Christine,

Back in my teaching days, I used to teach the issue with two sentences:

My son John is a student.
My husband, John, is a farmer.

I would then ask, "What have I told you about the size of my family?"

The answer, of course, is that I have more than one son.

Another question I would pose--when we had decided that I do, indeed,
have more than one son.  What would my office partner respond when I
walked into the office and said,

"My son is sick"?  Because my office partner knows me and my family,
he would answer, "Which one?"

If I walked in and said, "My husband is sick," he would respond,
"Sorry to hear that," or "What's his problem?" or "Let's hope it's
not contagious, whatever his problem is."

The concept of restrictive and non-restrictive--that is "identifying"
vs. "commenting"--applies to appositives too.

Martha



>What's the rule about appositives? I thought an appositive always required a
>comma.
>
>--
>
>Christine Reintjes Martin
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
>I didn't know tha
>
>----Original Message Follows----
>From: Sylvia Kielsznia <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>
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