Comment by Glew

*shockgasp* Did Shazzbaa just butcher English in the floaty tooltip thingy? OR am I the only one who can't grasp the grammatical meaning of "in for a comic"?
ps. I wouldn't be grammarnazi-ing if I wouldn't know that you are one too. ;p

Reply by Nziz

No, it's awkward, but I think it's right. Hard to tell without hearing it, but the difference is which far of the sentence the "in" belongs with.

"Making a different font for every character to speak in ... for a comic lettered by hand."

There's probably a more textbook-correct way of writing it, but it's right enough!

Reply by Glew

But there is no "..." between the in and the for. It is just "making a font for every single character to speak in for a comic lettered by hand"

At least now I think I understand why the "in" is there - it looked totally redundant to me before. It's there to say "speak in a comic" but then there is also "font for a character for a comic" which then I guess collided in what we have now??? Maybe? Or is that totally wrong?
So then it's grammatically correct? I'm honestly intrigued now.

Reply by Shazzbaa

Nziz is right! -- the "in" doesn't go with comic at all. It's "font for a character to speak in," as in, each character will speak in a different font. I am creating these fonts for a comic that I letter by hand. It's just two separate thoughts that are put together without any punctuation separating them.

I'm not sure about accuracy, but it's certainly not an optimal sentence construction! Truth be told, while I'm a stickler for knowing the right word to use, grammatically speaking, I'll often throw away things like punctuation for humourous effect and/or to get across the tone of how I'd be saying something, because I consider perfect grammar secondary to communication and rhythm of speech.

You could make it less ambiguous by simply inserting punctuation: "Making a font for every single character to speak in, for a comic I letter by hand."
Though I suspect the most technically accurate way to state it would probably involve rewriting it entirely so that there's not a preposition hanging out at the end of that first thought:
"Making every single character speak in a different font in a comic I letter by hand" but that doesn't have the same sound to me.

Reply by Rachel's Mom

Actually, speaking as Grammar Paladin Senior, I approve of your re-written statement. ;)

Reply by Glew

Thanks, it was enlightning! So the idea you wanted to convey flew over my head. I blame it on the fact that "to speak in a font" is not a widely used idea.
Ah, agglutination makes these kinds of things so much easier (though it probably leads to a bunch of other problems).