68 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Dec. 1, 1885. 



left, replied after a pause of seemiug cogitation, "Eh, 

 men ! but there must have been more than twa tails," 

 had not missed the joke (or he was unlike any Scotsman 

 1 have ever met) — he was simply showing his apprecia- 

 tion of its point. One might as reasonably regard the 

 solemn face of every really great humorist as jiroof of 

 dnlness of apprehension. 



* * * 



Mark Twain mistook in the same way (and oddly 

 enough when one considers the quality of his own 

 humour) the tone in which many English reviewers dealt 

 with his '• Innocents Abroad." Spluttering laughter is 

 not the best way of welcoming gravely uttered jests ; 

 and it is rather pleasing than otherwise to find that 

 Americans recognise very little that can remind them of 

 the crackling of thorns under a pot, in our English way 

 of welcoming their jokes, from the feeble fun of mis-spelt 

 words to the real wit of their best humorists. 



* * * 



A VALUED contributor to these columns has expressed a 

 wish to delete commas before " and," where three or mor.^ 

 nouns are brought together. I find myself, in this case, a 

 defender of the comma, who some time since fought against 

 it. (What a convenient word the old " erst " was; here 

 it would have done duty for three.) Logically, it seems 

 to me, if we wish to speak of three things a and 6 and c, 

 we ought to write "a, I, and c," not "a, 6 and c " : for 

 otherwise we have no means of showing, by the punctiia- 

 tion, whether h and c are different from a, or arj inchided 

 in the same cLiss. For instance, if we write " the ancient 

 inhabitants of England, Saxons and Norman.s," we might 

 mean either "the Britons, Saxons, and Normans," or 

 "the ancient inhabitants of England,— viz., the Saxons 

 and the Normans," and though in the great majority of 

 cases, the context, or knowledge already possessed by the 

 reader, would make the real meaning clear, it is in my 

 opinion always a fault of style if the real meaning of 

 a passage has — unnecessarily — to be inferred from the 

 context or from antecedent information. 



In many cases, the omission of the comma in order to 

 show that the words on either side of " and " are coupled, 

 is absolutely necessiu-y, — and a single case of this kind 

 shows that " the unnecessary omission of the comma in- 

 volves a fault of style. Thus there is a p:issage in 

 Cooper's "Pilot" (I quote from memory, and long-long- 

 aco memory) in which Captain Barnstable (or lieutenant, 

 which was "it? was it not both, by the way, second lieu- 

 tenant of the frigate and captain of the STmcj Ariel ?) calls 

 to his crew, "Board her Ariels, greybeards and boys, 

 idlers and all ! " Clearly if the omission of the comma 

 before " and " were the rule, the reader's first idea of the 

 meaning of the appeal would be that the Ariels, the 

 greybeards, the boys, the idlers, and all the rest, were 

 invited to board the British cutter. The inspiriting 

 effect of the couplings following the general call, woiild 

 be altogether lost at a first reading. (I am by no means 

 sure that the word used in this particular call was 

 " Ariels," it might h^ive been "you sea-dogs," or the like, 

 but the princiijle is the same.) 



* * * 



In reading French books one often finds the omission 

 of the comma confusing, until one has learned to notice 

 that the spirit of the French language does not lend 

 itself to the bold couplings which are often so effective 

 in description. 



Our English printers fell about thirty years ago into 

 the French fashion, and I remember well how confusing 

 the omission of the comma was in the earlier editions of 

 Macaulay's " History of England." I collected several 

 pages of examples of distinct double meanings, some of 

 which were really perplexing, even when the context was 

 carefully considered, and where the reader had plenty of 

 previous knowledge for his guidance. Probably some 

 awful examples of that sort led our printers to retm-n to 

 the more logical method of punctuation. I observe, 

 however, that some writers, like our friend above-men- 

 tioned, adhere to the incorrect method. I notice it 

 frequently in the writings of the Head Master of Clifton 

 College. 



* * * 



It may be thought that my defence of the comma in 

 this case is inconsistent with my objection to it before : 

 but in reality it depends on precisely the same principle. 

 I objected to "and, therefor.?," because I maintained that 

 "and therefore" should be regarded as forming a double 

 conjunction, not two distinct conjunctions; that in fact 

 the "and" ought not to bs separated from the "there- 

 fore." In the present case, in like manner, I regard the 

 "and " as too closely connected with the word it precedes 

 to .sufficiently mark it off from the word it follows : the 

 comma is as much needed as if the "and " were not there. 

 Only when the noun following the "and" is to be asso- 

 ciated with the noun preceding it, is the comma to be 

 omitted ; and as its omission implies this close association, 

 omitting it between distinct nouns is wrong. 



* * * 



AVe nearly always (perhaps always) get a correct rule 

 for using or omitting the comma, by noting whether in 

 reading there is or is not a " commatic " pause. Now as 

 no reader (not being idiotic) would think of reading 

 " and — therefore " (the dash representing the commatic 

 pause), so I take it no sensible reader would say " the 

 Greek — Roman and Englishman — fought for liberty," 

 with no commatic pause after Roman. If he did he 

 would assuredly make nonsense of the sentence. On the 

 contrary, he would read " the Greek — Asiatic and Euro- 

 pean — fought for liberty." Therefore the writer should 

 pitt, sever^jlly, — 



1. The Greek, Roman, and Englishman, fought for 



liberty, 



2. The Greek, Asiatic and European, fought for liberty. 



Observe also that whereas in the first sentence no comma 

 need follow the third noun, a comma must follow the 

 third noun in the second sentence. I myself prefer to 

 add a comma after the last noun in all .such cases, that is 

 wherever there are more than two nouns, because this 

 corresponds with the commatic pause usual in reading, 

 and better represents the sense. For in the sentence 

 "the Greek and Roman fought for liberty" the Greek 

 is related to the verb as closely as is the Roman ; but m 

 the sentence " the Greek, Roman, and Englishman fought 

 for liberty," the Greek and the Roman are cut oft' from 

 the verb severally by a comma, so that the three nouns 

 to which the verb equally relates are not equally connected 

 with it — which cannot be logically sound. 



* * * 



I JtAY remark that my own views about all points of 

 punctuation depend absolutely and entirely on clearness 

 of meaning. I make no rules. I simply test each 

 sentence by inquiring what meaning will be given to it 

 by the reader, if punctuated in this or that way and read 

 as punctuated. Among other points which I have been 



