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Comma   /kˈɑmə/   Listen
Comma

noun
1.
A punctuation mark (,) used to indicate the separation of elements within the grammatical structure of a sentence.
2.
Anglewing butterfly with a comma-shaped mark on the underside of each hind wing.  Synonyms: comma butterfly, Polygonia comma.



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"Comma" Quotes from Famous Books



... Illustrate the nature of Salts. If you Take, then, sea salt and melt it in the Fire to free it from the aqueous parts, and afterward distill it with a vehement Fire from burnt Clay, or any other, as dry a Caput mortuum as you please, you will, as Chymists confess, [Errata: confesse (delete comma)] by teaching it drive over a good part of the Salt in the form of a Liquor. And to satisfy some ingenious men, That a great part of this Liquor was still true sea salt brought by the Operation of the Fire into Corpuscles so small, and perhaps so advantageously shap'd, as ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... of, &c.; and, after the word returns is placed a comma; which, however, I suppose to be a press oversight, and no element in the correction. Meantime, I see no call for any change whatever. The ordinary use of the word commend, in any advantageous introduction of a stranger by letters, seems here to maintain itself—namely, placing ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... inspected her pad and made a correction; but all she did was to rub out a comma and put another in its place. Meanwhile, Gatewood, chin in his hand, sat buried in profound thought. "Were they blue?" he murmured to himself aloud, "or were they brown? Blue begins with a b and brown begins ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers

... probability, that it has been judged proper to adopt what he has added. The thread of the discourse will be unbroken, and the reader, it is hoped, will prefer a regular continuity to a mere vacant space. The inverted comma in the margin of the text [transcriber's note: not used, but numbered with decimal rather than Roman numerals] will mark the supplemental part, as far as section 36, where the original proceeds to the end of the Dialogue. The sections of the Supplement will be marked, for the sake of distinction, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... rational dog, since you are come,' said Sir Guy; and Bustle, resuming the deportment of a spirited and well-bred spaniel, no longer crouched and curled himself into the shape of a comma, but bounded, wagged his tail, thrust his nose into his master's hand and then proceeded to reconnoitre the rest of the company, paying especial attention to Charles, putting his fore-paws on the sofa, and rearing himself up to contemplate him with a grave, polite ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rough work, shaped out a man Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug With amplest entertainment: my free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax: no levelled malice Infects one comma in the course I hold: But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... comparison and classification. But at the end of the vista victory loomed. The Professor felt within himself that assurance of ultimate justification which, to the man of science, makes a life-time seem the mere comma between premiss and deduction. But he had reached the point where his conjectures required formulation. It was only by giving them expression, by exposing them to the comment and criticism of his associates, that he could test their final value; and this inner assurance was confirmed by the only ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... 6 - Page 132, para 3, moved a comma - my general policy is not to add/remove/move commas, even though I often find commas which seem to me out of place, but this one was just too ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... this series, there are a number of instances where the use of the comma in the printed book seems to me inappropriate. However, I have adhered to the punctuation as printed (except for obvious printing ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... over, put in a comma, then placed it in an envelope, and lighted a cigar with the air of one who can be checked, yes, but ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... the course of the day; And, just as you're tapering out the conclusion, 260 You venture an ill-fated classic allusion,— The girls have all got their laughs ready, when, whack! The cougar comes down on your thunderstruck back! You had left out a comma,—your Greek's put in joint, And pointed at cost of your story's whole point. In the course of the evening, you find chance for certain Soft speeches to Anne, in the shade of the curtain: You tell her your heart can be likened to one flower, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... can't slip the Idylls of the King in between the Black-faced Comedian and the Elephant Act. I suppose I must just bear it, grinning if possible, until I have won my footing and then I won't allow so much as a comma to be changed. ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... of a comma between the D flat and the C sharp, seemingly a very slight difference, is, nevertheless, most important in singing, as we shall see later on. But performers, to simplify our musical system, have ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... enabled him to work and talk at the same time, and he never pretermitted either. He gave me a history of the claim, and added: "You see, stranger," (he addressed the bank before him) "gold is sure to come out'er that theer claim, (he put in a comma with his pick) but the old pro-pri-e-tor (he wriggled out the word and the point of his pick) warn't of much account (a long stroke of the pick for a period). He was green, and let the boys about here jump him"—and the rest of his sentence was confided to his hat, which he had ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... Rowe, by his punctuation and capital R, made Dromio call Luciana 'Redemption.' Pope and Theobald seem to have followed him, though they give the small r. The Folios cannot be made chargeable with this error, for the comma does not regularly follow vocatives in these editions where we expect it. There is no comma, for instance, following the word 'Mistress' in IV. 3. 75 ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... were the chambers of the King's guests. In the right wing were his own. Therefore, he placed a comma between those two words 'Sans' and 'Souci,' to indicate that those at the left were 'without,' while ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... old man. "Perhaps I'll come after you, some day soon. But I must go back now. You see I left off at a comma, and it's so awkward not knowing how the sentence finishes! Besides, you've got to go through Dogland first, and I'm always a little nervous about dogs. But it'll be quite easy to come, as soon as I've completed my new invention—for carrying ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... he said. Later on he burst out with, "If my Miss Andrews had been the heroine of that play, the man who falls over the precipice in the second act would have been alive at this moment." And finally he demanded: "Do you suppose a heroine like Marguerite Andrews would have overlooked the comma on the postal card that woman read in the third act, and so made the fourth act possible? Not she. She's a woman with a mind. And yet they call that the latest London realistic success! Realistic! These Londoners do not seem to understand their own language. If ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... Earl of Carrick had been negotiated, and he was steering safely for the Lord of the Isles. A strain on any man, especially when one of the readers' pince-nez began to contract some of the deep feeling of its master, and to slide off at every comma, to be thrust back with his ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... it," the President begins, "judicial temperament is largely a fragrance rising from the recollection of corporate employment; it is the ability to throw a comma under the wheels of progress and upset public welfare; I am glad to learn that Mr. L—— has not a 'judicial temperament'; I shall send his ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis

