The Ten Commandments: Comma or Coma? (Part Two)
there is more to Commandment Four;
Come, come, my children, come,
for I am the Comma-dore!
Verily, verily, on the 'morrow, merrily,
mayest strive to keep Commandment Five;
Begat, begot, punctuation is fraught
with keeping sentences alive!
IV. (continued) Use a comma to set off parenthetical elements.
Appositives, which re-names or amplifies a word that immediately precedes it, are almost always treated as parenthetical elements:
"Moses' ambition, to become history's greatest hiker, was within his reach after hiking for forty years."
"Zipporah, his wife of 70 years, invented the Zipporah lighter, later nicknamed the Zippo."
When the appositive and the word it identifies are so closely related, the comma mayest be omitted:
"His wife Zipporah decided to take up smoking manna-juana cigarettes."
Assuming Moses hath only one wife, thou mayest argue that the name "Zipporah" is not essential to the meaning of the sentence. And that would suggest that thou canst put commas both before and after the name (which would not be a sin). But "his wife" and "Zipporah" are so close that we mayest consider the entire phrase as one part and leave out the commas. With the phrase reversed, however, thou hast surely a more parenthetical element and the commas are necessary:
"Zipporah, his wife, decided to take up smoking manna-juana cigarettes."
Consider, also, my children, the difference between "Israelite Leader Moses blamed everything on the burning Bush" (thou needest the name "Moses" or the sentence dost make less sense) and "Moses, the Israelite leader, blamed everything on the burning Bush" (in which the sentence maketh sense without his title, the appositive, and thou treateth the appositive as a parenthetical element, with a pair of commas).
Commandment IV hath more sinful elements:
When both a city's name and that city's state or country's name are mentioned together, the state or country's name is treated as a parenthetical element.
"We visited Cairo, Egypt, last summer."
"Cairo, Egypt, is Hell on Earth in summer."
When the state or country becomes a possessive form, this rule is no longer followed:
"Cairo, Egypt's people invented the phrase 'It's an Inconvenient Truth that it's friggin' hot.'"
Also, when the state or country's name becomes part of a compound structure, the second comma is dropped:
"Al-Gore, a Cairo, Egypt-based company, is moving to a cooler climate in the hope that Global Cooling will return from its sudden disappearance three decades ago."
A few more sins and Commandment IV shalt be blessedly ended:
An absolute phrase, also called a nominative absolute, is a group of words consisting of a noun or pronoun and a participle as well as any related modifiers, and modifies the entire sentence. An absolute phrase is always treated as a parenthetical element:
"Their years of wandering in the desert now forgotten, the Israelites became couch potatoes."
As is an interjection:
"Yea, it is always healthier, of course, to wander aimlessly in the desert."
An addressed person's name is also always parenthetical. Be sure, however, that the name is that of someone actually being spoken to.
"Thou must know, Moses, that your disobedience means you cannot enter the Promised Land and will have to live out thine life in a condo in Moab."
***
Therefore, my children, rest ye mind and spirit, for I shalt have a Third Coming. Amen.
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