems to me that some of the problems may be due to lack of use (for the N54). When I look at used 335's I can find a good many with over 100,000 if not 200,000 miles. I imagine things have broke and been fixed. But I'd say the 'family cars' prove the reliability of the engine. And if I look at the same/similar years 135's I find they have considerably less miles on them; and a bad rep as unreliable.
If you look at most any occasional use car you'll find questionable reliability, I think.


I thank those for their opinions, but I'm pretty sure I know what I want to buy and why. I have a limit to my funds and that follows closely to what I'm looking for.
Keeping my total car expense around $600/month is my goal. Insurance is going be be about 1/5th of that. You do the math.

[champignon]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

I really don't understand why I keep getting people offering advice as to what I should buy. IMHO, it seems to me that some of the problems may be due to lack of use (for the N54). When I look at used 335's I can find a good many with over 100,000 if not 200,000 miles. I imagine things have broke and been fixed. But I'd say the 'family cars' prove the reliability of the engine. And if I look at the same/similar years 135's I find they have considerably less miles on them; and a bad rep as unreliable.
If you look at most any occasional use car you'll find questionable reliability, I think.


I thank those for their opinions, but I'm pretty sure I know what I want to buy and why. I have a limit to my funds and that follows closely to what I'm looking for.
Keeping my total car expense around $600/month is my goal. Insurance is going be be about 1/5th of that. You do the math.

Excussssssssse me.

When you make a post like you did in a public forum, you get what you receive.

2 Door Coupes are not as versatile, especially for families and for cargo hauling, as larger vehicles and vehicles with 4 or more doors. As a result of that, many end up being 2nd or 3rd cars, Sunday cars, or otherwise secondary vehicles. This accounts for the lower mileage you are mentioning. This is not unique to 1-series vehicles it is exactly the same thing you find with most Porsches, and other BMW coupes.

As to your own financial issues or desires, I suggest that you consider a Chevy Aveo. Please do not expect us to do your own math.

[IEDEI]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

I really don't understand why I keep getting people offering advice as to what I should buy. IMHO, it seems to me that some of the problems may be due to lack of use (for the N54). When I look at used 335's I can find a good many with over 100,000 if not 200,000 miles. I imagine things have broke and been fixed. But I'd say the 'family cars' prove the reliability of the engine. And if I look at the same/similar years 135's I find they have considerably less miles on them; and a bad rep as unreliable.
If you look at most any occasional use car you'll find questionable reliability, I think.


I thank those for their opinions, but I'm pretty sure I know what I want to buy and why. I have a limit to my funds and that follows closely to what I'm looking for.
Keeping my total car expense around $600/month is my goal. Insurance is going be be about 1/5th of that. You do the math.

LOL. so you post something about finally driving one with your thoughts about buying one.....which is completely inviting advice and suggestions.

if you don't want interactions might I suggest you write your thoughts down on a piece of paper and fold up the paper and keep it in a drawer rather than posting them in public.

Or you could buy a little diary....

[135TX]

Originally Posted by IEDEI

LOL. so you post something about finally driving one with your thoughts about buying one.....which is completely inviting advice and suggestions.

if you don't want interactions might I suggest you write your thoughts down on a piece of paper and fold up the paper and keep it in a drawer rather than posting them in public.

Or you could buy a little diary....

LMAO

[Cavpilot2k]

Originally Posted by tock172

I'm sold on doing the CDV delete and a fluid change, on the fence about the clutch stop. What mounts do you recommend?

Go with the clutch stop. It's 10 bucks, takes two minutes to install, and reduces pedal overtravel by about an inch, making it possible to adjust your seating position slightly so your clutch foot doesn't have to go so much further than your gas/brake foot. i.e. it's a more neutral and comfortable position.

[davis449]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

I really don't understand why I keep getting people offering advice as to what I should buy. IMHO, it seems to me that some of the problems may be due to lack of use (for the N54). When I look at used 335's I can find a good many with over 100,000 if not 200,000 miles. I imagine things have broke and been fixed. But I'd say the 'family cars' prove the reliability of the engine. And if I look at the same/similar years 135's I find they have considerably less miles on them; and a bad rep as unreliable.
If you look at most any occasional use car you'll find questionable reliability, I think.


