Spelling and Grammar Standards

[Ray Jay]

In response to the above, in LC we generally used "it is played at Level 5." The correct abbreviation should be Lv. 5. The exception to this is "we ain't on the same level" or something to that avail.

also discuss this:
<sirndpt> actually
<sirndpt> The phrase "super effective" is neither hyphenated nor capitalized.
<sirndpt> why?
<sirndpt> wouldn't super-effective move be correct grammatically?
<RayJay> because that's the policy for a long time
<RayJay> and not to my understanding
<RayJay> a move is super effective
<sirndpt> yes
<RayJay> effective is the direct object
<RayJay> super is an adjective modifying it
<RayJay> oh no it's an adverb actually i think
<RayJay> wait why would you hyphenate it
<sirndpt> i thought super-effective was the adjective
<RayJay> oh
<sirndpt> sky-high Attack stat, etc
<RayJay> yeah i could see either way
<RayJay> i see what you're saying
<RayJay> especially if it's like "this is a super-effective attack"
<sirndpt> yea

[Oglemi*]

level 5/50/100 is what we went with in Nexus's in-game articles, if we want to standardize it, then it should be "level x"

I'm not going back on super effective, that's how it is on the whole site, and that's how it'll stay; I frankly don't care if one is more correct than the other in this instance.

[Ray Jay]

We talked about it on irc:

• When writing a fraction, add a hyphen between the numerator and the denominator if both are written out rather than numerical. (Pichu ate two-thirds of the pie.)

[Mafeking]

Ray and I talked about this on irc earlier tonight and it's something that I think many people have noted, but it should probably be on here for posterity in case someone else needs to know:

Describing the boosting effects (or lack thereof) of a nature counts as a compound adjective, so things such as "neutral-nature" / "positive-nature" / "hindering-nature" etc. etc. should all be referred to with hyphenation.

[Eo Ut Mortus]

This is probably the most common mistake I have seen made in any form of writing (and despite how minor it appears, it severely annoys me because I am OCD about commas, and everywhere I look, I seem to encounter people violating this rule):

<subject> <predicate1>, and <predicate2>...

Example (from on-site):

"Although its previous tier placements may indicate otherwise, Alakazam has always been a Pokemon with purpose, and has now returned to its old stomping grounds in OU."

The comma is completely unnecessary because the conjunction "and" does not combine two sentences; it combines two verb phrases that are not complete sentences. Commas should not be used to divide a compound predicate except in cases where they are necessary to provide clarity. This is also intuitive; when saying that sentence out loud, there would naturally be no pause.

I therefore want to suggest that this rule be added to the OP.

[Ray Jay]

Agreeing with Eo, and added this:

• Commas should not be used to separate a compound verb unless the conjunction is combining two independent clauses or the comma is necessary for clarity. (Pichu walked into the store and bought a pie).

[Calm Pokemaster]

Excuse me if this is already mentioned somewhere, but I searched this thread and came up with 0 results. I noticed this error in quite a few analyses recently - ''resists'' or ''resistances'' cannot be used to refer to a Pokemon which resist certain attacks. For example -

Incorrect - Bug-type resists such as Skarmory and Heatran can switch into Scizor easily.

Correct - Pokemon which resist Bug-type attacks, such as Skarmory and Heatran, can switch into Scizor easily.

Another inconsistency which I have seen in several on-site analyses is the format for writing ''four-moveslot syndrome.'' Personally, I think it should be written without the hyphen between ''moveslot'' and ''syndrome'', but I would like to see what the general consensus on this is.

[Ray Jay]

Indeed, we have always noted "resists" as only a form of the verb "to resist" and never a noun, we just never got around to adding that into standards. This will be ammended immediately.

In terms of the second point, the most common way I've seen it written is "four moveslot syndrome." However, "four-moveslot syndrome" is a defendable position as one could make the argument that it isn't a moveslot syndrome that's being described by the adjective four, but a syndrom characterized by the possession of only four moveslots (thus, such a person might say it's a compound adjective, "four-moveslot"). If we were to standardize it, I could see it going either way but we should look for a general consensus.

