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Your Dad Went Into a Comma? That’s a Great Trick!
Posted by Editormum on Thursday, 11 September 2003 in Uncategorized | ∞
Hey, folks, people cannot go into commas….they go into comas.
A coma is a medical condition characterized by lack of responsiveness to external stimuli. People may be in comas for a few days or for years. Robin Cook has a book called Coma which is quite a good medical thriller.
A comma has nothing at all to do with medicine, but everything to do with grammar. The comma is the tadpole-shaped punctuation mark that is used to set off sections of a sentences or to separate items in a list. This is a comma: ,
I’m thinking that the only way a person could go into a comma would be if there were a pub called “A Comma.” Highly unlikely, but not impossible, I suppose.
4 Comments
I discovered a great grammar book, and the title itself forced me to buy it! It’s called Lapsing Into A Comma.
I laughed so much when I saw the title that I just had to buy it.
Dear Editormum:
How do I get my grammatically challenged adult children to understand that grammar does too matter? I have a son who apparently cannot reach a shift key; he claims that it is the responsibility of the reader to work out the meaning of what he writes. I have a daughter who doesn’t get philosophical about it like her brother; she couldn’t spell the word to save her life.
Sincerely,
Gryphon
gryphon
what ewe do is send you’re kids a letter (not the letter x, though) that lookss sumthing like this comment here that eye an righting.
when they sea that there iz little hope uv understanding what yoo r saying, maybe they’ll be scared into using good-kind grammar two.
Dear Gryphon:
The Grammar Guru is qualified to give grammar advice, but is very much unqualified to give advice on how to drum the rules of grammar into unwilling and uninterested heads. If they are, in fact, adults, then she fears all you can do is refuse to read anything they send you that does not utilize at least the basic conventions of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. While the Grammar Guru shares your frustration, she regrets that she has no greater words of wisdom to help you.