『One of the best descriptions of punctuation comes in a book entitled The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist (1989) by Thomas McCormack. He says the purpose of punctuation is “to tango the reader into the pauses, inflections, continuities and connections that the spoken line would convey”:
Punctuation to the writer is like anatomy to the artist: He learns the rules so he can knowledgeably and controllédly depart from them as art requires. Punctuation is a means, and its end is: helping the reader to hear, to follow.
And here’s funny thing. If all these high moral arguments have no effect, just remember that ignorance of punctuation can have rather large practical repercussions in the real world. In February 2003 a Cambridge politics lecturer named Glen Rangwala received a copy of the British government’s most recent dossier in Iraq. He quickly recognized in it the wholesale copying of a twelve-year-old thesis by American doctoral student Ibrahim al-Marashi, “reproduced word for word, misplaced comma for misplaced comma”. Oh yes. Rangwala noticed there were some changes to the original, such as the word “terrorist” substituted for “opposition groups”, but otherwise much of it was identical. In publishing his findings, he wrote:
Even the typographical errors and anomalous uses of grammar are incorporated into the Downing Street document. For example, Marashi had written:
“Sad day appointed, Sabir ’Abd al-’Aziz al-Duri s head”…
Note the misplaced comma. The UK officials who used Marash’s text hadn’t. Thus, on page 13, the British dossier incorporates the misplaced coma:
“Saddam appointed, Sabir ’Abd al-’Aziz al-Duri as head”…
So we ignore the rules of punctuation at our political peril as well as to our moral detriment. When Sir Roger Casement was “hanged on a comma” all those years ago, who would have thought a British government would be rumbled on a comma(and a “yob’s comma”, at that)ninety years further down the line? Doesn’t it feel good to know this, though? It does. It really does.』*
Some rules about using Comma:
- Comma is correct if it can be replaced by the word ‘and’ or ‘or’.
- Comma are used when two compete sentences are joined together, using such conjunctions as ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’, ‘while ‘ and ‘yet’.
- To involve missing words cunningly by comma. Example: Annie had dark hair; Sally, fair.
- Comma before direct speech.
- Comma setting off interjections. Example: Stop, or I’ll scream.
- Comma that come in pairs. Example: I’m, of course, going steadily nuts.
*：‘Eats, Shoots & Leaves’, by Lynne Truss
2019/12/5 Punctuations Damakey
