Re: USAGE: What to do about punctuation?

David J. Peterson scripsit:

> English has an old rule whereby they say you're always supposed to put a
> comma before "which" (e.g., "The man that I saw" is fine, but "The man which
> I saw" is not; needs a comma after "man", according to the rule).
The rule is actually that you use commas to set off parenthetical
relative clauses:  "My cat, which is eating right now, is blue" is
parenthetical, "My cat which is blue [as opposed to other cats of mine]
is eating now" is not.  Only "which" (and "who" and "whom") can be used
in parenthetical relative clauses, "that" cannot -- it is only usable
in the other type, restrictive relative clauses.

It is not and never has been a rule of English that "which" be avoided
in restrictive relative clauses, despite some editors and some grammar
checkers which (or that) believe it.  There are many, many counterexamples
in carefully written and edited prose.

> The other principle is the principle of using punctuation to record speech.
> This is where the "comma = short pause; period = long pause" rules come in.
> John Milton used this type of punctuation for his poetry.   In English, I
> tend to punctuate this way and this way only.   And too, when I'm designing a
> language, I tend towards this end of the spectrum.   However, I think (this is
> just my thought; I haven't given it any study) that a mix of the two principles
> is most natural.
This is "rhetorical punctuation", as opposed to the "structural punctuation"
exemplified by the rule above.  Rhetorical punctuation was standard until
the mid-19th century, when much of it (but not all) was replaced by
structural rules.  Here's a nice example of contrast:

Rhetorical:  "He was an old, and to their generation lost, liberator."
Structural:  "He was an old and, to their generation, lost liberator."

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