With my blog named COMMA and all that, I could not resist posting an extract of an article which appeared in the Times Of India titled COMMA SUTRA. The article is by Mr. J S Raghavan and he and TOINS retain full copyright of this (just to clear any doubts of plagiarism).
P.S. A typo (or mind-o if such a word exists) from yesterday’s blog.
As a kind (and alert) reader helpfully pointed out, Gravity is part of Physics.
I stand corrected.
Enjoy
V
COMMA SUTRA: Pause Before A Stop
22 Jul 2008, 0000 hrs IST, J S Raghavan
Ever since my schoolteacher underscored the volte-face in the gravitas of the telegram, 'Hang him not, leave him,' which was misleadingly conveyed as 'Hang him, not leave him,' the importance of commas has remained etched in my mind.
A comma, followed by a white space and never preceded by it, is akin to a momentary coma in the elongated life of a sentence. A sentence is not supposed to zip, bullet-like, towards its logical end, namely the full stop. It should have pauses in the form of colons, semicolons and commas, a comma among them allowing the writer to make it classy, by introducing a wide variety of clauses at punctuated pauses like sharp bends in a scenic railway.
A wit said a cat has claws at the end of its paws. But a comma is a pause at the end of a clause.
Without commas, a long meandering compound-complex sentence will be a simple sentence pronounced on the reader. A crafty man may pour out his love shakily thus: 'I love you, and the millions and your dad's objections do not really matter.' But the darkness of his heart would have slyly repositioned the comma thus: 'I love you and the millions, and your dad's objections do not really matter'.
Millions or no millions, feminine figures require curves to attract and bewitch. But the ones denoting numbers require commas. Millions and lakhs may remain monikerless without such markings. Karmic commas don't act tetchily like cockroaches when inverted. Instead, they serve quoting direct speeches.
There are rules that command the usage of commas before conjunctions — the word 'command' gaining portmanteau status with a 'comma' spliced with an 'and'. The Oxford comma is also known as the serial comma.
On the day my English professor explained it, his battered (Morris) Oxford had conked out. "Well, it used to be a comma," he drawled. "Now it is a full stop."
Grammarians grimly teach complex rules that govern the use of commas punctuating linguistic units like parentheses, participial clauses, adverbial sentences, apposition phrases and so forth, all dry and dreary, like cold pasta served without gravy.
The crying need, therefore, is a comically illustrative work titled 'Comma Sutra' which can nestle close to Vatsyayana's 'Kama Sutra' in a bookshelf on the simple premise that both deal with positions
Wish we had such great writeups and artices in the local UAE newspapers as well. Had not read such good english and well written prose in a long time. Thanks buddy for the enlightment.
ReplyDeleteI used to wait eagerly for the literary supplement of the Sunday editions of The Hindu back in the Madras days when Dom Moraes was still alive and David Davidar still had so much time to write.
Kaha gaye woh log...