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Learners will be inclined to say: all this is very indefinite; do give us a clear rule that will apply to all cases. Such was the view with which, on a matter of even greater importance than punctuation, Procrustes identified himself; but it brought him to a bad end. The clear rule, Use all logical commas, would give us:

He was born, in, or near, London, on December 24th, 1900.

No one would write this who was not suffering from bad hypertrophy of the grammatical conscience. The clear rule, Use no commas in this sort of enumeration, would give:

If I have the queer ways you accuse me of, that is because but I should have thought a man of your perspicacity might have been expected to see that it was also why I live in a hermitage all by myself.

No one would write this without both commas (after because and why) who was not deeply committed to an anti-comma crusade. Between the two extremes lie cases calling for various treatment; the ruling principle should be freedom within certain limits.

8. The comma between independent sentences.

Among the signs that more particularly betray the uneducated writer is inability to see when a comma is not a sufficient stop. Unfortunately little more can be done than to warn beginners that any serious slip here is much worse than they will probably suppose, and recommend them to observe the practice of good writers.

It is roughly true that grammatically independent sentences should be parted by at least a semicolon; but in the first place there are very large exceptions to this; and secondly, the writer who really knows a grammatically independent sentence when he sees it is hardly in need of instruction;