<MSGID_1=3A153=2F716.0_22231250@fidonet.org>
From: alexander koryagin <koryagin@newmail.ru>

Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from  31.08.2013 14:02
about show goes on...  1..

 ak>>> Yesterday, at 9pm, without declaring a war, my neighbors bought a
 ak>>> piano.

 PQ>> The sentence would still make sense if you drop the  first  comma.
 PQ>> I. e. to read, "Yesterday at 9pm, without...".

 AH> I'd omit the first comma there just as Paul did, BTW.


 ak>> [Yesterday, without declaring a war, my neighbors bought a piano.]
 ak>> No damage for the humor.

 AH> Agreed.  IMHO "yesterday" is significant, but the exact time of day
 AH> probably doesn't matter very much & may even be a distraction.

   "Yesterday" is also a not significant fact. Let me say this: "Without
declaring a war my neighbors bought a piano." It is the  same  joke  (it
implies,  that now I've  got  a  constant  headache  because  their  the
neighbors' children play scales all evenings).  A piano is  rather  loud
instrument.

 AH> In Russia one can buy a piano at 9:00 PM & get it  home  within  27
 AH> hours?? Now I am curious.  Unless you're referring to an electronic
 AH> keyboard,  a piano is not the sort of thing one would  carry  in  a
 AH> shopping bag.  The more traditional acoustic piano  fits  the  joke
 AH> better because it doesn't come equipped  with  earphones  &  volume
 AH> controls & suchlike.  OTOH, it could easily weigh half a ton(ne) or
 AH> more.  So where did these people buy it & who do they know who owns
 AH> a truck/lorry? :-)

   Well,  they probably order it at some round the clock Internet  shop.
;-) Second,  IMHO,  a piano has a clear meaning  -  a  classic  acoustic
piano.  A keyboard is not a piano.  It can sound like a piano,  flute or
drum -- but it is not a pretext to call the keyboard a flute or drum. Is
it?

 ak>> [Yesterday, at 9 pm, my neighbors bought a piano.]

 ak>> The sentence has lost its  sense  of  humor!  The  comma  was  put
 ak>> wrongly.

 AH> AFAIC the punctuation is correct there... but the sentence lost its
 AH> humo(u)r when you omitted  "without  declaring  war".  This  phrase
 AH> indicates the narrator does *not* enjoy his neighbours' attempts to
 AH> play the piano.... :-)

   In Russia,  this story is probably more vital --  the majority of the
Russian town population lives in blocks  of  flats.  They  are  made  of
reinforced concrete and have poor sound insulation. So, when somebody in
the upper flat conducts a constant drill playing you will probably  feel
yourself uncomfortable.

<skipped>
 ak>> PS:  But the final rule in that manual was the following:  "if you
 ak>> feel that in your sentence there are too many  commas,  throw  out
 ak>> some of them.  Abundance of commas cause more harm than  help  and
 ak>> hamper reading." ;-)

 AH> Aha!  Yes, that's the way I write.  Now we're discussing what these
 AH> rules were intended to accomplish.  Brits tend to use  commas  much
 AH> more freely than USAians do.  Years  ago  I  was  criticized  by  a
 AH> (USAian) English instructor for using "too many commas", and thus I
 AH> omit them if I don't think they serve some useful purpose and/or if
 AH> they're optional where others might not be.  In the back of my mind
 AH> always is what will make my writing understandable to  the  largest
 AH> number of folks out there...  most of whom  I  have  never  met  in
 AH> person.

   As for Russian punctuation it is as totalitarian as Russian  grammar.
AFAIR,  we have no optional commas.  From  another  side,  if  you  call
certain commas "optional", who will put them down?

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
fido7.english-tutor 2013
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