Dear Gordon,

The underlined material is the idiomatic resatement of these clauses:

My life will be better if this time of my life is over sooner rather than
later.


These clauses then become: The sooner it is over, the better (my life will
be).


I think that there should be a comma following "over," to prevent misreading.

JVB



At 09:11 AM 7/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>        One of my students wrote a sentence that uses a common idiom that
>has me questioning how to parse the part in underlined Italics and
>wondering if it requires further punctuation. "This time of my life has
>been the strangest and most stressful I can remember, and the sooner it is
>over the better.   I would appreciate your comments.
>Gordon Carmichael
>Texas University State System (English Department)
James Vanden Bosch              (616) 957-6592
Department of English           [log in to unmask]
Calvin College                  fax: (616) 957-8508
Grand Rapids, MI 49546          http://www.calvin.edu/~vand
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