... is very inconsistent in referring to this passage.—'Sibbe' (154), which H.-So. regards as an instr., B. takes as accus., obj. of 'wolde.' Putting a comma after Deniga, he renders: He did not desire peace with any of the Danes, nor did he wish to remove their life-woe, nor to ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... been relieved seemed to be very much relieved indeed; they stretched out their long, cramped bodies luxuriously, and went lumbering off together by twos and threes, with their hands in their pockets. Sara started to follow a bristly comma-caterpillar who went off alone, but he was so big that she just couldn't make up her mind so do it. She had once fed one for three weeks in a fruit jar, and she knew that kind couldn't hurt her—still— She felt she was ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... conscience a little. After he had copied out his draft with its "Scientific phraseology a speciality," fine and large, he saw the notes she had written out for him. Her handwriting was still round and boyish, even as it had appeared in the Whortley avenue, but her punctuation was confined to the erratic comma and the dash, and there was a disposition to spell the imperfectly legible along the line of least resistance. However, he dismissed that matter with a resolve to read over and correct anything in that way that ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... "'You have never failed to respond to such an appeal,' comma; no, semicolon; no, period. 'So I shall put you down for a subscription of dash 'how much' question-mark. 'Thanking you in adv'—no, just say, 'My husband joins me in kindest regards to your dear wife and yourself, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... blazoned,—a lion rampt. sa., armed or. In written and printed blazoning, the arrangement of the words and the placing the stops are alike matters of supreme importance. The sentences are to be short. Acomma is to mark the end of each complete minor clause or division of a sentence: acolon, each more important clause. Apoint or period is to follow every abbreviated word, to mark the fact of the abbreviation, but without affecting the additional presence ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... bag over his shoulder and a notebook and pencil-stump in his hand. He nodded to the assistant as to an old friend with whom one may be at ease, set down his bag, opened his notebook, and nibbled his stump. Then he read aloud, with a comma or semicolon between each, a dozen or twenty titles. They were the names of the books which his employer wished to pick up. The red-eyed assistant listened, and shook his head. Then the boy, without another ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... constructed with regard for every comma, Mathias' eyes were directed so frequently towards Paul that Paul could not but think that Mathias was vaunting his knowledge of Greek expressly, as if to reprove him, Paul, for the Aramaic idiom that he had never been able to wring out of his Greek, which he regretted, but which, after ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... (Works, viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious regard to the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of a comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an errour of a single ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... III, paragraph 82. A comma was changed to a semi-colon in the sentence: This was on a Tuesday; on the Wednesday he did not speak to ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... The Comma is the shortest pause; as, Jane goes to school', and learns to read. Pause the time of counting one, and ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... subtlety and finesse noticeable in all the portraits of the period of Louis XIII. His mouth was almost without lips, which Lavater deems an indubitable sign of an evil mind, and it was framed in a pair of slight gray moustaches and a 'royale'—an ornament then in fashion, which somewhat resembled a comma in form. The old man wore a close red cap, a large 'robe-dechambre', and purple silk stockings; he was no less a personage than Armand ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... have discovered the relics of pencil memorandums? Exactly ten,—as any one may see by examining Mr. Hamilton's collation. Of these ten, three are for punctuation,—the substitution of a period for a semicolon, the introduction of three commas, and the substitution of an interrogation point for a comma; the punctuation being of not the slightest service in either case, as the sense is as clear as noonday in all. Two are for the introduction of stage-directions in Act I., Sc. 3,—"Chambers," and, on the entrance of the Ghost, "armed as before"; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... art, and he promised to give me taste by inoculation. I am sure he has a charming one; and he illustrates every thing he says about gardening by some literary or grammatical allusion. He told me he compared his art to literary composition. 'Now, there,' said he, pointing his finger, 'I make a comma; and there,' pointing to another spot, 'where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon: at another part (where an interruption is desirable to break the view), a parenthesis—now a full stop; and then I begin another subject.'" Memoirs, vol. i. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... merely an instance of a common ellipsis (here of the word busy), and requires the comma after least. This is another proof of the advantage of being slow to abandon ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various

... because the Difference cannot be known by an Organ or Harpsichord, if the Keys of the Instrument are not split. A Tone, that gradually passes to another, is divided into nine almost imperceptible Intervals, which are called Comma's, five of which constitute the Semitone Major, and four the Minor. Some are of Opinion, that there are no more than seven, and that the greatest Number of the one half constitutes the first, and the less the second; but this does not satisfy my weak Understanding, for the Ear ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi

