From: CeiSerith@...
Message: 22149
Date: 2003-05-22
And if
I sued soem mroe cpiaatl (that's nasty) lteters or camoms, it is
the Gmaren ilfnunece.
If it's any consolation, the copy editors among us put commas in as many places as German does (although in different places). It's a good example of the difference between descriptive and prescriptive; your basic English writer, no matter how educated, doesn't put in so many. When I got back my latest book from the copy editor, she had added a distressing number of commas. I eliminated about 2/3 of them. When my wife read the book once it was published, one of her comments was that there were too many commas.
So don't worry about using too many commas; there is probably a copy editor somewhere who would be thrilled by all of them.
David Fickett-Wilbar