Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/247

Rh A good example of the warning value of commas. None of these can be dispensed with, since there are no less than three parenthetic qualifications to the sentence. But the crowd of commas ought to have told the writer how bad his sentence was; it is like an obstacle race. It should begin, It is true that..., which disposes of one obstacle. As I have said can be given a separate sentence afterwards—So much has been said before.

Private banks and capitalists constitute the main bulk of the subscribers, and, apparently, they are prepared to go on subscribing indefinitely.–Times.

Putting commas round apparently amounts to the insertion of a further clause, such as, Though you would not think they could be such fools. But what the precise contents of the further clause may be is problematic. At any rate, a writer should not invite us to read between the lines unless he is sure of two things: what he wants to be read there; and that we are likely to be willing and able readers of it. The same is true of many words that are half adverbs and half conjunctions, like therefore. We have the right to comma them off if we like; but, unless it is done with a definite purpose, it produces perplexity as well as heaviness. In the first of the next two examples, there is no need whatever for the commas. In the second, the motive is clear: having the choice between commas and no commas, the reporter uses them because he so secures a pause after he, and gives the word that emphasis which in the speech as delivered doubtless made the I that it represents equivalent to I for my part.

After for and and beginning a sentence commas are often