comma=because

[Duane Campbell]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 13:11:45 -0500 Herb Stahlke <HSTAHLKE at GW.BSU.EDU>
writes:
> This sort of error is as common as it is because English
> punctuation does not allow us to mark something that speech marks
> very nicely.

I must admit that I do this myself. I write a column that is deliberately
-- some would say cloyingly (in fact some HAVE said cloyingly) --
conversational. And I have always believed that if you know the rules, in
the absence of an American Academy, you are free to break them. So I
occasionally separate two independent clauses with a comma as a break
weaker than a semicolon. For example: "I didn't do anything in
particular, it just happened." It is sort of the grammatical equivalent
of a "rolling stop" at a stop sign.

D