By Deb Dulworth
How does a 62 year-old approach a writing career? Well, I thought I’d learned the simple things in school. But I’ve found that some of the rules have changed through time.
The humble comma was a punctuation mark (,) that represented a pause in a sentence or used to separate words and figures in a list.
The Comma Drama has hit right betwixt and between the eyes. In case you’ve not noticed, I’m terribly upset. Do I put a comma after ‘but’, or before? Or, does a comma go before and after ‘but’?
Another question - whatever happened to the poor, pathetic semicolon? Who was the wisenheimer who kicked it out of the writer’s wordy world? Ah, it has all the earmarks of a ‘man-thing’…to go to that extent, to stoop so low, and change the rules on little school children and us old feeble people. (Should there’ve been another comma in that sentence?)
Just to clarify, this was Deb's post. She is taking a brief break to focus on another project and sent this to me to post for her...
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, the humble comma. Wherefore art thou?
ReplyDelete