Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!labrea!aurora!jade!ig!uwmcsd1!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!markh
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Theological Debates
Summary: Comma usage ignored by the critic.
Keywords: Comma
Message-ID: <4107@uwmcsd1.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 88 03:39:13 GMT
References: <4062@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <514@gethen.UUCP> <4080@uwmcsd1.UUCP> <22421@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: daemon@uwmcsd1.UUCP
Reply-To: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 27

In article <22421@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Michael Robinson) writes:
>In article <4080@uwmcsd1.UUCP> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>>>>     Maybe, I ought to clarify myself, as there seem to be those who haven't
>>            ^
>>       This is correct usage, given my intentions.  A comma denotes a pause, it
>>was a pause that was intended here.  Are you sure YOU do not need a remedial 
>>course?
>
>Wrong, again, Mister Remedial.  Is that what they're teaching you at
      ^
>A pause, when it is a semantic entity unto itself, is represented by an
>ellipsis.
...or by a comma, period, colon or semi-colon.  

In any case, what makes the nit-pickers' position so untenable is that they 
cannot even observe the very "rules" they set out to impose on others.  It's
this hypocracy that gives the proscriptivists the bad "bookish" reputation
they have.
     In any case, notice that where the two marks occur, a comma DOES denote
a pause: the kind that we would make after uttering an expletive and before
uttering the remaining sentence.  Basically, you have to assume that I used
the word "Maybe" in the same way you used the word "Wrong", because I put that
comma there consciously (on purpose) for exactly that effect.

>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Michael Robinson                              USENET:  ucbvax!ernie!robinson
>                                              ARPA: robinson@ernie.berkeley.edu