June 27, 2004
Another Lily
From Lynn Truss’s book: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation :
“One of the comma heavyweight championship bouts of the 20th century played out between Harold Ross, the legendary editor of The New Yorker, and the equally legendary humorist James Thurber. Ross was a pro-comma kind of guy. Thurber was of the less-is-more school, but since Ross was the editor, he generally had the last word. Thurber was asked by a correspondent why he used a comma in the sentence, "After dinner, the men went into the living-room." His answer was probably one of the loveliest things ever said about punctuation. 'This particular comma,' Thurber explained, 'was Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up.' "
My local library has a waiting list of four hundred for this book on punctuation. No, I didn’t make it 401.
Stunning! What is it called? I don't think I've ever seen one like it.
Posted by Helen.Glorious. But how to boomerangingly graphically refute the error of your black-background ways if it only downloads as an html file?
Your fantasy, oh blogmeister, is to find, I'm sure, a tome that extolls the virtues of free-form commanating, a veritable Dr. Spock's punctuation demystifier and liberator. Instead, there are just rules, endlessly debated by acolytes of this, that, and the other, leaving us all certain of ongoing transgressions.......... A lovely expression by Thurber, though!
Posted by punctuated blossom.A sensible conclusion, surely, but not one grounded in reality. Much of what I write - that which is not edited by you or Diane - reread months later is virtually unintelligible. Without the freshness of knowing what I wanted to say, I wander around in my random comma forest desperately searching for a bread-crumbed way out. No, I really do want to do better, and my guess is having too many commas or not enough is far different from having them in the wrong place.
From the intro to her book:
You think those thuggish chaps in movie heist gangs fall out a bit too quickly and mindlessly? Well, sticklers are worse. The Czech novelist Milan Kundera once fired a publisher who insisted on replacing a semicolon with a full stop; meanwhile, full-time editors working together on the same publication, using the same style book, will put hyphens in, take them out, and put them in again – all day, if necessary. The marginal direction to printers “STET” (meaning “let it stand” and cancelling an alteration) gets used rather a lot in these conditions. At The Listener, where I was literary editor from 1986 to 1990, I discovered that any efforts I made to streamline the prose on my pages would always be challenged by one particular sub-editor, who would proof-read my book reviews and archly insert literally dozens of little commas – each one of which I felt as a dart in my flesh. Of course, I never revealed the annoyance she caused. I would thank her, glance at the blizzard of marks on the galley proof, wait for her to leave the room, and then (standing up to get a better run at it) attack the proof, feverishly crossing out everything she had added, and writing “STET’’, “STET”, “STET”, “STET”, “STET” all down the page, until my arm got tired and I was spent. And don’t forget: this comma contention was not a matter of right or wrong. It was just a matter of taste.
Posted by Comma Carnage.Fallacy somewhere, I fancy........ How can having too many or too few commas be any different from having them in the wrong place? In other words, how could you have too many in the right place..........?
But what a tour-de-force is the quoted passage! Fearlessly flinging her barbed punctuation marks spot-on into each void to be punctuated - bullseye's all. Remarkable, that she can make her point, and use punctuation without pedantry; and yet to precise instructive effect. Hoorah!
Posted by stickler.A waiting list of four hundred for a book on punctuation?
O tempora o mores! Where are the priorities of these people? Don't they have lives?
But did you check? Maybe there is one fanatic who asked for the book 400 times while another fanatic refuses to return the book?
Posted by rakkity.As nimble in mind as he is in body, rakkity skewers the suspicion many have that there couldn't possibly be more than 2 or 3 demented souls so possessed by the technicalities of communication! If there were still East German judges, even she would give that smackdown a 10.
Posted by standing.Posted by Michael at June 27, 2004 11:32 AM
Stunning! What is it called? I don't think I've ever seen one like it.
Posted by: Helenat June 27, 2004 12:08 PMGlorious. But how to boomerangingly graphically refute the error of your black-background ways if it only downloads as an html file?
Your fantasy, oh blogmeister, is to find, I'm sure, a tome that extolls the virtues of free-form commanating, a veritable Dr. Spock's punctuation demystifier and liberator. Instead, there are just rules, endlessly debated by acolytes of this, that, and the other, leaving us all certain of ongoing transgressions.......... A lovely expression by Thurber, though!
Posted by: punctuated blossomat June 27, 2004 06:39 PMA sensible conclusion, surely, but not one grounded in reality. Much of what I write - that which is not edited by you or Diane - reread months later is virtually unintelligible. Without the freshness of knowing what I wanted to say, I wander around in my random comma forest desperately searching for a bread-crumbed way out. No, I really do want to do better, and my guess is having too many commas or not enough is far different from having them in the wrong place.
From the intro to her book:
You think those thuggish chaps in movie heist gangs fall out a bit too quickly and mindlessly? Well, sticklers are worse. The Czech novelist Milan Kundera once fired a publisher who insisted on replacing a semicolon with a full stop; meanwhile, full-time editors working together on the same publication, using the same style book, will put hyphens in, take them out, and put them in again – all day, if necessary. The marginal direction to printers “STET” (meaning “let it stand” and cancelling an alteration) gets used rather a lot in these conditions. At The Listener, where I was literary editor from 1986 to 1990, I discovered that any efforts I made to streamline the prose on my pages would always be challenged by one particular sub-editor, who would proof-read my book reviews and archly insert literally dozens of little commas – each one of which I felt as a dart in my flesh. Of course, I never revealed the annoyance she caused. I would thank her, glance at the blizzard of marks on the galley proof, wait for her to leave the room, and then (standing up to get a better run at it) attack the proof, feverishly crossing out everything she had added, and writing “STET’’, “STET”, “STET”, “STET”, “STET” all down the page, until my arm got tired and I was spent. And don’t forget: this comma contention was not a matter of right or wrong. It was just a matter of taste.
Posted by: Comma Carnageat June 27, 2004 07:07 PMFallacy somewhere, I fancy........ How can having too many or too few commas be any different from having them in the wrong place? In other words, how could you have too many in the right place..........?
But what a tour-de-force is the quoted passage! Fearlessly flinging her barbed punctuation marks spot-on into each void to be punctuated - bullseye's all. Remarkable, that she can make her point, and use punctuation without pedantry; and yet to precise instructive effect. Hoorah!
Posted by: sticklerat June 27, 2004 07:39 PMA waiting list of four hundred for a book on punctuation?
O tempora o mores! Where are the priorities of these people? Don't they have lives?
But did you check? Maybe there is one fanatic who asked for the book 400 times while another fanatic refuses to return the book?
Posted by: rakkityat June 30, 2004 11:58 AMAs nimble in mind as he is in body, rakkity skewers the suspicion many have that there couldn't possibly be more than 2 or 3 demented souls so possessed by the technicalities of communication! If there were still East German judges, even she would give that smackdown a 10.
Posted by: standingat June 30, 2004 02:05 PM