Re: grammar tricks

["Carol Finke" <finkec@k2.kirtland.cc.mi.us>]

> Date:          Wed, 20 Nov 1996 16:50:30 -0600
> Reply-to:      wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu
> From:          Latisha LaRue <kfischer@keller.clarke.edu>
> To:            Multiple recipients of list <wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu>
> Subject:       Re: grammar tricks

> On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, Carol Finke wrote:
> > Wes -- 
> > Forgive my butting in, but that "commas for pauses" trick is probably 
> > one of the biggest fallacies ever perpetrated by English teachers -- 
> > people pause at so many different places when they read -- perhaps 
> > because we all have our own internal rhythms -- and also there 
> > are words that carry their own pauses with them (like "although," for 
> > example), so a comma won't necessarily belong where a person pauses.  
> > Besides, this idea that a comma = a pause is one of the root sources 
> > of the comma splice.  So please, please, please -- don't use this 
> > trick.
> > Carol Finke
> 
> Carol, I agree!  Case in point -- consider the fourth grader who has been
> taught the "comma for pauses" trick who has been playing tag on the recess
> yard.  She returns to language arts class and writes "The girl, climbed 
> up, the tree, but then, fell out."  Asked why she used so many commas, she
> responds to the teacher "I just got off the recess yard and I'm outta
> breath, so everywhere I hadda take a breath, I stuck a comma in."
> 			Katie
> 
I tell my students that, if commas really did equal pauses or 
breaths, they'd be able to commit the perfect crime and wipe out any 
teacher they really didn't like by writing a term paper with no 
punctuation in it.

Carol
> 
> 
Carol G. Finke
Writing Center, Kirtland Community College
Roscommon, MI 48653
517-275-5121 ext. 338
finkec@k2.kirtland.cc.mi.us
Any teacher who CAN be replaced by a computer SHOULD be. --B.F.Skinner