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Sierra Godfrey" <kittenbreath -at- hotbot -dot- com> wrote:
>Example:
>There is no need to separate the source from this mounting plate, as the assembly will be >replaced as a whole.
>
>Is the comma necessary? One engineer here feels it is not, but I like it there because it sounds >better.
>Do any of you have any handy rules for this? I'd like some justification if possible.
Unfortunately, comma use has even fewer rules than most parts of
English grammar. Several conventions exist, and the trouble is
that you and the engineer are using two different ones.
The modern tendency is to omit commas except where absolutely
necessary (I think this has something to do with the destruction
of the South American rain forest, the comma's natural habit, and
its addition to CITES I, which limits export. I understand that
development of a synthetic comma is underway, but, until then,
commas are strictly rationed. Teachers and writers can usually
get what they need, but students, engineers and newspaper
journalists never have enough. The same is true of the related
species, the apostrophe).
My personal rules are:
a.) use the comma whenever leaving it out might make someone
misread the sentence. Your example is punctuated properly so far
as I'm concerned, because, without it, the fact that "as" is
ambiguous: "As" could introduce a simile or a condtion, or it
could be a synonym for "because."
b.) use a comma when a phrase is long enough that its function in
the sentence can be lost. For example, I don't usually both with
a serial apostrophe for "students, engineers and newspaper
journalists." However, I do tend to use one for long lists, such
as: "the women in their long gowns, the men in their tuxedos, and
the children in their play clothes."
I don't think that everyone would agree with me, especially about
the second rule, but the point is simply to make sure that your
commas have a use.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
"The Open Road" column, Maximum Linux
3015 Aries Place, Burnaby, BC V3J 7E8, Canada
bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7189
"I should have known it from the start,
It's not the truth that really matters,
The real world tramples on such things,
Leaves your mental state in tatters."
-James Keelaghan, "Small Rebellions"
