From Space Oddity, by Catherynne M. Valente:
Formal charges against modern English filed by the Publishing Hiveknot of the Pisces Epsilon Voidspace include: theft, larceny, grand theft comma, identity theft, public indecency, still more theft, slang assault, semicolon abuse, fugitive sentences running on forever to escape the law, vandalism, drunk and disorderly conduct, general nuisance, and driving under the influence of French…In fact, virtually every time the rules of English tell you not to do something, it’s got…unless you want to. What are you, scared? scratched under the rule by a safety pin with sick lightning bolts and skulls on either side…But English, inasmuch as it has rules, is so constitutionally incapable of obeying even itself that virtually every possible sentence contains some exception, some rude gesture of pug-nosed defiance toward the concept of order itself, some precious little bit of spelling or syntax that thinks it’s so special it doesn’t have to behave like all the other children. You can hardly turn a phrase without being accosted by silent letters lying in wait for innocent spellers-by, half-dressed homonyms beckoning with come-hither stares, red-light district infinitives doing the splits, some dubious fellow in a trench coat lined with irregular verbs, delinquent subclauses loitering in the night, delusional plurals insisting they’re perfectly normal, broken sentence fragments desperate for the love of a good subject, unhinged apostrophes clinging to your clothes, and roving gangs of wildly disparate diphthongs all pronounced eh.
From Swordheart, by T. Kingfisher:
Great-Uncle Silas had been extraordinarily fond of it. Two priests and a paladin had certified that it wasn’t possessed by a demon, although they also all said that there was clearly something very wrong with it and had recommended a great deal of fire followed by a great deal of holy water. Silas had instead put it in a cage in the dining room, because he was that sort of person.
From We Do Not Part, by Han Kang:
I don’t find her story implausible now, Inseon said.
Or that my father was in prison for fifteen years and also standing right over there.
Or how when I hugged my knees to my chest under my desk, I was also in the pit beneath the runway.
Or how if I kept turning your dream around in my mind, I would see shadoes glimmering like fins inside a lightless aquarium.
