Re: grammar tricks

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

> Date:          Wed, 20 Nov 1996 22:30:02 -0600
> Reply-to:      wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu
> From:          Wes Chapman <wchapman@titan.iwu.edu>
> To:            Multiple recipients of list <wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu>
> Subject:       Re: grammar tricks

> 
> On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, Carol Finke wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> I was hoping someone would pick up on this.  Purely to be cantankerous,
> I'd like to defend the "use commas where you pause" rule, with certain
> VERY IMPORTANT qualifications:
>  
> 1) It doesn't work for everyone, so it would be irresponsible to
> announce this rule to a group.  For that matter, before I would mention 
> this rule even to an individual, I would want to hear the person read
> their own prose aloud.  That said, I'd estimate that 4 out of 5
> college-level writers can trust their voices most of the time. Consider--how 
> often do all of you actually think about the rules for comma placement
> when you write? Rarely, I'll wager, most of you, and then only in the odd
> case when there's something conceptual at stake in the puncuation that
> hasn't quite come clear yet.  Most people *hear* it. 
> 
> 2)  There are different kinds of pauses, and writers need to learn to hear
> the different kinds and know what they mean.  In particular, semi-colons
> and periods also produce pauses.  But most writers (not all; again,
> you have to hear the writer read their own prose aloud) pause in a
> different way for the different markers.  Usually intonation is as
> important a marker as the actual pause.  For example, my own voice goes
> up-down at a comma, up for a semi-colon, and down for a period.  Other
> writers mark the different kinds of punctuation (or more accurately the
> different conceptual clusters) differently; the writer has to learn to
> listen to *his or her own* unique voice.  
> 
> 3) This method works better with some rules better than others for some
> writers. Most of the 4 out of 5 writers for whom this is useful will close
> a non-restrictive modifier, but some will not, even if their voices track
> very accurately the first comma in the modifier, commas after introductory
> elements, commas between independent clauses joined by a conjunction, and
> so forth.  It's important to hear the writer's voice in a variety of
> situations.  If there are too many conditions, of course--"your voice will
> tell you this and this but not that or that"--the writer is better off
> finding a different way to punctuate.
> 
> 4) Pauses in speech are even more dependent on rhetorical situation than
> are punctuation marks in writing, and it is useful to get the writer to
> hear how that can matter.  The classic case is the one Carol mentions
> above, the  pause after "although"--often accompanied by comma-like
> intonation--when a speaker is trying to emphasize the opposition between
> two ideas. Emphasis in general does all kinds of nasty things to both
> pauses and intonation patterns, and writers need to be able to hear these
> "exceptions" as well.
> 
> With all these qualifications, it may seem as if the comma-pause trick
> isn't worth it.  In fact, however, it's easy to teach and to learn,
> precisely because it's an aural lesson, something that can be learned
> holistically and intuitively and therefore quickly and compellingly. It's
> a *whole* lot easier to teach a student to listen to their voice than it
> is to try to describe how to do so in writing on this list. And I
> particularly like this trick because it gives a writer a concrete
> illustration of how good writing ultimately isn't a set of rules that one
> memorizes, but rather an internalized set of rhythms and patterns that one
> can hear and see and feel. Isn't that intuitive sense of what's right
> precisely what we want writers ultimately to develop?
> 
> heretically,
>    Wes Chapman

Wes -- 

I absolutely agree with you about the fact that we want students to 
internalize rhythms and patterns -- I simply don't think that the 
"listen for pauses" trick works for people who don't know where to 
put commas.  So it may appear to be a trick, because it works for 
those 4 out of 5 students you're talking about (and I'd add that the 
number in my experience is definitely not that high), but basically 
it's only a trick you can give to people who already know it.  The 
students who over-comma or never comma or whatever did not 
internalize the patterns when they were younger -- asking them to 
read their work and "listen" to it in such a complex way becomes, in 
all too many cases, baffling and frustrating.  I believe they need to 
be given the fundatmental rules and lots of practice writing -- until 
comma usage does become internalized (whether that's some secret of 
the inner ear or something more like muscle memory or whatever) --

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