My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

Smart Alec: How come the word abbreviation is so long?
T
AKE A DEEP BREATH
(
OR
, C
OMMAS
)
‘A Comma Stops the Voice while we may privately tell one, a Semi Colon
two; a Colon three: and a Period four.’
J
OHN
M
ASON
, An Essay on Elocution (1748)
Historically, the comma marks a short pause, a place where you might pause for
breath after reading a fragment of text aloud. In grammar, the comma is used to
facilitate meaning by separating the different elements of a sentence.
Some people are comma-happy; they put commas anywhere and everywhere:
Dear Professor Purvis, [comma, pause for breath]
Please may I have an extra, short, extension on my very late, and, at this point in
time, largely unfinished, English dissertation?
Other people prefer to leave them out altogether:
Dear Professor Purvis
Please may I have an extra short extension on my very late and at this point in
time largely unfinished English dissertation?
In the first example, there are so many pauses that it takes forever to get to the
point. In the second, with no pauses at all, we risk losing the plot. How should
we interpret an extra short extension ? Is it an extra, short extension (i.e. a short
extension in addition to the longer extension already granted) or an extra-short
extension (an  extremely  short  one,  much  shorter  than  the  sort  of  extension  that
would  usually  be  requested)?  Just  a  smattering  of  punctuation  would  have
helped here.

---

Ha-ha
(Apologies for the terribly old joke, but it illustrates the point)
A college professor wrote on his blackboard: A woman without her man is
nothing .
He then asked his students to punctuate the sentence.
All of the males in the class wrote: A woman, without her man, is nothing .
All the females in the class wrote: A woman: without her, man is nothing .