Brer Ardith Hinton wrote to Brer Paul Quinn about Quotation Marks...  2.:


 PQ>>  and this taught me to make use of the comma before launching into
 PQ>> dialogue and recitation.

 AH>            In general, yes... that's how I was taught.  Nowadays I
 AH> tend to omit it sometimes because I had a university instructor...
 AH> probably USAian, I guess, based on what I learned in later years...
 AH> who criticized me for using "too many commas".  Brits tend to use
 AH> commas with greater frequency than USAians do.  :-)

Ah-Ha! This is something that has been raging in Fidonet for years. My
wife Nancy is a special education teacher, teaching modern English (not
Brit) to those who have a learning problem.

She has always said that commas are something to use to indicate a pause
in text. If you were speaking that text, too many commas would make you
sound like you're chopping off the text, losing your point. Thus sounding
like a Scandinavian in his own tongue.

Early encounters with one; Björn Felten, a Swede who was taught British
English. He used, in my opinion, too many commas and I critized him for
it.

That was over ten years ago and today, he's capable of structuring a
sentence without so many 'pauses'.

Not that his English grammar and the use of proper words in it is
concerned though.  In that sense, he sometimes uses is for are and sounds
somewhat like our own Rev Jackson.

Or, as Romeo replied when Juliet asked; "Romeo, Romeo, where fore art
thou?"

And 'Buckwheat's reply was; 'Here I is!'



         R\%/itt - K5RXT

"It is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and
 if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain."
     Bram Stoker (1847-1912)

 Thus, we have "Climate Change Science" - which isn't capable of
 explaining anything.


--- GoldED+/W32 1.1.5-31012
--- D'Bridge 3.98
 * Origin: South-Texas Area Hub - Gulf Coast Backbone (1:387/22)