is the sentence correct? ---(1) "The store is closed". is it correct? - (2) it is a two story building. (which means there are two levels.)
The store is closed. In quotes: "The store is closed." (US) What you have is correct for European English in quotes. 2nd: It is a two-story building.
The first sentence is incorrect because the period should go inside the parenthesis. The second sentence is incorrect for two reasons: "it" is not capitalized; and there should be a hyphen between the "two" and "story". The word "story" actually means a factual account of events, but it has become common to use it in place of tier, or deck. A two-leveled building really isn't right as the original word of "level" meant a horizontal measurement. Others already pointed out the obvious, but there could be questions as to whether "story" is semantically correct.
In the US, story can refer to levels but outside it is usually storey. The other issue is that technically a story referred to a level but if you were referring to the total people should use storied as in if there are 6 floors, it is a six-storied building, though that is less commonly the way it is used today. And then there is that period outside the parenthesis.
I am a member of PF and, as such, refuse to admit when I am wrong (which is never anyways) so, yes, parenthesis.
The store is closed. This is a two story building... It really depends on how you are phrasing your sentence...
Two-story can be used, but it's not a grammatical rule.... Theoretically you could say twostory.... Two story is the correct way to write it...
(1) "The store is closed." (2) I would write it as "It is a two-storey building" (and I think using the contraction "it's" is more idiomatic, unless you want to be more formal or emphasise the "is"). But I use British English.
Just on the idiomatic use. There's an old saying that, "we speak in a first draft". That's to say that spoken English can be pretty lax (outside of a formal environment at least) but as long as the message gets across then laxity doesn't really matter. Written English is a different proposition. Again it depends on the setting but it's usual for written English to be a little more precise than spoken English. After all the reader (unlike the listener)* doesn't have the chance to ask the writer (unlike the speaker)** for clarification. * and ** - I could have used commas but I chose to use parentheses for effect.
I don't think usage of contractions has anything to do with precision. No meaning is omitted or made unclear through the usage of a contraction. To me, unless there is a need to emphasise "is" (and if there were, I would probably italicise the "is"), "it is" sounds clunky and strange in written English, probably more so than in formal spoken English.
Depends on what you're writing (as opposed to saying aloud) and its context. At the risk of being a boring pedant.... I would write "it's" in informal written work. I probably would try to avoid it in, say, a paper for a refereed journal. The contraction would be - just in my opinion - fine for a newspaper column or report, a piece of fiction and similar informal contexts. If I were preparing a brief for court I'd not use a contraction unless it was in reported speech. I don't think it's about precision, more about context. And having just typed that short sentence I'm re-imagining it as, "I don't think it is about precision..." One contraction. "I do not think it is about precision..." No contractions. Here in the forums I'd used contractions, in a paper for publication I'd avoid them as much as I could. It does sound a bit formal so I'd save it for a formal context.
True, but formal situations are an exception (and slight "clunkiness" seems to be a requirement of formal writing; words/expressions such as "shan't" and "one" sound clunky too).