I thank those for their opinions, but I'm pretty sure I know what I want to buy and why. I have a limit to my funds and that follows closely to what I'm looking for.
Keeping my total car expense around $600/month is my goal. Insurance is going be be about 1/5th of that. You do the math.

This and everyone else's response's inspired me to go ahead and chime in with my own personal opinion that your researching skills suck, BIG TIME. The N54's overall reliability rating (official and unofficial, like from these forums) comes from a myriad of owners of the many, many series of BMW's equipped with it over it's life with varying degrees of mileage. You don't want advice, don't post a thread on a forum basically asking for it.

[champignon]

Originally Posted by davis449

This and everyone else's response's inspired me to go ahead and chime in with my own personal opinion that your researching skills suck, BIG TIME. The N54's overall reliability rating (official and unofficial, like from these forums) comes from a myriad of owners of the many, many series of BMW's equipped with it over it's life with varying degrees of mileage. You don't want advice, don't post a thread on a forum basically asking for it.

Yeah, climb back under that rock you came from on the way here

[iminhell1]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

Seems like a good idea to drive a car I think I want, right?

Originally Posted by davis449

This and everyone else's response's inspired me to go ahead and chime in with my own personal opinion that your researching skills suck, BIG TIME. The N54's overall reliability rating (official and unofficial, like from these forums) comes from a myriad of owners of the many, many series of BMW's equipped with it over it's life with varying degrees of mileage. You don't want advice, don't post a thread on a forum basically asking for it.

http://www.edufind.com/english-grammar/question-mark/

I know it's a confusing language.

Originally Posted by iminhell1

It's not what I'm looking for at all but it's a 135.

Pretty obvious as to what vehicle I'm looking to purchase.

Originally Posted by iminhell1

The one thing I did notice with the trans was it felt like the 2-3 shift hung for too long. Could be any number of things and I don't think it typical.

Now if anything I wrote could be construed as a question, this statement would be it. I should have punctuated it correctly ... but what good would that have done? No one helped or wanted to converse, But everyone whats to jump all over me for stating pretty clearly what I want.


Maybe I'm just being rude and an asshole, but that just furthers that I should be in a BMW ...


Little drama never hurt anyone.

[BMW135pls]

Lmao. Here's everything I don't like about it. I love it.

It's a fun car man. I love the heavy steering.

Originally Posted by davis449

This and everyone else's response's inspired me to go ahead and chime in with my own personal opinion that your researching skills suck, BIG TIME. The N54's overall reliability rating (official and unofficial, like from these forums) comes from a myriad of owners of the many, many series of BMW's equipped with it over it's life with varying degrees of mileage. You don't want advice, don't post a thread on a forum basically asking for it.

Are you saying the N54 is reliable, or isn't reliable? I've driven an N54 for a little over a year now, 15k bolted and tuned miles with many WOT moments. I've performed regular maintenance to it using quality parts, fluids, and fuel, and drove it using responsible driving practices, only beating on it when the car was ready to handle it, and the only issue I've had with it in that time is a leaking trans gasket. Keep in mind that I don't view general maintenance procedures as being an "issue." Fluid changes, spark plugs/ignition, filters, things like that. All machines need maintenance and all parts wear over time, it doesn't mean something is unreliable just because it needs work. Now watch, because I said that, tomorrow I'll shear a VANOS bolt, shoot my fuel pump, and need an intake cleaning.

[IEDEI]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

I should have punctuated it correctly ... but what good would that have done?

"Punctuation absorbs more of my thought than seems healthy for a man who pretends to be well adjusted. The subject is naturally attractive to all with character structures of the sort Freud dubbed anal, and I readily confess to belong to that sect. We anal folk keep neat houses, are always on time, and know all the do's and don't's, including those of punctuation. Good punctuation, we feel, makes for clean thought. A mania for punctuation is also an occupational hazard for almost any teacher, as hundreds of our hours are given over to correcting the vagrant punctuation of our students.

One approach to punctuation is by way of rules. In my very favorite book, The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E. B. White, we may read, for example, Rule Number 2: "In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last." I couldn't agree more heartily, and I love the quaint formulation. Better than that, I have inserted the missing comma in countless sentences written by students and colleagues of mine. I have also suffered no little distress seeing that comma removed from my own prose after it has been sent to the New York Times Book Review or (yes, I'm sorry to say) the New Republic, both of which clearly have adopted policies of eliminating this serial comma so beloved by purists.

