Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/279

Rh After that, having once fallen off from their course, they at length succeeded in crossing the Aegean, and beating up in the teeth of the Etesian winds, only yesterday, seventy days out from Egypt, put in at the Piraeus.–S. T..

The omission of the comma between and and beating would ordinarily be quite legitimate. Here, it puts us off on a false scent, because it allows beating to seem parallel with crossing and object to succeeded in; we have to go back again when we get to the end, and work it out.

The French demurring to the conditions which the English commander offered, again commenced the action.–B.

The want of a comma between French and demurring makes us assume an absolute construction and expect another subject, of which we are disappointed.

The next two pairs of examples illustrate the effect of mere accidental position on stopping. This is one of the numberless small disturbing elements that make cast-iron rules impossible in punctuation.

That is, a substantival clause out of its place is generally allowed the comma that all but the straitest sect of punctuators would refuse it in its place.

The half adverbs half conjunctions of which therefore and however are instances occupy usually the second place in the sentence. When there, it is of little importance whether they are stopped or not, though we have indicated our preference for no stops. But when it happens that they come later (or earlier), the commas are generally wanted. Therefore in the first of these sentences would be as uncomfortable if stripped as however actually is in the second.