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

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

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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