Rules are important, no question about it. But by themselves they are insufficient. Unless one has an emotional investment, rules are too easily forgotten. What we must instill, I'm convinced, is an attitude toward punctuation, a set of feelings about both the process in general and the individual marks of punctuation. That set of feelings might be called a philosophy of punctuation.

I say "a" philosophy, because I'm not yet so opinionated as to insist that everyone adopt my own. I recognize legitimate alternatives, and I'm quite aware that punctuation has a history. A single page of Thomas Carlyle, or any nineteenth-century writer, reminds us, for instance, that a comma between subject and verb--for me the most offensive of all punctuation errors--was once perfectly acceptable. A colleague of mine, whom I consider a fine writer, punctuates, as it were, by ear. That is, he seeks to reduplicate patterns of speech, to indicate through his punctuation how a sentence is supposed to sound. Consequently his punctuation lacks strict consistency. But I can respect it as guided at all times by what I consider philosophical principles.

Given my character, my own philosophy is more legalistic. My colleague, you might say, is a Platonist in punctuation, while I am an Aristotelian. My punctuation is informed by two ideals: clarity and simplicity. Punctuation has the primary responsibility of contributing to the plainness of one's meaning. It has the secondary responsibility of being as invisible as possible, of not calling attention to itself. With those principles in mind, and on the basis of reading what now passes for acceptable writing, I have developed a set of emotional responses to individual marks of punctuation. Precisely such emotional responses, I believe, are what most writers lack, and their indifference accounts for their errors.

Let me now introduce my dramatis personae. First come the period and the comma. These are the only lovely marks of punctuation, and of the two the period is the lovelier, because more compact and innocent of ambiguity. I have fantasies of writing an essay punctuated solely with periods and commas. I seldom see a piece of prose that shouldn't, I feel, have more periods and fewer of those obtrusive marks that seem to have usurped its natural place. The comma, as noted, was once overused, but it now suffers from relative neglect. The missing comma before the "and" introducing the last item in a series is merely the most obvious example.

Periods and commas are lovely because they are simple. They force the writer to express his ideas directly, to eliminate unnecessary hedges, to forgo smart-aleck asides. They also contribute to the logical solidity of a piece of writing, since they make us put all our thoughts into words. By way of contrast, a colon can be used to smooth over a rough logical connection. It has a verbal content ranging anywhere from "namely" to "thus," and it can function to let the writer off the hook. Periods and commas, because of their very neutrality, make one an honest logician.

Semicolons are pretentious and overactive. These days one seems to come across them in every other sentence. "These days" is alarmist, since half a century ago the German poet Christian Morgenstern wrote a brilliant parody, "Im Reich der Interpunktionen," in which imperialistic semicolons are put to rout by an "Antisemikolonbund" of periods and commas. Nonetheless, if the undergraduate essays I see are representative, we are in the midst of an epidemic of semicolons. I suspect that the semicolon is so popular because it is the first fancy punctuation mark students learn of, and they assume that its frequent appearance will lend their writing a properly scholarly cast. Alas, they are only too right. But I doubt that they use semicolons in their letters. At least I hope they don't.

More than half of the semicolons one sees, I would estimate, should be periods, and probably another quarter should be commas. Far too often, semicolons, like colons, are used to gloss over an imprecise thought. They place two clauses in some kind of relation to one another but relieve the writer of saying exactly what that relation is. Even the simple conjunction "and," for which they are often a substitute, has more content, because it suggests compatibility or logical continuity. ("And," incidentally, is among the most abused words in the language. It is forever being exploited as a kind of neutral vocalization connecting two things that have no connection whatever.)

In exasperation I have tried to confine my own use of the semicolon to demarking sequences that contain internal commas and therefore might otherwise be confusing. I recognize that my reaction is extreme. But the semicolon has become so hateful to me that I feel almost morally compromised when I use it.

