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Here is a mail that Yahoo preserved for me for all of 3 years. It now has a much improved search module:
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She was being too generous...nothing comes to me naturally about this foreign tongue that I indulge in...it is a daily heartbreak for me to try and avoid...without much satisfaction...pitfalls of grammar, usage, articles, adjectives, prepositions and worst of all, punctuation...the comma coma.
But take Shakespeare. He had to write down his plays and ask his actors to read them aloud in the Globe Theater...no escape. My 'Shakespeare Uncle' told me that Shakespeare wrote in blank verse in the iambic pentameter. Don't ask me what it is...I didn't ask him. But you can Google for it and find that most of his lines were of a certain speaking length with stresses on certain repeated syllables, without rhyming.
There are a huge number of aids to punctuation, in print and in the cyberspace.
Type: "punctuation marks in english" in Google and you get 517,000 results.
And comma is the most treacherous one...it can ditch you more often than help you.
Here is a sample from my 'Limericks & Light Verses' (2009):
Deccan Chronicle News Banner, Page 7, Hyderabad, Thursday, 26 February, 2009:
There are commas and commas for various purposes.
I have my own trick with them. I first sprinkle commas "like pepper out of a pepper-pot". And after writing the piece, I read it in my head. And try and remove all needless commas.
It is like the chap who said that sculpture is the easiest of arts:
"Take a stone and chisel away all the unnecessary chips"
There is nowadays another help. I use dots like '...' whenever in doubt. These would serve the purpose of comma when used as a parenthesis.
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Once my friend and collaborator, Prof RSS, brought me the draft of a manuscript and said:
"Sastryjee! I can understand the rule for 'a' and 'an' but not for 'the' "
And I said:
"I have problem even with 'a' and 'an'. I never can decide whether I should write 'a year' or 'an year'. I have no clue if the 'y' in 'year' is silent or not"
Anyway I told him:
"First sprinkle your piece with 'the's, 'like pepper out of a pepper-pot'. And finally read your piece aloud in your head. And scratch out all the 'the's that sound awkward"
The sculptor recipe serves for me.
What is your recipe?
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...Between the beginning of a sentence, which is marked by a capital letter, and the full stop indicating the end there will be normally other stops. Chief of these is the comma, which in many ways is the most important as it is the most difficult stop in punctuation. It is often used indiscriminately. Writers sometimes sprinkle commas on the paper like pepper out of a pepper-pot. But used scientifically, with a due regard for its rightful and varied functions, the comma is the writer's friend and ally in his efforts to communicate with the reader...
...Good English by G. H. Vallins
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Here is a mail that Yahoo preserved for me for all of 3 years. It now has a much improved search module:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
...It has been a long time
since I have heard from you -- perhaps not since you had called after
baba passed away -- and it was by sheer chance that I got to read your
blog after Shajesh sent me a mail saying it had a word on me as well.
I was reading through
the other "pieces" as well. They seemed like the "Malgudi days" of IIT
KGP and took me back to my childhood and the one of most important
persons in my life – both lost forever.
I still remember with
what consternation I used to write when baba said he would show those
"pieces" to you. I would be confident that the mistakes would bypass my
teachers in (High) St Agnes but definitely not you.
Baba and you were
definitely the two people without whom I would not have been able to
learn anything about this language. Although I have not learnt to write
too well, I have at least managed to hold on to a job for the last 8
years. Now when I sit scratching my head trying to decide whether to put
a comma, I remember how baba used to tell me that these come so
naturally to you...
...August 2010
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She was being too generous...nothing comes to me naturally about this foreign tongue that I indulge in...it is a daily heartbreak for me to try and avoid...without much satisfaction...pitfalls of grammar, usage, articles, adjectives, prepositions and worst of all, punctuation...the comma coma.
But it is always comforting for a layman in English like me to get a word of appreciation from professionals in publishing like the lady above and the lady below:
...I went through some of the stories and the editing is well done...
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One should remember that what one writes may actually be read.
Recently the Home Secretary of a certain Raam Bhakt state was suspended (from the ceiling?) because he signed what his junior wrote, without reading it.
And Punctuation is just a help to the reader to make the written piece flow as he reads it in his mind or aloud.
If you were speaking to an audience, like me in a class at IIT KGP, there would be no need of any thought of punctuation. Your pauses and inflections would convey your message unambiguously.
I must mention though that there are celebrated exceptions like Daddy Mitra thanking the inmates (yes, it was a jail) of the B. C. Ry Hall for inviting him and his wife for their Special Dinner:
"I enjoyed the chicken and my wife
...also enjoyed"
But take Shakespeare. He had to write down his plays and ask his actors to read them aloud in the Globe Theater...no escape. My 'Shakespeare Uncle' told me that Shakespeare wrote in blank verse in the iambic pentameter. Don't ask me what it is...I didn't ask him. But you can Google for it and find that most of his lines were of a certain speaking length with stresses on certain repeated syllables, without rhyming.
But apparently there are some lines of half the length. And it was a mystery for scholars of the 20th century what was the matter with them. In the 1970s I read a beautiful essay titled: "Short Lines of Shakespeare" by a Bengali scholar whose name I forget... unpardonably...perhaps he had taught at the Presidency College. He showed by examples that the missing spaces were for stage directions like: "Wave your hand!" or "Bend your head!" that take up half the time of a spoken line.
Great!
There are a huge number of aids to punctuation, in print and in the cyberspace.
And comma is the most treacherous one...it can ditch you more often than help you.
Here is a sample from my 'Limericks & Light Verses' (2009):
Missing Comma, Hey Rama doss!
Deccan Chronicle News Banner, Page 7, Hyderabad, Thursday, 26 February, 2009:
"...health minister (Dr) Anbumani Ramadoss on Wednesday pressed for a National Alcoholic Policy to curb consumption of liquor in the Lok Sabha."
A comma after 'liquor'
Would suit our Speaker
Binge Drinking
And Carousing
Can hardly keep our MPs sober!
Even sober, they crowd the Well,
And raise Cain and Hell;
Rather than booze
Let them snooze
Ramadoss should prescribe a sleeping pill!!!
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There are commas and commas for various purposes.
I have my own trick with them. I first sprinkle commas "like pepper out of a pepper-pot". And after writing the piece, I read it in my head. And try and remove all needless commas.
It is like the chap who said that sculpture is the easiest of arts:
"Take a stone and chisel away all the unnecessary chips"
There is nowadays another help. I use dots like '...' whenever in doubt. These would serve the purpose of comma when used as a parenthesis.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Once my friend and collaborator, Prof RSS, brought me the draft of a manuscript and said:
"Sastryjee! I can understand the rule for 'a' and 'an' but not for 'the' "
And I said:
"I have problem even with 'a' and 'an'. I never can decide whether I should write 'a year' or 'an year'. I have no clue if the 'y' in 'year' is silent or not"
Anyway I told him:
"First sprinkle your piece with 'the's, 'like pepper out of a pepper-pot'. And finally read your piece aloud in your head. And scratch out all the 'the's that sound awkward"
The sculptor recipe serves for me.
What is your recipe?
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