... Political Biography of Lord George Bentinck, quotes this passage, and, as it seems to me, manipulates it unfairly, by ending it at the word "decimated," as if there were a full stop there, whereas the sense in the original only requires a comma, and so it is in Hansard. To make the sense terminate at "decimated," he moulds a sentence and a half into one, thus: "The Chief Secretary says, that the ministers did wisely in this decision, but I differ from him when I hear, every day, of persons being starved to death, and when ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... saying: after a comma, only the use of the comma is so arbitrary that we preferred to ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... miles long. The head of it was in Roselawn at one side of the Norwood estate and almost touched the edge of Bonwit Boulevard. It was bordered by trees for almost its entire length on both sides, and it was shaped like a enormous, elongated comma. ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... said, "you write very well, but you do not know the art of punctuating. You write as the water runs, as the arrow flies; therefore, in reading what you have written I have no time to breathe. I cannot separate the different ideas. A comma means a point d'arret, a moment of repose. Every period should be an instant in which ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... time she knew that this was monstrously absurd. All the time she knew that she did not wish to marry this man. Fine sentences, pompously framed, slowly formed in her mind such as: "This outrage will not go unpunished, comma, and you will suffer for this, comma, Dr. ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... the weevils. Does this actually mean that there are several grubs in the pea? Yes. Skin the peas in question, separate the cotyledons, and break them up as may be necessary. We shall discover several grubs, extremely youthful, curled up comma-wise, fat and lively, each in a little round niche in the ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... West, speech is more brief. "Autos go slow" is the warning while on the Fenway in Boston the signs read—"Motor Vehicles, Proceed Slowly." I wouldn't swear to the comma but ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... the tops of the stakes by cross-stakes. So the editors; but Conington on Verg. Georg. 2, 355 seems to take capita of the top-foliage of the vines, an interpetation which is quite possible. Those editors are certainly wrong who remove the comma after iugatio and place it after religatio, as though et were omitted between the two words. In enumerations of more than two things Cic. either omits the copula altogether or inserts it before each word after the first; but in enumerating two things et cannot be omitted, ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... my head like some silly refrain. I meet Bobby. I also meet Vick, my little shivering, smooth, white terrier. They both join me. The one wriggles herself into the shape of a trembling comma, and, foolishly chasing herself, rolls over on her back, to demonstrate her joy at my advent. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... his song. Shelley recked little of the jots and tittles of literary craftsmanship; he committed many a small sin against the rules of grammar, and certainly paid but a halting attention to the nice distinctions of punctuation. Thus in the early editions a comma occasionally plays the part of a semicolon; colons and semicolons seem to be employed interchangeably; a semicolon almost invariably appears where nowadays we should employ the dash; and, lastly, the dash itself becomes a point of all work, replacing indifferently commas, colons, semicolons or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... here a slight confusion in construction. If a comma preceded terrible, souvent would then be regularly dependent on combien. But there is no authority for this punctuation, and we must supply a repeated combien, thus: tu sais combien terrible . . . [il est it ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... The Comma, so called from the C-mark on the under side of the hind wings, is fairly plentiful in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in the hop-districts, for the hop is its food plant; but it is curious that, with the abundance of hops in Kent, Sussex, and Hants, it is quite a rare insect in ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... with him, especially not as regards the marks of punctuation, by means of which he tries to distinguish himself from you, when at the end of the pamphlet he exclaims: "Wagner says, OPERA NOT,—DRAMA; I say OPERA, NOT DRAMA." His "Komala" is better than his comma, and his practice much better than his theory. There is much in it that would please you, and has undoubtedly been originated by "Lohengrin." Sobolewski wrote "Komala" at first in three acts, and had it ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... thou in this world, and in the source text, the comma after 'worls' was a period. This was corrected ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text

... compressed form that consists of three columns for 'word', 'definition', and 'additional notes'. It is set up with a comma between each item and a hard return at the end of each definition. This means that this section could easily be cut and pasted into its own text file and imported into a database or spreadsheet as a comma separated variable file (.csv ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... adduce this case from the word Themistocles in the Index to the Graeci Rhetorici. But I see or I fancy cause to notice this passage for the following cause: it contains only nine words, four in the first comma, five in the last, and of these nine four are taken up in noting the time [Greek: to proton to telen]; ergo, five words record the remarkable revolution from one state to another, and the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... light side Salvator gives us a multitude of touches, all exactly like one another, and therefore, it is to be hoped, quite patterns of perfection in rock-drawing, since they are too good to be even varied. Every touch is a dash of the brush, as nearly as possible in the shape of a comma, round and bright at the top, convex on its right side, concave on its left, and melting off at the bottom into the gray. These are laid in confusion one above another, some paler, some brighter, some scarcely discernible, but all alike in shape. ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... 23. —in thy mind if thou couldst choose. (At the close full stop misprinted for comma). Varuna, the god of waters. Schlegel and Rosen consider that a sloka, describing the attributes of Varuna, has been lost—that in this line 'varanam, seligendum' should be written instead of 'Varunam.' The Calcutta edition has the same reading, however, and the change ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman

... teaches us, not as a full stop, but as only a comma in the story of an endless life, and then the whole aspect of our existence is changed. That which is material, base, evil, drops down. That which is spiritual, noble, good, rises to lead ...
— What Peace Means • Henry van Dyke

... in the text of Lovelace is the more lamentable because he was apt to make a play of phrases that depend upon the precision of a comma—nay, upon the precision of the voice in reading. Lucasta Paying her Obsequies is a poem that makes a kind of dainty confusion between the two vestals—the living and the dead; they are "equal virgins," and you must assign the pronouns ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell

... altogether from the opinion that the comma is of any importance in the construction of this passage. Assuming, as one correspondent says, and as Mr. Stephens (for I don't quite understand his brief judgment) seems to say, that "most busie least" ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various

