rary examples.

III. Pay constant attention to punctuation in everything you write.

IV. Punctuate your sentence while you are writing it.

V. Understand what you are printing. _This is of supreme importance._
Punctuation is an aid to understanding. You cannot correctly punctuate
anything that you do not understand.

THE COMMA

The comma is by far the most difficult of all the punctuation marks to
use correctly. Usage varies greatly from time to time and among equally
good writers and printers at the same time. Certain general rules may be
stated and should be learned. Many cases, however, will arise in which
the rules will be differently interpreted and differently applied by
different people.

The comma is the least degree of separation possible of indication in
print. Its business is to define the particles and minor clauses of a
sentence. A progressive tendency may be seen in the printing of English
for centuries toward the elimination of commas, and the substitution of
the comma for the semicolon and of the semicolon for the colon. Compare
a page of the King James version of the Bible, especially in one of its
earlier printings, with a page of serious discourse of to-day and the
effects of the tendency will be easily seen. It is part of the general
tendency toward greater simplicity of expression which has developed the
clear and simple English of the best contemporary writers out of the
involved and ornate style of the period of Queen Elizabeth. An ornate
and involved style needs a good deal of punctuation to make it
intelligible, while a simple and direct style needs but very little
help.

This progressive change in the need for punctuation and in the attitude
of writers toward it accounts for the difference in usage and for the
difficulty in fixing rules to cover all cases. The present attitude
toward punctuation, especially the use of the comma, is one of aversion.
The writer is always held to justification of the presence of a comma
rather than of its absence. Nevertheless it is quite possible to go too
far in the omission of commas in ordinary writing. It is quite possible
to construct sentences in such a way as to avoid their use. The result
is a harsh and awkward style, unwarranted by any necessity. Ordinary
writing needs some use of commas to indicate the sense and to prevent
ambiguity.

Always remember that the real business of the comma is just that of
helping the meaning of the words a