Edit: After chatting on #grammar, "four-moveslot syndrom" is correct and most people have already started using this hyphenation. This has been added to the coined terms section.

[kokoloko*]

Random concern:

Can we er... stop encouraging people to always use "such as" to introduce examples instead of "like"? Yes it sounds nicer or whatever, but using it every single time gets repetitive and both are correct anyway; are they not?

Also a question: bulky Waters / bulky waters / bulky Water-types - which ones are usable? Every analysis I write I get told to use bulky Water-types, which quite frankly looks ugly as fuck and takes longer to type.

[Ray Jay]

It is indeed bulky Water-types, as it says in the standards.

Also "such as" shouldn't be repetitive, if it is, replace it with acceptable phrases, not "like." Examples are "including" and "for example."

Also ugliness is subjective.

[kokoloko*]

I ctrl+f'd the OP and found nothing about 'bulky Water-types' being the standard. The term was used as an example, but nothing about it actually being standard. Am I looking in the wrong place?

I stand by 'bulky Water-types' looking ugly and being unnecessarily fluffy when the term 'bulky water' is used by pretty much everyone.

If its a standard though, so be it.

[Oglemi*]

Originally Posted by Fat kokoloko

I ctrl+f'd the OP and found nothing about 'bulky Water-types' being the standard. The term was used as an example, but nothing about it actually being standard. Am I looking in the wrong place?

I stand by 'bulky Water-types' looking ugly and being unnecessarily fluffy when the term 'bulky water' is used by pretty much everyone.

If its a standard though, so be it.

Yeah it's been the "standard" since last gen, so while bulky water is used by everyone, it works against our other standards and imo looks uglier than bulky Water-types. It would be highly unproductive to go back on that standard now anyway.

EDIT: especially since bulky water is pretty archaic and dates back to ADV and DPP when the term came into prominence and isn't as metagame-relevant in most tiers nowadays as it was back then, so the term should be dropped altogether since it doesn't necessarily mean the same thing that it did back then

[The Truth]

There's an "e" in syndrome, guys; just wanted to point that out as i see "syndrom" in the op and in a couple posts.

[Ray Jay]

Originally Posted by Fat The Truth

There's an "e" in syndrome, guys; just wanted to point that out as i see "syndrom" in the op and in a couple posts.

You're absolutely right, this has been fixed.

[Mafeking]

This is something I see quite frequently in both analyses and articles and I think it's at least worth noting in this thread if not in the actual S&G article:

The idiom that means "to cause destruction" is "wreak havoc," not "wreck havoc."

EDIT: A question: playstyle, play style, or play-style?

EDIT2: Ray said playstyle. Thanks :3

[Ray Jay]

Yeah, I'd like to keep common knowledge out of the thing just so as to not encourage laziness in our authors, but if I continue to see it I will add it.

[SkullCandy]

Could we add a rule clarifying the use of 'which' and 'that'. A lot of people get them mixed up.

"That” restricts the reader's thought, directing attention to a specific bit of information to complete a message's meaning.
“Which” is non-restrictive and introduces subsidiary rather than essential information to the meaning of the sentence.

Example:

Pikachu likes the DS that is in the kitchen.
(Pikachu has more than one DS, but he likes the one that is in the kitchen.)
Pikachu likes the DS, which is in the kitchen.
(Pikachu only has one DS, it's in the kitchen and he likes it.)

[Ray Jay]

Originally Posted by Fat SkullCandy

Could we add a rule clarifying the use of 'which' and 'that'. A lot of people get them mixed up.

"That” restricts the reader's thought, directing attention to a specific bit of information to complete a message's meaning.
“Which” is non-restrictive and introduces subsidiary rather than essential information to the meaning of the sentence.

Example:

Pikachu likes the DS that is in the kitchen.
(Pikachu has more than one DS, but he likes the one that is in the kitchen.)
Pikachu likes the DS, which is in the kitchen.
(Pikachu only has one DS, it's in the kitchen and he likes it.)

