I rewrote part of the last post to make things easier for myself – one sentence needed some tricky punctuation to be correct, and I wasn’t certain whether I needed two or three commas within the span of seven words, so I rewrote it.
That put me in mind of two different things. The phrase in question was reminiscent of the punchline of an Ogden Nash poem (you can find it here, among other places), and the question of correct punctuation reminded me of a puzzle from when I was in high school.
Punctuate the following:
john while james had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher
I think I’ll see what kind of responses I receive (and whether I receive any) before posting the answer.
This looks right to me…..
John while James, had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
How close (or far) away am I????
That’s pretty much it. The solution I have has it as two sentences, with a period in place of the semicolon, and the first subsequent “h” capitalized.