An example I use to show the necessity of the serial comma--of which I am a
proponent--is the following: 

I respect my parents, Mother Teresa and Einstein.

Without the serial comma, it seems that Mother Teresa and Einstein are my
parents!

Christine Gray 

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dr E.L. Wright
Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 6:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Punctuation

Punctuation is indeed the means by which we attempt to reproduce the 
pauses, changes of pitch, etc., that arise from grammatical features in 
what we say. For example, all appositional phrases and adjectival clauses 
that provide non-restrictive information are said at a lower pitch (compare 
'The professor who had a bald head came in' -- picking out one professor 
from a group, 'restrictive', -- with 'The professor, who had a bald head, 
came in' -- one professor, additional non-essential information, 
'non-restrictive') . The two commas are therefore essential in the writing 
and correspond to the change of pitch. Ask students to say the sentence in 
question and they will discover that their own brain already knows the 
difference between restrictive and non-restrictive, for they automatically 
say the non-restrictive clause at a lower pitch.

Another example is the hyphen. Again one can show students that they 
already know about the presence of the hyphen for in saying one, the pitch 
always falls for the second part. I ask 'Which would you rather have, a 
half-baked pie, or a half baked pie?' The '-baked' is said at a lower pitch 
and with a slightly lower volume than 'baked'. The point originally was to 
distinguish an adjective that went with the other half of the hyphenated 
pair from the case where it governs the following noun: compare 'a 
white-hot tap' with 'a white hot tap'.

The period (or full-stop, as we say in Britain) is obviously related to its 
grammatical function. Similarly for the comma separating an adverb clause 
at the beginning of a sentence from what follows. To omit all punctuation 
would suggest that one spoke like the Daleks in 'Doctor Who' -- that is, if 
you Americans are acquainted with Doctor Who!

Edmond Wright

Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
Tel.:  00 - 44 - (0)1223 350256
Email:  [log in to unmask]
Website:  http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33

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