Before leaving the realm of epidemics, I want to mention two other practices that are out of hand: the use of italics for emphasis and of quotation marks for distancing. These are ugly habits because of the intellectual tone they set. Italics rarely fail to insult the reader's intelligence. More often than not they tell us to emphasize a word or phrase that we would emphasize automatically in any natural reading of the sentence. Quotation marks create the spurious impression of an aristocracy of sensibility. Three paragraphs back I originally put quotation marks around "fancy," to suggest quite falsely that I would never use such a word myself, being of too refined a temperament.

At the opposite pole are two marks of punctuation that have grown increasingly obsolescent, the question mark and the exclamation point. Appropriately, the disappearance of the question mark largely reflects the disappearance of questions, which sound unpleasantly rhetorical to us. But even real questions, if they are long enough, are now apt to end in periods. The exclamation point is obviously too emphatic, too childish, for our sophisticated ways. Psychologically speaking, the decline of these two marks is the inverse of the semicolon epidemic. Questions and exclamations betray a sense of inquisitiveness and wonder that is distinctly unmodern, whereas semicolons imply a capacity for complex, dialectical formulations appropriate to our complex times. As part of my campaign against the semicolon--no doubt irrationally--I am endeavoring to develop friendlier relations with these neglected gestures. But I'll admit that it's not easy.

Then there are parentheses and dashes. They are, of course, indispensable. I've used them five times already in this essay alone. But I think one must maintain a very strict attitude toward them. I start from the proposition that all parentheses and dashes are syntactical defeats. They signify an inability to express one's ideas sequentially, which, unless you're James Joyce, is the way the language was meant to be used. Reality may be simultaneous, but expository prose is linear. Parentheses and dashes represent efforts to elude the responsibilities of linearity. They generally betoken stylistic laziness, an unwillingness to spend the time figuring out how to put things in the most logical order. Needless to say, they also betoken a failure of discipline. Every random thought, every tenuous analogy gets dragged in. Good writing is as much a matter of subtraction as creation, and parentheses are the great enemy of subtraction. In all that I write I try to find ways to eliminate them.

A monstrous variation on the parenthesis is the content footnote. What, after all, is a content footnote but material that one is either too lazy to integrate into the text or too reverent to discard? Reading a piece of prose that constantly dissolves into extended footnotes is profoundly disheartening. Hence my rule of thumb for footnotes is exactly the same as that for parentheses. One should regard them as symbols of failure. I hardly need add that in this vale of tears failure is sometimes unavoidable.

Only one issue of punctuation generates no emotion in me, namely, the rules governing the placement of punctuation marks with respect to quotation marks. Those rules are simple enough, but perhaps because they differ between England and the United States they possess for me only the arbitrary authority of commandments and none of the well-nigh metaphysical significance that I associate with the period, the comma, the parenthesis, and the semicolon."

[champignon]

Originally Posted by IEDEI

"Punctuation absorbs more of my thought than seems healthy for a man who pretends to be well adjusted. The subject is naturally attractive to all with character structures of the sort Freud dubbed anal, and I readily confess to belong to that sect. We anal folk keep neat houses, are always on time, and know all the do's and don't's, including those of punctuation. Good punctuation, we feel, makes for clean thought. A mania for punctuation is also an occupational hazard for almost any teacher, as hundreds of our hours are given over to correcting the vagrant punctuation of our students.

Now that we have dealt with this compelling issue, could you tell us your opinion on Top Tier Gas, in no more than 10,000 words?

[iminhell1]

Acknowledgment of the source makes a use fair. Giving the name of the photographer or author may help, but it is not sufficient on its own. While plagiarism and copyright violation are related matters—-both can, at times, involve failure to properly credit sources—-they are not identical. Plagiarism—using someone's words, ideas, images, etc. without acknowledgment—is a matter of professional ethics. Copyright is a matter of law, and protects exact expression, not ideas. One can plagiarize even a work that is not protected by copyright, such as trying to pass off a line from Shakespeare as one's own. On the other hand, citing sources generally prevents accusations of plagiarism, but is an insufficient defense against copyright violations. For example, reprinting a copyrighted book without permission, while citing the original author, would be copyright infringement but not plagiarism.