Again, this varies more on understanding of language, which, no matter how much we include this in the standards thread, isn't going to help the people that need help with THAT particular skill.

[Calm Pokemaster]

This is somewhat of a general rule which is misunderstood, but I have noticed this error on a painfully large number of analyses - even a few GP members are getting this wrong on stuff I GP. This is concerning the usage of the comma before while. It should be used only in situations where contrast is being expressed. For example -

Ferrothorn OHKOes Quagsire while also setting up Spikes.

Ferrothorn sets up Spikes, while Heatran sets up Stealth Rock.

As I said earlier, this is somewhat of a general English grammar rule, but given the regularity of such a mistake being committed, I thought we could probably make this a standard.

[jc104]

CP: that's really not an error that I would consider worth correcting, if an error at all. A comma merely represents a pause. Sometimes said pause will seem appropriate, and sometimes not. We don't need to impose hard-and-fast rules dictating when to use it.

Please guys, can we just use a bit of common sense? Stick to fixing any obvious errors in an analysis, and try to make it read well rather than simply being pedantic.

Also, regarding super effective, I'd say that it may or may not be hyphenated depending on the context. If used as an adjective before a noun e.g "super-effective moves" I would generally prefer to see it hyphenated. This is generally the case when using two words together as an adjective. Basically, you should change the rule to "super effective is not capitalised".

Note, however, that if one of the words is an adverb, it should never be hyphenated. "Offensively-oriented" is an extremely common error that I think should be added to the op.

[Ray Jay]

I'd like to point out that it's a common misconception or overregularization to say that a comma just indicates a pause, but either way C_P is right. However, as I said above, this is not a change that I have really ever seen, and it's one that's easy enough to catch on GP's part that eventually the writer will learn it.

On the other hand, jc's addition about hyphenation with adverbs is one that I've had some newer GP members / wannabe GP members ask me about, so I went ahead and added that one.

[sirndpt]

SpikeStacking / Spike-stacking / Spikes-stacking?

OU Blissey and OU Starmie have "Spike-stacking", Giratina-O "SpikeStacking", and UU and RU Drifblim "Spikes-stacking"

eta: Elekid and UU Roserade have "Spikes stacking", which is probably wrong lol.


also, a few comments about the OP:

"Azelf has 125 base Special Attack" -> base 125 Special Attack !

" "Flying-type resists such as Pichu are good Pokemon" is incorrect" - perhaps give a correct example?

[Stalfos]

I don't see why we would ever use SpikeStacking or Spike-stacking considering we treat the move Spikes as a singular entity ("Spikes is a good move" instead of "Spikes are") and "Spike" isn't a thing in Pokemon.

my opinion: "Spikes-stacking" is a compound adjective (e.g. Spikes-stacking teams, Spikes-stacking offense), "Spikes stacking" is the adjective Spikes modifying the noun stacking, and "Spike-anything" is awful lol

for the record, here's what I'd make everything sirn linked to

• Blissey and Starmie: change to Spikes-stacking
• Giratina-O: change to Spikes stacking
• both Drifblim analyses: change to Spikes stacking (or "stacking Spikes", idc either way)
• Elekid: change to Spikes-stacking
• Roserade: leave as-is

I'll wait for more opinions though before I start editing shit lol

[Ray Jay]

Yeah, that's very difficult to standardize. Stalfos' point obviously makes the most sense, "Spikes stacking" is literally the stacking of Spikes, which makes sense that way. "Spikes-stacking teams" is a stupid way of phrasing that anyways, try to keep it to like "defensive / offensive teams that Spikes stack" or something.

[Ray Jay]

Sorry to double post, but apparently everyone disagrees with me so I'm going to go ahead and add a standardization for this issue in terms of the adjective "Spikes-stacking."

• The term Spikes-stacking is accepted as an adjective meaning "a team that attempts to stack multiple layers of Spikes".