Wow! What Commas!
Every time I quote something from The Huffington Post, I usually make a remark about all the writing errors (grammatical, punctuation, syntax, spelling, you name it) in the piece I'm quoting. Why, I keep wondering rhetorically, doesn't Arianna pay me a reasonable if somewhat over generous retainer to copy edit the pieces from her "celebrity" posters and keep these little embarrassments from happening in the first place?* If you run into her, you might mention it for me.
But anyway, this time the punctuation is the subject, and an object of wonder itself. Look at the amazingly creative and generous use of the comma in this opening paragraph from "Tom Cruise, George W and Religion" by Karen Finley:
For God’s Sake, or should I say, for Ron Hubbard’s sake? I don’t see what all the fuss is, with Tom Cruise and Scientology. Tom Cruise, is no different than our President, or many of our world citizens, in expressing church rhetoric, finding religion and expressing their faith on company time. Tom, whose own Father, abandoned his family, as a child, displays symptoms of extreme Father Hunger. In interviews, Mr. Cruise is passionate in expressing a distant void with his Father. God, religion becomes the replacement for Daddy Love. Ron Hubbard, becomes the perfect, Science-Fiction, Pagan Idol to transfer the need of devoted son.
That aside, her point was an interesting one, except that she never quite made it. The compare-and-contrast message is this: Why is Tom Cruise being criticized for promoting his religion in his workplace, when the President does the very same thing — in the very same wide-eyed, incredulous fashion no less — and yet is widely lauded for doing it?
The answer that I posit is illuminating: Cruise's is the wrong religion. Yes, despite all the cries from reactionary theocrats that they just want to put religion, any religion, back into society, they really, really, really mean only their own form of fundamentalist Christianity. Scientology just won't do, thank you.
———-
*Curiously, the errors are often corrected only a few hours later — I know because the corrected versions reappear in the RSS feed (sometimes more than once).
One Response
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Tuesday, 7 June 2005 at 10.54
Permalink
If you ever want or need more bad comma placement to digest and marvel at, please feel free to stop by my site any time.
I apologize in advance, for every single one.
(God only knows if I used them correctly in this comment!)