[mistawall]

Wot

Originally Posted by IEDEI

"Punctuation absorbs more of my thought than seems healthy for a man who pretends to be well adjusted. The subject is naturally attractive to all with character structures of the sort Freud dubbed anal, and I readily confess to belong to that sect. We anal folk keep neat houses, are always on time, and know all the do's and don't's, including those of punctuation. Good punctuation, we feel, makes for clean thought. A mania for punctuation is also an occupational hazard for almost any teacher, as hundreds of our hours are given over to correcting the vagrant punctuation of our students.

One approach to punctuation is by way of rules. In my very favorite book, The Elements of Style, by William Strunk and E. B. White, we may read, for example, Rule Number 2: "In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last." I couldn't agree more heartily, and I love the quaint formulation. Better than that, I have inserted the missing comma in countless sentences written by students and colleagues of mine. I have also suffered no little distress seeing that comma removed from my own prose after it has been sent to the New York Times Book Review or (yes, I'm sorry to say) the New Republic, both of which clearly have adopted policies of eliminating this serial comma so beloved by purists.

Rules are important, no question about it. But by themselves they are insufficient. Unless one has an emotional investment, rules are too easily forgotten. What we must instill, I'm convinced, is an attitude toward punctuation, a set of feelings about both the process in general and the individual marks of punctuation. That set of feelings might be called a philosophy of punctuation.

I say "a" philosophy, because I'm not yet so opinionated as to insist that everyone adopt my own. I recognize legitimate alternatives, and I'm quite aware that punctuation has a history. A single page of Thomas Carlyle, or any nineteenth-century writer, reminds us, for instance, that a comma between subject and verb--for me the most offensive of all punctuation errors--was once perfectly acceptable. A colleague of mine, whom I consider a fine writer, punctuates, as it were, by ear. That is, he seeks to reduplicate patterns of speech, to indicate through his punctuation how a sentence is supposed to sound. Consequently his punctuation lacks strict consistency. But I can respect it as guided at all times by what I consider philosophical principles.

Given my character, my own philosophy is more legalistic. My colleague, you might say, is a Platonist in punctuation, while I am an Aristotelian. My punctuation is informed by two ideals: clarity and simplicity. Punctuation has the primary responsibility of contributing to the plainness of one's meaning. It has the secondary responsibility of being as invisible as possible, of not calling attention to itself. With those principles in mind, and on the basis of reading what now passes for acceptable writing, I have developed a set of emotional responses to individual marks of punctuation. Precisely such emotional responses, I believe, are what most writers lack, and their indifference accounts for their errors.

Let me now introduce my dramatis personae. First come the period and the comma. These are the only lovely marks of punctuation, and of the two the period is the lovelier, because more compact and innocent of ambiguity. I have fantasies of writing an essay punctuated solely with periods and commas. I seldom see a piece of prose that shouldn't, I feel, have more periods and fewer of those obtrusive marks that seem to have usurped its natural place. The comma, as noted, was once overused, but it now suffers from relative neglect. The missing comma before the "and" introducing the last item in a series is merely the most obvious example.

Periods and commas are lovely because they are simple. They force the writer to express his ideas directly, to eliminate unnecessary hedges, to forgo smart-aleck asides. They also contribute to the logical solidity of a piece of writing, since they make us put all our thoughts into words. By way of contrast, a colon can be used to smooth over a rough logical connection. It has a verbal content ranging anywhere from "namely" to "thus," and it can function to let the writer off the hook. Periods and commas, because of their very neutrality, make one an honest logician.

Semicolons are pretentious and overactive. These days one seems to come across them in every other sentence. "These days" is alarmist, since half a century ago the German poet Christian Morgenstern wrote a brilliant parody, "Im Reich der Interpunktionen," in which imperialistic semicolons are put to rout by an "Antisemikolonbund" of periods and commas. Nonetheless, if the undergraduate essays I see are representative, we are in the midst of an epidemic of semicolons. I suspect that the semicolon is so popular because it is the first fancy punctuation mark students learn of, and they assume that its frequent appearance will lend their writing a properly scholarly cast. Alas, they are only too right. But I doubt that they use semicolons in their letters. At least I hope they don't.

More than half of the semicolons one sees, I would estimate, should be periods, and probably another quarter should be commas. Far too often, semicolons, like colons, are used to gloss over an imprecise thought. They place two clauses in some kind of relation to one another but relieve the writer of saying exactly what that relation is. Even the simple conjunction "and," for which they are often a substitute, has more content, because it suggests compatibility or logical continuity. ("And," incidentally, is among the most abused words in the language. It is forever being exploited as a kind of neutral vocalization connecting two things that have no connection whatever.)

