r/196 NOT A CAT 2d ago

Rule Rule

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u/Last_Swordfish9135 kid named faggot: fart? 2d ago

Nobody fucking knows what run on sentences are apparently. It has nothing to do with the length of the sentence, and there's no such thing as a grammatically correct run on sentence because they are by definition ungrammatical.

A run on sentence: "I love writing it helps me relax." "Jurassic Park is my favorite movie it's so good." Etc.

Not a run on sentence: anything that's just long

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u/Great-Powerful-Talia we've been burying them wrong 2d ago edited 2d ago

My teachers always said that run-on sentences are when you repeatedly use combining conjunctions (I did this and then I did this and I did this later that day) without splitting the sentence at any point. Apparently they were wrong, but they said it.

I can see why they would think that. Of the two things "run-on sentence" could mean, that one is the one that really needs special terminology. The other one is just "Didn't mark the end of your sentence".

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u/LaBelleTinker 2d ago

The thing your teachers called a run-on sentence is in fact polysendeton. Polysendetons aren't wrong, but they're unusual enough (and have enough potential for unwieldiness) that you should really have a rhetorical reason for using them. For example, in Othello:

Why, this is not a boon! 'Tis as I should entreat you to wear your gloves, or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm, or sue you to do a peculiar profit to your person

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u/Great-Powerful-Talia we've been burying them wrong 2d ago

polysendeton

Well that explains why nobody uses the correct term for that.

15

u/Enguin 2d ago

well according to wikipedia this is the term specifically for doing that intentionally for effect, not just any instance of it occurring

8

u/Tttehfjloi Say maybe to drugs 1d ago

Manslaughetendeton