Relative clauses and commas (was: Re: "certain" inThe First Noel)

[Bradley A. Esparza]

Another pillar of my reality gone, thank you.

On 8/4/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> On Aug 3, 2007, at 5:59 PM, Bradley A. Esparza wrote:
>
> > I fall back on Strunk and White, the prescriptivist's choice in my
> > college
> > days at the UWa in the early 80's. I believe it was whenever a
> > natural pause
> > in speech occurs, or something like that. It has been my dictator ever
> > since.
>
> this is *not* what S&W says.  it gives five specific rules concerning
> the use of commas.  the "natural pause" principle is not mentioned,
> and that's a good thing, because that principle leads writers to put
> commas in places where they don't belong -- in particular, between
> subject and predicate.
>
> a better principle makes reference to the intonation that is encoded
> in many commas (but not, alas, all).  however, it's not easy to teach
> people to listen for this intonation, and when people focus on
> details of their pronunciation, they often introduce all sorts of
> phonetic distortions in their productions.  so most advisers do what
> S&W did: list places where commas are necessary, places where they
> are banned, and places where there's some leeway.
>
> arnold
>
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>



--
Bradley A. Esparza

"You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think." Dorothy
Parker, when asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence.

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org