... to the Revision Committee it was found that in one section there was a period where there should have been a comma. Mrs. Almy was obliged to remain two weeks and get an amendment through both Houses to correct this error. Finally the resolution was declared perfect, and was ordered published throughout the State, etc. Then it was discovered that the word "resident" was ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... my pretty maid, for I've been asked too, in a breathless note from Mellicent, with neither beginning nor ending, nor comma nor full stop. If any one else had written in such a state of agitation, I should have thought something thrilling had occurred, but Mellicent is guaranteed to go off her head on the slightest provocation. Probably it is nothing more exciting than a cake or a ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... style of making a diary entry has been preserved. In some cases, a date is followed by a period and emdash and then the entry proper. In others, there is a date, no period and an emdash. In yet others, the date is followed by a comma and then the ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... with touches of the same, seeming as if they had been placed with a brush. The back wings were a strong yellow. Each had, for its size, an immense black eye-spot, with a blue pupil covering three-fourths of it, crossed by a perfect comma of white, the heads toward the front wings and the curves bending outward. Each eye-spot was in a yellow field, strongly circled with a sharp black line; then a quarter of an inch band of yellow; next a heliotrope circle of equal width; yellow again twice as wide; then ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... device begins with a confused heap of birds' claws, paws of animals, &c.; next appears a thigh, cut short above the knee; this is followed by the letter C. Next in order is seen a flask pouring out a stream of oil; the letter l, with a comma above the line, comes next; and the whole is closed by a goodly heap of gold pieces. To an Italian scholar, it is hardly necessary to offer an explanation. The group of emblems at the left hand represents ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various

... Springs', to match entry. Page 9: Restored missing period and missing half of closing quote. Page 35: added 's' to 'landing' (...steamers make their various landings.) Page 43: removed extraneous closing quote. Page 46: added comma after 'erection' (..., now in process of erection, ...) Page 55: added 's' to 'make' (forgetting even, as Bryant did, that a vertical line from the top of the cliff on account of the crumbling debris of ages make(s) it ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... then approach another one with the short, mincing steps usually affected by young-old dandies who are fluttering around the fair. As he turned, not without dexterity, to right and left, he kept one leg slightly dragging behind the other, like a short tail or comma. This trick the ladies particularly admired. In short, they not only discovered in him a host of recommendations and attractions, but also began to see in his face a sort of grand, Mars-like, military expression—a thing ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... towards the chromosphere, and finally the usual appearance of a "stemmed prominence" was assumed. Still more remarkable was an observation made by Trouvelot at Harvard College Observatory, June 26, 1874.[603] A gigantic comma-shaped prominence, 82,000 miles high, vanished from before his eyes by a withdrawal of light as sudden as the passage of a flash of lightning. The same observer has frequently witnessed a gradual illumination or gradual extinction of such objects, testifying to changes in the thermal or electrical ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... lines, the corrector, beside supplying the stage direction Lay it downe, has added a comma after "hand," substituted a period for the colon after "Art," and a capital for a small w in "wipe." Would a forger do such minute and needless work as this, and do it so carelessly, too, as this one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... perceiving the satirical note. "Now there's De Maupassant's Fort comma la Mort—quite the most interesting variation—shows the turn a genius can give. There the triangle is the man of middle age, the mother he has loved in his youth and the daughter he comes to love. It forms, you might say, the head of a whole subdivision ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... l. 16. This verse-rendering of 'Maecenas' is by Wordsworth, not Camden—the quotation from whom here ought to have been marked with an inverted comma (') after relictos. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... accuracy that in the second edition he gave a list of 'false stops which hurt the sense.' For instance, the punctuation of the following paragraph:—'The words of Abbot Suger, in his life of Lewis le Gros, concerning this prince are very remarkable,' he thus corrects, 'after prince a comma is wanting.' See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... finally chosen for locating the next Mission, which was to bear the name of San Luis, Rey de Francia. Thus it became necessary to distinguish between the two saints of the same name: San Luis, Bishop (Obispo), and San Luis, King; but modern American parlance has eliminated the comma, and they are respectively San Luis Obispo and San Luis Rey. Lasuen, with the honored Padre Peyri and Padre Santiago, conducted the ceremonies on June 13, and the hearts of all concerned were made glad by the ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... could render effectual: he threatened to commence the insurrection with his friends in the city alone; and he boasted, that he had ten thousand brisk boys, as he called them, who, on a motion of his finger, were ready to fly to arms. Monmouth*[**missing comma] Russel, and the other conspirators, were during some time in apprehensions lest despair should push him into some dangerous measure; when they heard that, after a long combat between fear and rage, he had at last abandoned all hopes of success, and had retired ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... passage.(85) And certainly, if I divide the meaning into two, we shall find that it is not opposed to what Matthew says of our SAVIOUR's having risen 'in the end of the Sabbath.' For Mark's expression, ('Now when He was risen early the first day of the week,') we shall read with a pause, putting a comma after 'Now when He was risen,'—the sense of the words which follow being kept separate. Thereby, we shall refer [Mark's] 'when He was risen' to Matthew's 'in the end of the Sabbath,' (for it was then that He rose); and all that comes ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... answered softly, still smiling. "There shall not be so much as a comma altered." Then she sat down and fell into a reverie as though ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... Nothing can be more perfectly in keeping with all other manifestations of Washington than the whole visible aspect and embodiment of this letter. The manuscript is as clear as daylight; the punctuation exact, to a comma. There is a calm accuracy throughout, which seems the production of a species of intelligence that cannot err, and which, if we may so speak, would affect us with a more human warmth, if we could conceive it capable of some slight ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... also. 'The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened.' You have been allowed to be, Desire Ledwith. And so was the man that was born blind. And I think there is a colon put into the sentence about him, where a comma was meant ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... 'A second leave-taking is a happy chance': the chance, or occasion, because it is happy, smiles. It does not mean that occasion smiles upon a second leave, but that, upon a second leave, occasion smiles. There should be a comma after smiles.] ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... It is an adjective," cried Malcolm, after a short pause of thought. "It's the touch that's instinct. But I fancy there sud be a comma efter instinct.—His fingers were sae used till 't that they could 'maist do the thing o' themsel's—Isna 't lucky, my leddy, that I thocht o' sayin' 't ower to you! I'll read the buik frae the beginnin',—it's the neist to the last, I think,—jist to come upo' the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... time is expended in making certain that commas are properly distributed. Thomas Campbell walked six miles to a printer's to have a comma in one of his poems ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... established intimate relations with the rules of German. He used small initials for substantives, or capitalized verbs and adjectives according as they appeared important to him. His punctuation was arbitrary; generally he drew a perpendicular line between his words, letting it suffice for a comma or period as the case might be (a proceeding which adds not a little to the embarrassments of him who seeks to translate his ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven

