When I was attending Print Culture History class at McEwan University in 2009, I wrote a paper about commas. Yup. A whole paper on three types of commas. This is how it began:
Three commas walk into a punctuation bar. They jostle one another in the doorway and exchange dirty looks.
“What’s the matter with you three?” asked Question Mark.
Rhetorical Comma spoke first. “My colleagues, seem to have forgotten their roots, and, correspondingly, their intended purpose, in life.”
“You are a dated fuddy duddy,” retorted Syntactic Comma. “People read silently now, and they don’t need to be told when to take a breath. They need structure, rules, and consistency. One cannot punctuate correctly without knowing one’s grammar.”
Semantic Comma scoffed. “Oh please! You keep showing up where you’re neither wanted nor needed and you wonder why people don’t like you. I give text meaning or I stay out of the way.”
The other commas took exception to that remark, and the scuffling started again.
“Fight!” shouted Exclamation Mark.
Colon emerged from the restroom. He surveyed the scene and knew instinctively what he must do: he called in Period. Semi-colon stepped in to separate the commas, and Period brought the melee to a full stop. In the real world, however, the bickering continues.
Next Saturday I’ll write more about the bickering over commas. Stop by and check it out.