The moment of decision: when do you pull the trigger?

|||   Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:54 pm GMT
In this sentence, after the sign ":"
Is it correct to start the next word with lower case?

What about the Brazilian man murdered in London?
Is it correct not to use his COMPLETE name in the news media?

What is happening in London?
or What is going on in London?

Can I describe their society with these words?

"In the absence of the human-rights values,
the only way that a government can protect a society
is to remove the freedom of its people.
And in such a society, the sons and daughters of lions become sheep".

And the destiny of sheeps is to be..."executed".
Robert   Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:19 pm GMT
Yes, although a small minority will follow the colon (":") and the semicolon (";") with an initial capital.

Use his complete name, "Jean Charles de Menezes", the first time you mention him. Thereafter his patronymic surname is sufficient, either "Mr Menezes" or "Menezes" as long as you pick one or the other and stick with it.

Either.

It is not clear whose society you wish to describe nor what "human-rights values" are, but I see no grammatical errors in your sentence. However, I would add a comma for the apositional phrase in "And, in such a society, the sons and ...".

"Sheep" is the plural of "sheep" and their destiny, if it can be called that, is to be slaughtered. Animals are slaughtered. People and plans are executed.
|||   Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:59 pm GMT
Thanks Robert
When I was writing the sentence about the sheep, my first option was "slaughtered", but I was not sure about its spelling. And my babylon dictionary did not have it, so... Impatiently, I used "executed".

There is not a specific society, but I guess that London society is suffering that kind of situation.

Imagine that you are deaf, waiting at the tube for your ride, wearing "strange" clothes, what probabilities have you got of being shot?

Is that the way a government is going to "protect" a society?

Authorizing the license to kill is a real and heavy responsibility.

About the plural, what about Fish and Fishes?
Uriel   Sun Jul 31, 2005 4:45 am GMT
In everyday conversation, fish is both singular and plural. (Unless you're an upstanding Sicilian businessman, in which case you may say of a suddenly absent competitor, "He sleeps with the fishes."

In biology, however, when referring collectively to different species of fish, you say fishes.