In exasperation I have tried to confine my own use of the semicolon to demarking sequences that contain internal commas and therefore might otherwise be confusing. I recognize that my reaction is extreme. But the semicolon has become so hateful to me that I feel almost morally compromised when I use it.

Before leaving the realm of epidemics, I want to mention two other practices that are out of hand: the use of italics for emphasis and of quotation marks for distancing. These are ugly habits because of the intellectual tone they set. Italics rarely fail to insult the reader's intelligence. More often than not they tell us to emphasize a word or phrase that we would emphasize automatically in any natural reading of the sentence. Quotation marks create the spurious impression of an aristocracy of sensibility. Three paragraphs back I originally put quotation marks around "fancy," to suggest quite falsely that I would never use such a word myself, being of too refined a temperament.

At the opposite pole are two marks of punctuation that have grown increasingly obsolescent, the question mark and the exclamation point. Appropriately, the disappearance of the question mark largely reflects the disappearance of questions, which sound unpleasantly rhetorical to us. But even real questions, if they are long enough, are now apt to end in periods. The exclamation point is obviously too emphatic, too childish, for our sophisticated ways. Psychologically speaking, the decline of these two marks is the inverse of the semicolon epidemic. Questions and exclamations betray a sense of inquisitiveness and wonder that is distinctly unmodern, whereas semicolons imply a capacity for complex, dialectical formulations appropriate to our complex times. As part of my campaign against the semicolon--no doubt irrationally--I am endeavoring to develop friendlier relations with these neglected gestures. But I'll admit that it's not easy.

Then there are parentheses and dashes. They are, of course, indispensable. I've used them five times already in this essay alone. But I think one must maintain a very strict attitude toward them. I start from the proposition that all parentheses and dashes are syntactical defeats. They signify an inability to express one's ideas sequentially, which, unless you're James Joyce, is the way the language was meant to be used. Reality may be simultaneous, but expository prose is linear. Parentheses and dashes represent efforts to elude the responsibilities of linearity. They generally betoken stylistic laziness, an unwillingness to spend the time figuring out how to put things in the most logical order. Needless to say, they also betoken a failure of discipline. Every random thought, every tenuous analogy gets dragged in. Good writing is as much a matter of subtraction as creation, and parentheses are the great enemy of subtraction. In all that I write I try to find ways to eliminate them.

A monstrous variation on the parenthesis is the content footnote. What, after all, is a content footnote but material that one is either too lazy to integrate into the text or too reverent to discard? Reading a piece of prose that constantly dissolves into extended footnotes is profoundly disheartening. Hence my rule of thumb for footnotes is exactly the same as that for parentheses. One should regard them as symbols of failure. I hardly need add that in this vale of tears failure is sometimes unavoidable.

Only one issue of punctuation generates no emotion in me, namely, the rules governing the placement of punctuation marks with respect to quotation marks. Those rules are simple enough, but perhaps because they differ between England and the United States they possess for me only the arbitrary authority of commandments and none of the well-nigh metaphysical significance that I associate with the period, the comma, the parenthesis, and the semicolon."

[IEDEI]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

Acknowledgment of the source makes a use fair. Giving the name of the photographer or author may help, but it is not sufficient on its own. While plagiarism and copyright violation are related matters—-both can, at times, involve failure to properly credit sources—-they are not identical. Plagiarism—using someone's words, ideas, images, etc. without acknowledgment—is a matter of professional ethics. Copyright is a matter of law, and protects exact expression, not ideas. One can plagiarize even a work that is not protected by copyright, such as trying to pass off a line from Shakespeare as one's own. On the other hand, citing sources generally prevents accusations of plagiarism, but is an insufficient defense against copyright violations. For example, reprinting a copyrighted book without permission, while citing the original author, would be copyright infringement but not plagiarism.

You might want to put that in quotes; although it the Fair Use guidelines are applicable to published content rather than casual forum banter. When you start keeping a diary; make sure you document proper citations for better upkeep of that glorious book that nobody can see.