% toki pona personal style
% /dev/urandom
% 2020-12-02

Different people have different ideas about how toki pona is supposed to work.
Given the language's intentionally minimalist grammar and vocabulary, that's to
be expected. Here's a list of my personal preferences and phrases that I use
commonly.

* In sentences that only have "mi" or "sina" as a subject, but several
  predicates (verbs or adjectives that would otherwise be separated by "li", I
  separate the sentence into two:

  > mi pali. mi moku. - I work and eat.

* I try to avoid using "en" anywhere other than the subject, but tolerate using
  it in phrases that follow "pi".

* When I use "kepeken" as a verb ("to use") instead of a preposition ("using,
  with the help of"), I include the object marker "e" the same way I would with
  other verbs.

* I may insert commas as pauses to differentiate between ambiguious phrases or
  to help in reading possibly confusing sentences. For example:

  > mi pana e tomo tawa sina. - I give your car.
  
  > mi pana e tomo, tawa sina. - I give you a house.

  > mi pana e tomo tawa, tawa sina. - I give a car to you.

* I insert commas after "la" in all circumstances:

  > ken la, mi ken pali. - Maybe I can work.

  > tomo pali li open la, mi ken pali. - If the office is open, I can work.

* I use "open" and "pini" as pre-verbs meaning "begin (doing smth)" "finish/stop
  (doing something)".

* When a numeral is used as a number, I usually write it with Arabic numerals.
  If it's an ordinal number, the word "nanpa" may be represented with a number
  sign (`#`).

* I don't use "pi" before "nanpa" if it's followed by an ordinal number.

* I use "pu" as all possible parts of speech, not just as a verb.

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