Ford F-150

Are you sure you don't live in a Blue state, Pete?

Yeah, it was fun, but I decided that there was a chance some idiot would find some way to sue me for it, if they were coming down the road at 185mph and hit their brakes wrong in front of my hazardous liquid spill, knowwhatImean,Vern?

No you don't. This bedliner covered all the tiedown points so I had to install some that were strong enough to secure a load of industrial machinery. None of the commercial stake pocket tiedowns I looked at would solidly connect to the truck; they depended on the friction of an expanding rubber plug and didn't provide for a waterproof seal at the hole through the liner. My home made ones are solid metal, stronger than the sheet metal stake pockets they are locked into, and sealed by compressed rubber grommets.

Hey Ed, is the semicolon after "truck" legitimate?

--jsw

Yes, and it's a good one. It's often an option among several choices; sometimes it's by far the best, as in your example.

OK, but you didn't originally disclose that.

Yeah, the selection is pretty meager. Most homemades I've seen were long eyebolts which went through the bottom stake bracket hole and had wooden inserts similar to your description.

I'm not WOE, but yes, either the semicolon or . T would have worked.

I once had a journalism instructor who wrote his own style book, available at the college book store. It started off with "This book was written to assist the student learn... " He apparently wasn't satisfied with "help", and had to go with something more impressive from his word processor's list of suggestions. Idiot.

In case you missed it, there has been a long string of discussion here about the "comma splice".

Ed answered with a fine example of his own.

--jsw

Yes, the semicolon is properly used. It links two closely related independent clauses.

Do you remember where you saw a comma splice?

You gave an example of a semicolon.

"It's often an option among several choices; sometimes it's by far the best, as in your example."

--jsw

Oh. For the record, that's not a comma splice. I intentionally wrote that with a semicolon, to give an example of the point.

Maybe you didn't intend to use it as an example of a comma splice?

Sorry if I was ambiguous; I know I need to practice writing clearly.

Ed has a style book. He doesn't need it any more, but it's there. I went to the trouble of finding you a free one.