ABSTRACT
NEXT IN importance to the longest pause of all, the period or full stop, comes the shortest, the comma. The practice does not seriously differ from the theory implied by the etymology: comma, the Latin transliteration of Greek komma, related to koptein, to cut, means literally ‘a cutting’, hence ‘a cutting-off’, hence ‘a part cut off’, hence a clause, which, after all, is nothing but a part, especially a (comparatively) short part, cut off from the rest of the sentence; hence the sign that indicates the division. In modern practice, the comma serves to separate not only clauses but phrases and words; more precisely, certain kinds of clauses and certain kinds of phrase and certain groupings of words.