... a social life. The whole force of my text is often missed by English readers, who run into one idea the two words 'together with.' But if you would put a comma after 'together,' you would understand better what Paul meant. He refers to two forms of union. Whether we wake or sleep we shall live all aggregated together, and all aggregated 'together' because each is 'with Him.' That is to say, union with ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... pause for flinching, for now the bald little novelist was facing her intently, and it was plain, from the tentative waggling of his beard, that he would mount his hobby and be off again, if she gave him so much as a comma's breadth by which to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... a comma after "sprained ankle" — there is a small comma-sized gap at the end of the line where a comma appears to have ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... rest of the suitors had either declined the contest, or made such work as the devil could not read if his pardon depended on it, all eyes were bent on the stranger. Aldobrand stepped gracefully forward, arranged the types without omission of a single letter, hyphen, or comma, imposed them without deranging a single space, and pulled off the first proof as clear and free from errors, as if it had been a triple revise! All applauded the worthy successor of the immortal Faustusthe ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... comma. (In performing any labor, as in speaking, reading, singing, mowing, sewing, &c., there will ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... her desperate situation, her hatred of life, her uselessness, her desire to play the harp well for Alfieri's sake, her hopes that Charles Edward may die; disconnected phrases, run into each other without so much as a comma or a full stop (since I have had to punctuate my translation, at least partially, to make it intelligible); the excited, unconsecutive, unceasing, discursive, reiterating gabble of hysteria, eager, vague, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... the second stating as the result of this, "that we make trifles of terrors," whereas the tendency would necessarily be to make "terrors of trifles." The confusion arises from the careless pointing of the first sentence. By simply shifting the comma at present after "things," and placing it after "familiar," the discrepancy between the two sentences disappears, as also between the two members of the first sentence, which are now at variance. It should ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various

... the children say," said his friend. "But the piece was hardly half an inch across; there was no room for one word, let alone five. Can you think of anything hardly bigger than a comma which the man with hell in his heart had to tear away as a ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... enabled him to work and talk at the same time, and he never pretermitted either. He gave me a history of the claim, and added: "You see, stranger (he addressed the bank before him), gold is sure to come outer that theer claim (he put in a comma with his pick), but the old pro-pri-e-tor (he wriggled out the word and the point of his pick) warn't of much account (a long stroke of the pick for a period). He was green, and let the boys about here jump ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... sheer nonsense mows at us from his printed page. Those who clamor for Shakespeare's text, pure and simple, divested of all notes and annotations, have no idea how much thought and time have been expended on every line,—nay, on every word, on every comma,—in the text of any good modern edition of his dramas, and with the single aim, be it remembered, of revealing exactly what the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... effect one intends to produce. Dashes, it seems almost platitudinous to say, have their particular representative virtue, their quickening force, and, to put it roughly, strike both the familiar and the emphatic note, when those are the notes required, with a felicity beyond either the comma or the semicolon; though indeed a fine sense for the semicolon, like any sort of sense at all for the pluperfect tense and the subjunctive mood, on which the whole perspective in a sentence may depend, seems anything but common. Does nobody ever ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... as such, undeniably beautiful; for the sunlight, refracted and diffused in the water, gave his translucent, pearl-blue body all the shifting colors of the spectrum. Vigorous and graceful of movement, in shape he resembled a comma of three dimensions, twisted, when at rest, to a slight spiral curve; but in traveling he straightened out with quick successive jerks, each one sending him ahead a couple of lengths. Supplemented by the undulatory movement ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... stop; stopping &c. v.; closure, stoppage, halt; arrival &c. 292. pause, rest, lull, respite, truce, drop; interregnum, abeyance; cloture [U.S. congress]. dead stop, dead stand, dead lock; finis, cerrado[Sp]; blowout, burnout, meltdown, disintegration; comma, colon, semicolon, period, full stop; end &c. 67; death &c. 360. V. cease, discontinue, desist, stay, halt; break off, leave off; hold, stop, pull up, stop short; stick, hang fire; halt; pause, rest; burn ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... there as a bird in a cage, a bait on a hook, a piece of cheese in a mouse-trap. It's stuck into every volume as your foot is stuck into your shoe. It governs every line, it chooses every word, it dots every i, it places every comma." ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... COMMA—RULE.—Phrases that are placed out of their natural order [Footnote: A phrase in its natural order follows the word it modifies.] and made emphatic, or that are loosely connected with the rest of the sentence, should be ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... a ripe old age. Almost any American community of fair size can afford at least two murderers —one in jail, under sentence, receiving gifts of flowers and angel cake from kind ladies, and waiting for the court above to reverse the verdict in his case because the indictment was shy a comma; and the other out on bail, awaiting his time for going through the same procedure. But with the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... whole merit I claim that of altering the place of a comma, thereby, as I apprehend, rendering the meaning of the poet evident. The principle upon which I proceeded throughout was that of making as little variation as possible from the ancient authorities: upon that principle I acted in the instance in question, and I frequently ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 49, Saturday, Oct. 5, 1850 • Various

