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Comma SUTRA
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What's in a comma, asks the SMS generation. Here's why.
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AN SMS message or an E-mail message of today is one steady stream of loose grammatical unconsciousness in lower case (and poorly spelt, to boot) punctuated only by dashes. The seemingly sole use of the other punctuation keys on a computer keyboard these days is for configuring ;) and other emoticons! Small wonder, then, that e-mail is described as the enemy of understanding and the catalyst of confusion. Hear this story though it has nothing to do with E-mail or SMS messages.
Panda episode
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich. After eating it, he pulls out a gun and fires two shots in the air. Asked for an explanation, the panda tosses a badly punctuated wildlife manual towards him, says, "I am a panda. Look that up!" and walks out. The steward consults the book, and sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda", runs the entry "Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
Well, the punch line of that joke is also the title of an immensely enjoyable book on punctuation. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which its author Lynne Truss describes as a zero tolerance guide to punctuation, she dares to say that, with our system of punctuation patently endangered, it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and realise how wonderful these essential squiggles are. This altogether enchanting treatise makes you love punctuation.
At school, we have all learnt the basics of punctuation, haven't we? Several punctuation guides have been brought out explaining the principles of the apostrophe, the comma and the semi-colon. You might have had an English professor who had sent back the billet doux from his sweetheart with the punctuation corrected! We all had fastidious teachers who taught us how to use full stops, commas and question marks. And yet somehow the abuse of punctuation does not diminish. We see ignorance or indifference everywhere.
What's in a comma?
Competition rules remind us: "The judges decision is final" which needs an apostrophe badly. To compensate, every day, we see signs in shops selling "Banana's" and "Cake's" with what grammarians scornfully refer to as the grocer's apostrophe. The garment shop "His 'n' her's" too could do with some advice on punctuation, like the toilets for ladies in five star hotels marked "Her's". The sign in a shop in a posh residential area in the city proclaims "Garden Fresh Fruit's and Vegetable's Sold Here". The vendor perhaps could give away an apostrophe free with every purchase!
Passionate about it
There still are people who love punctuation and are passionate about it. They describe it as a courtesy designed to help readers understand a story without stumbling. If the rules are not respected, these sticklers get upset. Like Dr Temple, a former archbishop of York who compared spelling to "one of the decencies of life, like the use of knives and forks", adding that if your punctuation is not right, "you are not getting your thoughts right and your mind is muddled."
Punctuation vigilantes make a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with. They could not agree more with Edgar Allan Poe: while what we write might be clear, it will `be deprived of half its force - its spirit - its point - by improper punctuation'. They worship Charlemagne during whose reign the question mark is believed to have been invented, and cannot forgive George Orwell for shunning the semicolon.
Life and death matter
They empathise with Sir Roger Casement who was "hanged on a comma". No, this is not the old "kill-him-not-let-him-go" story you might have heard in your school days. This titled one, if you will recall, was charged with treason and during the trial, a pair of critically placed commas in the act went against him. Punctuation is indeed a matter of life and death!
Academics want to conserve what is left of punctuation and perhaps even call for more. They cannot stomach sloppy emails and SMS messages. A professor in a women's college in the city confesses that acrophobia is the only reason she does not succumb to the long-suppressed but over-powering urge to climb a ladder at dead of night with a pot of paint to remove the redundant apostrophe in the "Video's sold here" sign in the shop in front of her house!
K. T. RAJAGOPALAN
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