Re: Translating "religion"

On 10/11/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> Lars Finsen wrote:
> > BTW - more on-topic - I have some degree of aversion to
> > overpunctuation. A sentence as the above is perfectly lucid even
> > without commas, isn't it?  But any English teacher would add at least
> > three, wouldn't he?
>
> Not when I was at school (half a century ago). The fashion then was then
> to use commas sparingly. I think my teacher would have like one before
> "I assume" but probably no others. I haven't a clue what punctuation
> styles are taught now - but I would actually be surprised if the fashion
> for sprinkling commas everywhere had returned.
The sentence in question looks quite under-punctuated to me:
 "Anyhow if we were to continue this discussion it would have to be
off-list I assume."

I would indeed add three commas: after "Anyhow", "discussion", and
"off-list".   So perhaps there is a difference between what was taught
half a century ago in the UK and what was taught a third of a century
ago in the US...

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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