... the second stanza the poet in his religious fervor thinks of the hills as being like temples. He calls America the land of the noble free, meaning the noble freemen. Sometimes this line is printed with a comma after the word noble. Then the line means land of the noble man, the free man. The stanza as a whole might be rendered into prose after this manner: I love thee, my country, thou land of the noble free, and I love ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... up the trail from the Double-Elm Fork," he said promisingly. "As you crossed it you must have seen an old deserted /jacal/ to your left under a comma mott." ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... upon whether one puts a comma in the right place. The two Ehrenfelds, who towards the end were awfully fond of Frau Doktor M., say that we, who were Frau Doktor M.'s favourites, ought to write a composition without a single comma, just to show him. That's a splendid idea, and Hella and I will do it like a shot if only the others can be trusted to ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... no doubt, I've broken bounds: all the editions are so punctuated; but it seems the comma should be after "man", connecting "no ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... A comma or rest ordinarily indicates the end of a phrase in vocal music. If, however, the phrase as marked is too long to be taken in one breath, the conductor should study it carefully for some point in it where ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens

... commentator he was capital, could he but have suppressed his rancour against those who had preceded him in the task, but a misconstruction or misinterpretation, nay, the misplacing of a comma, was in Gifford's eyes a crime worthy of the most severe animadversion. The same fault of extreme severity went through his critical labours, and in general he flagellated with so little pity, that people lost their sense of the criminal's guilt in dislike of the savage pleasure which ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... other hand, become a law, it was necessary for the archbishop to give notification of it, legalized by notary in the ordinary manner. Such, they said, were the laws of the kingdom, in consideration of the fact that there might be some difference in the books, either by the transposition of a comma, or by some other error that might ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... follows the body of the letter, about two or three spaces below it. It begins about in the center of the page under the body of the letter. Only the first word should be capitalized and a comma is placed at the end. The wording may vary according to the degree of cordiality or friendship. In business letters the forms are usually restricted ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther

... few crystals as mementoes of their adventure; and that evening, when the Major was at the Cove house, Gwyn was about to bring the specimens out and relate where they had been that day, when the servant announced the comma of two visitors, and Messrs. Dix and Brownson, the solicitors, who seemed to be now on the most friendly terms, ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... a comma," the Dominican put in,—"unaccompanied ladies do not ordinarily drop from the forest oaks like acorns. I said as much to Cazaio a half-hour ago. Look you, we two and Michault,—who formerly incited this carcass and, from what I know of him, is by this time ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... me" in following paragraph] ... and his custome was to spend, besides his fixt hours of prayer (those hours which by command of the Church were enjoined the old ... [conjectural: original text has open parentheses, without comma, before "besides his" and again before "those hours", with close parenthesis (unchanged) later] conveniently handsome) [open ( for close )] the earth affords us bowers: / Then care away, / and wend ... ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... of May through June, and a second brood appears in August and September. Vanessa J-album and V. interrogationis appear in May, and again in August and September. The caterpillars of the latter species live on the elm, lime and hop-vine. Grapta comma also feeds on the hop. Alypia 8-maculata (Fig. 49) flies at this time, and in August its larva feeds on the grape. Sphinx gordius, S. 5-maculata (Fig. 239) and other Sphinges and Sesia (the Clear-winged moth), appear the last of May. Arctia Arge, ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... rather pudgier than one would like one's swamis, yogis, seers, and initiates, yet her voice had the real professional note. It was refined and optimistic; it was overpoweringly calm; it flowed on relentlessly, without one comma, till Babbitt was hypnotized. Her favorite word was "always," which she pronounced olllllle-ways. Her principal gesture was a pontifical but thoroughly ladylike blessing ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... that is, do not use a comma to divide into clauses what should be separate sentences, or should be ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... more horrid ideas of the distress of the prisoner in the dungeon below, than could have been perhaps produced by an exhibition of the whole person. And in the following beautiful scenery from the Midsummer-night's dream, (in which I have taken the liberty to alter the place of a comma), the description of the swimming step and prominent belly bring the whole figure before our eyes ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... There were those who said that she interpolated it in the Litany; but Carolyn, who was born Caroline and a Baptist, was too much impressed by the liturgy of what she called The Church to insert even an uncanonized comma. ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam

