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The Comma Sutra

You wake up one morning and find you have been transformed into a comma. (a ","). You slide out of bed and slip under the door. Since you are 2-D, this poses no problem for you. You're scared. How will the 3-D world treat you? What if you are erased? How will you survive? You feel so tiny you fear no one will pay heed to you. Distraught, you make your way down the sidewalk, which happens to lead to a park, peopled by a lunch-hour crowd. You try to avoid a trail of ants lest they think you're a female and get any funny ideas. Soon, sweating, you make it to a bench where someone is reading. There, you hide on a newspaper where, inadvertently, you upset the flow of a sentence. Thus, unwittingly, you become aware that you have a purpose. Your presence has caused someone to lose track of ...what the sentence was ...trying to accomplish. It didn't make sense with you lying there where you didn't belong. That night, you, the magnificent workhorse, learn the role you play in both the 2-D and 3-D worlds. You are not merely a speck, a character flowing on the screen, a small drip of ink. You are not merely at all. You are, indeed, indispensible.

Call me corny, call me a sheep, but I respect punctuation. I like its rules, but I also like to break them. I do have, after all, two volumes of e.e.cummings and his autobiographical work, The Enormous Room (or is it the enormous room?) ten feet away. My father, who traffics in words, was a walking Chicago Manual of Style when I was growing up and continues to be so to this day. From him, I learned one rule of grammar quite well: beware of what you say, for you might be corrected.

As you can imagine, I gradually learned to appreciate the rules of usage, though I also put them in their place with other odes to perfection like paying bills on time and getting proper rest. And, seemingly of my own free will, I have added a few more rules of punctuation and style to my repertoire. I had to pay good money for books on the subject and wrestle red-pen-wielding editors (or is it Editors?) to the ground before they'd give up their trade secrets. I also endured long hours of study and self-doubt.

There was a time when I punctuated by the seat of my pants. Now, I must say, I try to pay it some mind. I can tell by looking at some of the papers I wrote for school and now keep in a massive pile in my closet, that I was more interested in big words than little details. To see my glaring errors sets my fingers a-quiver. Still, it can give me a nice feeling, one of forward motion. Back then, I might not have known to use which, followed by a comma, to introduce a non-restrictive clause, but I do now. Hey, says a little voice, you are towering above your former self. You have climbed much higher on the great tree of grammar.

At some time or another many of us ask ourselves questions like: Where does the comma go? Whither the question mark? When will someone ever kiss me on the ellipsis? Often, we can't answer ourselves. In such situations, I have found that I can learn a lot about myself by observing how I deal with this state of not knowing. A little mark on a paper can cause a lot of grief. It confronts you and makes you aware that here's something else you don't know. Now, these aren't deep, serious questions that force a person to look clear down to their insteps, but you'd be surprised. Uncertainty about the semicolon can be unsettling. Punctuation is not something that one learns in school and uses like a pro for the rest of one's life. At least, this has not been my experience. I have seen how educated people punctuate, and it has opened my eyes. I have seen that the comma is not everybody's friend.

I mean, doesn't it assault your sense of propriety when, instead of quick, strong, meaningful sentences, you are forced to lose your orientation in a passively constructed sea of vagueness, where faulty constructions bob about, that is, instead of pleasure, which is often greater in anticipation, you, the reader, must abstain wholly from lexical enjoyment and endure the soft fleshiness of ill-conceived sentences that, like the streets in T.S. Elliot's Love Song, follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent, indeed, well before the final thrust, when you're getting the sensation of almost arriving at the long-sought climax; however, you churn for much longer in a state of absolute readiness from which you feel there is to be no release; you're almost there, and it makes you eager to sing: what pleasure, what pleasure to end, in bold abandon, what seems to be mounting to its conclusion: yet, awkwardly, you, the reader find yourself sliding at a constant, slow-going pace to the point where all your senses are almost dulled (are we there yet?) and you are engulfed, and aware of one thing -- you have come to the conclusion of a sentence -- at last -- oh yes, you're there, you are at the end of a very, very long sentence and it makes you cry out: "That was one hell of a run-on sentence!"

Strunk and White put it well in the classic work, The Elements of Style, "Avoid a succession of loose sentences." It is brilliant advice, and far easier, at least for me, in written expression than in spoken. I have trouble taming my thoughts when surrounded by members of my own species. I am not much better with recording devices. I suffer enormously from "failing to get to the point" and from "long anecdote." I also skip over key facts that will orient those not privy to the secret compartmets of my mind. In addition to my frequent lapses in memory that usually result in flustered, oh-what-was-the-name-of that ... ellipses and gaps, I am a close second to Reverend Spooner in putting words where they should not go.

We will all be better off if we can learn to use what is in our surroundings to keep us awake, aware, fully alive. That is why I say be more cognizant of the comma. Repetitive tasks, such as proofing, can be refreshing, all-consuming, zen-like. I liken it to the sense of being fully alive with focused awareness that you can gain through mindless -- and mindfull -- everyday activities like sweeping leaves, walking, kissing and finding constellations.

People often overlook the comma, its purpose, its grace. But, oh for just a moment, can't we pause to observe its lovely, dark curves. Below each round ball, hangs, like a stout tail, ever-so-slightly upturned, the descender, vulnerable to our gaze. What is it there for? Why does it exist? Why, to serve as a signpost. "Hey, wait, you," it says, "slow down. Here is where you should break for some real or mental oxygen."

The comma, you see, is like a grammatical speed bump. But that's not the only hat it wears. At other times, it is like a silverware divider, keeping the forks with the forks and the spoons with the spoons, so the silverware is not all one jumbled mess. Commas separate. (Of course, I advise you, this is no attempt at relaying the rudiments of usage. Please go elsewhere for that. There are adequately thorough resources I recommend you review. But you can get to that later, after you've read this. Take your time. Be comma-like.) Yes, the comma seems small, but this is merely its surface appearance. In truth, its strength and capacity are enormous. Look more deeply into the comma, and you will step into worlds you might never have entered before.


Sites of Related Interest
Southeast Asian Women's page
Malapropism page
11th Annual Conference on the positive power of humor and creativity.
Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr.

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