THE COMMA

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 21, 18 October 1937, Page 6

THE COMMA

Much Can Depend On It Many years ago the omission of a comma from a letter which appeared ii> "The Times" gave a terrible twist to a sentence. Writin'g on the American war, a correspondent said: "The loss of life will hardly fall short of a quarter of a million. How many more were better with the dead than doomed to crawl on the mutilated victims of this great national crime." In the report of a trial newspaper had this sentence: "The prisoner said the witness was a convicted thief." An action was threatened the newspaper, which later gave the sentence its correct rendering: "The prisoner, said the witness, was a convicted thief." A church issued a notice of a meeting in connection with the "Society for Promoting the Observance of the Lord's [Way which was founded in 1831." So Sunday is only 106 years oldi In his "collections," G. W. Russell furnished an amusing instance of the twist which may be given to a sentence by the omission of a comma, or the misplacing of a comma: " A clergyman said he would wear no clothes to distinguish him from the laity. ' ' A newspaper reported his speech thus: "The reverend gentleman said that he would wear no clothes, to distinguish him from the laity 1 " In a school report the teacher intended to inform the parents, ' ' Unsatisfactory, Eleanor might do better." What she aetually wrote by omitting a comma was: "Unsatisfactory Eleanor might do better." Whereupon the parents promptly removed Eleanor to another school. Yet there are folk — unthinking folk they must be — who will have it that a comma omitted or a comma inserted in the wrong place, is not of any momentl