... half a dozen years ago. While the Virginia City mines were booming, your backbone felt like a streak of lightning; you hadn't a comma in your very thoughts; you woke up every morning in a cold sweat, and your teeth chattered as you opened your newspaper. You believed every man a liar and dreamt that your veins ran liquid gold. The Stock Exchange was Hell ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... seconde et dit comma attriste:—Je ne suis qu'un etranger ici, je n'ai pas de grenouille; mais, si j'en avais une, je tiendrais ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Pg. 117, extraneous comma in "etc., Rice" removed as it appears a new sentence is being started. (etc. Rice is an ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... can imagine what he would have said; I pass over any questions of interpretation that might very justly be raised; I have only one question to ask: Why was the quotation not finished? Paul only put a comma where they have put a full stop; the next words are: "Who gave Himself a ransom for all." But how could He do that if He was ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... the earth and after all had passed by, the hurricane of volcanic fire and missiles must have scattered the debris of high mountains twisted into lumps of matter, varying in size from a sky scraper to a comma. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... '"Poor soul," said Jack dryly. "but ... "' the period after "dryly" was corrected to a comma. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... lacustrine seclusion; as chanced also unluckily with the preceding paper, in which the reader will perhaps kindly correct the consequent misprints, p. 29, l. 20, of 'scarcely' to 'securely,' and p. 31, l. 34, 'full,' with comma, to 'fall,' without one; noticing besides that Redgauntlet has been omitted in the italicised list, p. 25, l. 16; and that the reference to note 2 should not be at the word 'imagination,' p. 24, but at the word 'trade,' p. 25, l. 7. My dear old friend, Dr. John ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... symbol U was used, in accounts, to designate thousands, in the same way as the comma, or the comma with ciphers, is now used in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... The Comma (,), Semicolon (;), and Colon (:) mark grammatical divisions in a sentence; as, God is good; for he gives us all things. Be wise to-day, my child: 't ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... greater than usual. On the 1st and 5th I heard the peeping of hylas; Sunday, the 4th, was enlivened by a farewell visitation of bluebirds; during the first week, at least four sorts of butterflies—Disippus, Philodice, Antiopa, and Comma—were on the wing, and a single Philodice (our common yellow butterfly) was flying as late as the 16th. Wild flowers of many kinds—not less than a hundred, certainly—were in bloom; among them the exquisite little pimpernel, ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... 1 - page 3, para 4, added a missing open-quote - page 8, para 3, deleted a misplaced comma - page 13, Langdon and Dalton are having a conversation, but para 4 incorrectly stated "said St. Clair". It is clear that this should be changed to "said Dalton", because Langdon replies to "George" in his next sentence. - page 20, para 7, the troop is specified here as "six hundred" ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... same type as the rest, and they are enough to suggest how easy it is for real doubts to arise about which word is being used—'An astounding increase in the moral discipline and patriotism of German soldiers.' Has, or has not, a comma dropped out after moral? 'It is, indeed, a new proof of the failing moral and internal troubles of the German people.' Moral and internal? or moral and troubles? 'A true arbitrator, a man really impartial between two contendants and even ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English

... times,—although the pedants have always disdained those who write clearly and luminously, and lost reverence for genius the moment it is understood; since clear writing shows how little is truly original, and makes a disquisition on a bug, a comma, or ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... paragraph 64. The word "thought" was changed to "said" in the sentence: "I ought to have said 'my lord,'" she SAID; "but I forgot. I hope you'll excuse me—my lord." Also, a comma after "forgot" was changed to a ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... category. As such, every attempt has been made to reproduce it exactly as it was printed and as it won the award. In particular, inconsistent hyphenation of compound words is pervasive in this text and has been retained. Unconventional punctuation—for example using a comma to splice two sentences—has also been ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... 201, first full paragraph: The comma after "masters" is possibly incorrect (a period or semi-colon would be more grammatically correct) but the original ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... cannot be bought or sold; it comes, if it comes at all, as the result of a wisely-directed determination. The teacher's part is to exalt, enthuse, stimulate. He must criticise, certainly, but this is generally overdone. Like some teachers of English who can never overlook a misplaced comma, whose idea of English seems to be to spell and to punctuate correctly, there are teachers of public speaking whose critical eye never sees farther than gesture, articulation, and emphasis. With this attitude toward their work, they become fault-finders ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... bound to be a lot of them small republics which is going to make a play for a little easy money, Mawruss," Abe said, "but the indications is that when the proofs of claims is filed by the alleged creditors, y'understand, there would be a couple of them comma hounds on the Reparation Committee which would reject such claims on the grounds of misplaced semicolons alone. Then six months hafterwards, when the representative of one of them republics goes over to what used ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass

... is a Lincolnshire word for the cry of the curlew, and so by removing the comma after call we get an interpretation which perhaps improves the sense and certainly gets rid of a very un-Tennysonian cumbrousness in the second line. But Tennyson had never, he said, heard of that meaning of ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... word is compounded as it were of two, or in some cases the same word, or syllable, is repeated. In these circumstances, a comma is placed under them at this division, where a rest, or small space, of time is left before you proceed to pronounce the other part, but it must not be imagined that this is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... was martyred there by the Huns. Long afterwards a stone was found with the inscription Ursula et Undecimilla Virgines, which was incorrectly translated into 'Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins.' Some later critic pointed out that a missing comma after Undecimilla, the name of a handmaid, made all the difference, assuming that two young ladies were a more reasonable and probable number than eleven thousand. But what legend ever cared for a comma, or reached a full stop? ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... descendent [descendant] devest [divest] monkies [monkeys] mystries [mysteries] pedler [pedlar] surprize [surprise] wo [woe] wonderous [wondrous] then "hear him, hear him," loudly rings, [final comma is unclear] assuage their wrath or heal the wound, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... in its entirety. So with Butcher's punctuation. But it is perhaps better to place a comma after [Greek: dynamin], and translate, 'after making ready ... soldiers, ships, cavalry—the entire ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes

