There is a fine old classic work on punctuation entitled Mind the Stop by G. V. Carey, published in Britain in 1939. A stop is a Briticism for any of the marks of punctuation (comma, semicolon, colon, and period) which intend to pause the reader to some degree at some specific point in a sentence. Although Carey’s work is almost one hundred years old and some conventions have changed, consulting the classics can be helpful for the clear-minded perspective they take on questions still current—a perspective often more thorough and articulate than we regularly come upon in current explanations.
Carey is straightforward about the purpose of learning to punctuate. He affirms that “the main function of punctuation is to make perfectly clear the construction of the written words.” The italics are his, and they mean to emphasize the idea, which he had addressed earlier, that most of the marks which we position in a sentence are there to direct the eye, not the ear. This is not to ignore the place (and some argue the preeminent place) of hearing in comprehending meaning, but as Carey estimates, “of all that is written and printed only a small fraction is read aloud,” and observes that “the needs of the eye are not exactly the same as those of the voice.” Structure appeals to the eye, cadence to the ear.
All this is another way of saying that we can look at punctuating a sentence from two directions, one logical and the other rhetorical. Consider this simple sentence: The Columbian writer, Gabriel García Márquez, was born in 1927. Many, many writers and readers both will consider the commas here correct, and they will do so by perceiving an ever so slight pause before and after the name of the writer. Somewhere, out of the mists of time and chaos, there was decreed the fiat (I remember hearing it myself in school) that one places a comma where one breathes. The problem with that proclamation, however, is that it is only half true. The language we read is arranged to represent for the eye the meaning which was originally perceived by the ear, whether the physical vibrations caught for the brain by our bodily ear, or the inner vibrations discerned by the mind as we become conscious of meaning. The ear’s discernment is closer to insight than logic, and the converse is true for the eye. We need to breathe and we need to indicate that sometimes with a comma, but if we take a breath in the middle of a group of words which work together logically, then the old decree is not serving the commonweal.
The pair of commas in our example sentence, then, lets our ear favor its wishes at the expense of clear thinking. Commas cut, and they especially cut away from the structure of the sentence information which is deemed merely additional but not essential. But when we excise the writer’s proper name with commas, notice what results: the Columbian writer was born in 1927. This not only puts the reader into the position of wondering which Columbian writer we are talking about, but it also logically implies that there was ever only one Columbian writer, and the reader would of course know the person meant. In other words, the commas have removed essential information: the name of the particular Columbian writer we are referring to who was born in 1927.
That illustrates what is called logical punctuation, but what about the rhetorical, a comma, for example, which is placed (or omitted) for reasons of personal taste (including the rhythm of breathing) in circumstances where no ambiguity, no crashing into critical thought could result? In a recent post, I wrote the following long sentence. The context is not important for our present purposes (you may read the complete post here), but note the comma I placed immediately before the verb helps:
Taylor himself no doubt believes that his own reconstruction (referring to what the reader will have learned from him in the first two chapters) has of course been successful, but the fact that a hypothetical sentence does not speak to the reality of either its condition or its result, helps Taylor to blunt an otherwise too forward self-assertion.
The ultimate subject of that verb helps is fact, and that noun is defined by the lengthy clause (beginning with the subordinating conjunction that) which follows it. This means, then, that the twenty words before the verb helps comprise the subject phrase for that verb. Now that’s a long way to travel in a sentence before meeting a verb, and so my own unconscious proclivity was to place a comma after the subject phrase so that my readers could catch their breath before taking a few more steps up and into the predicate, where they may finally find rest. I did not (and do not) believe I impaired the logic, but a good many editors will make it clear to me that the rules dictate no comma should stand between a subject and its predicate. Alas.
This tension between steel rules and pliable exceptions is a part of any creative work, work of any artistic sort which intends its spectators to see meaning amidst the objects and events of life. No such effort runs continuously without its difficulties, and if we can remember that, we will be able to work—to write—with less frustration, disappointment, and near despair. Says Carey in summary:
Stops should be used as sparingly as sense will permit; but in so far as they are needed for immediate grasp of the sense or for the avoidance of any possible ambiguity, or occasionally to relieve a very lengthy passage, they should be used as freely as need be.
To relieve a very lengthy passage. Indeed.
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