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Subject:Re: Commas (was: But for however) From:"Cheverie, Paul [Cont]" <paul -dot- cheverie -at- GPO -dot- CANADA -dot- CDEV -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 13 Nov 1995 11:18:00 EST
Sorry, I wasn't fast enough to catch the name attached to this question
(Monday morning's are such a drag after a weekend on the ski hill). But,
whoever you are:
You hit me at the right time for this question. I'm right in the middle of
writing a writer's guide for my company and just happened to get into the
punctuation section last night. I had forgotten what a useful creature the
comma was. I hope this helps.
Paul C
paul -dot- cheverie -at- gpo -dot- canada -dot- cdev -dot- com
A comma indicates a slight pause in a sentence and is used to:
- set off an introductory adverbial clause;
- set off participle phrases;
- set off or enclose a commenting relative clause;
- set off subordinate clauses that are joined by conjunctions;
- set of independant clauses that co-ordinating conjunctions such as "and",
"but", "so", "nore" and "for";
- separate words or phrases in a series (especially when using parallel
construction);
- set off nouns in apposition;
- replace a word that is common to two parts of a sentence (a Kingair has
two engines and a Cherokee, one); and
- set of parenthetic phrases or words in a sentence where parentheses or
dashes aren't used.
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> Does anyone on this list remember what a comma signifies?