... successively rejected. Three sources of sulphurous acid were then experimented with, viz., the burning of sulphur, liquefied sulphurous acid, and the burning of sulphide of carbon. The rooms were closed for twenty-four hours, and tubes containing different proto-organisms, and particularly the comma bacillus made known by Koch, were placed therein, along with other tubes containing vaccine lymph. After each experiment these tubes were carried to Mr. Pasteur's laboratory and compared ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various

... of the punctuation errors, e.g., comma instead of period, extra period, etc. in the original have been silently corrected while those requiring interpretation have been left ...
— Adequate Preparation for the Teacher of Biological Sciences in Secondary Schools • James Daley McDonald

... are all his works from the beginning of the world," (Acts xv. 18.) The complex symbol also teaches more forcibly than in words,—"My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure," (Is, xlvi. 10.) Some have suggested a little change in the punctuation. Instead of placing the comma, after the word "side," place it after the word "within," the meaning would then be, that the "book was written only on one side, namely on the side within." We do not accept the suggestion. The reason is sufficient ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... stately as a dome, with symmetry and punctuation, but the climax was untrammelled by a single comma. The orator swept from the room, put on her bonnet and shawl, and the judge, still sitting with his eggs, heard the front door close behind her. She was president of the Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum, and she now trod ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... said your honour was concerned in your request—requests affecting honour between men comma il faut is a ceremony of course, like a bow between them. One bows, the other returns the bow—no thanks on either side. Now that we have done with that matter, let me say that I thought your wish for our interview originated in a ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in this Author than any other, since he shifts them more frequently: and sometimes, without attending to this particular, the reader would have met with obscurities. The more obsolete or unusual words are explained. Some of the most shining passages are distinguish'd by comma's in the margin; and where the beauty lay not in particulars but in the whole, a star is prefix'd to the scene. This seems to me a shorter and less ostentatious method of performing the better half of Criticism (namely the pointing out an Author's ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... is caused by the presence of a microbe, known as the "comma bacillus," which manufactures a virulent poison, called a ptomaine. Although the germs are taken into the system through the medium of the mouth and stomach, they only multiply in the bowels, which is proved by the fact that the vomit from a cholera patient contains none, while the ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... not name their points in writing as we do, that which we cal comma (following the Greek) they cal it alwayes Virgula; our colon, duo puncta; semicolon, punctum cum virgula. When we say nova Linea they say a capite, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... the pages of the log and looked at our accounts with a searching gaze that noted every figure, dot and comma. After a time he said, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... bright daylight ahead, and in a few more strides the last trees were passed, and they came out suddenly in an amphitheatre of bare rocks, almost elliptical, but coming together at the head, and bending away like a comma turned upside down. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... .] with Eastern merchants:" is the punctuation used in the 1901 Macmillan edition. Macmillan's 1910 Library edition erroneously uses a space followed only by a period. The Norton Anthology editors emend the text to contain a comma after "merchants" rather than a colon, but I have chosen to follow the unusual, but seemingly ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... to add two Things:—First, That, at your Peril, you do not presume to alter or transpose one Word, nor rectify one false Spelling, nor so much as add or diminish one Comma or Tittle, in or to my Romance:—For if you do,—In case any of the Descendents of Curl should think fit to invade my Copy-Right, and print it over again in my Teeth, I may not be able, in a Court of Justice, to swear ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne

... rhymes, put in apparently, only for professional purposes, and merely to get the curtain down decently. It is a point, which it takes the key of the play—Lord Bacon's key, of 'Times,' to put in. It wants but a comma, but then it must be a comma in the right place, to make English of it. Plain English, unvarnished English, but poetic in its fact, as any prophecy that Merlin was ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... may be caused in quite a different manner. I have often speculated as to what advantage the brilliant white C could give to the otherwise dusky-coloured "Comma butterfly" (Grapta C. album). Poulton's recent observations ("Proc. Ent. Soc"., London, May 6, 1903.) have shown that this represents the imitation of a crack such as is often seen in dry leaves, and is very conspicuous because the light shines ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... a comma in a bill which passed through Congress several years ago cost our government a million dollars. A single misspelled word prevented a deserving young man from obtaining a situation as instructor in a New England college. A cinder on ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... however comma averse to' (Jane wrote 'from') 'entertaining your suggestions comma and will be glad if you can make it convenient to call to-morrow bracket Tuesday close the bracket afternoon comma between ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained except the following: Pg. 117, Ch. VII: Changed comma to period in (relation to life,) Pg. 255, Ch. XVI: Removed ending quote ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... substantive or adjective? If the latter, no edition is rightly stopped; for, of course, there should be a comma after "massy;" and then I somewhat doubt the propriety of "proof" for "proved," unless joined with another word, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various

... [a] a with macron [c] quatrillo, resembles a 4 with a tail [c,] quatrillo with comma [t] tresillo, resembles a reversed 3 [tz] ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton

... inconsistencies were silently corrected. However, punctuation has not been changed to comply with modern standards. A deviation in paragraph-ending punctuation in the original publication should be noted for paragraphs in which dialogue immediately followed. Both a comma and a colon were used and have been retained in ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett



Words linked to "Comma" :   four-footed butterfly, brush-footed butterfly, punctuation mark, nymphalid butterfly, genus Polygonia, comma butterfly, punctuation, Polygonia, inverted comma, nymphalid, Vibrio comma



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