Re: What does the sentence mean?

CyberCypher wrote:
> 
> John  Ings <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 15 Nov 2003:
> 
> > On 15 Nov 2003 06:26:28 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Liu Ju)
> > wrote:
> >
> >>Yellow fever, the disease that killed 4,000 philadelphians in
> >>1793, and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee, that the city lost its
> >>charter, has reappeared after nearly two decades, in abeyance in
> >>the Western Hemisphere.
> >
> > To start with, that sentence is very badly punctuated. I will
> > defer to those more knowledgable than I who may comment, but I
> > would write it this way:
> >
> > "Yellow fever (the disease that killed 4,000 philadelphians in
> > 1793, and so decimated Memphis Tennessee that the city lost its
> > charter) has reappeared after nearly two decades  in abeyance in
> > the Western Hemisphere.
> 
> "Yellow fever (the disease that killed 4,000 Philadelphians in
> 1793, and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee, that the city lost its
> charter) has reappeared after nearly two decades in abeyance in
> the western hemisphere" is required: capital "P", commas setting off
> "Tennessee", and no caps on "western hemisphere". Em-dashes could
> also be used instead of the parentheses, but I agree that commas make
> it too difficult to read.
> 
This is that multiple levels of comma thing that I've been agitating for
for years. I would not use parentheses and only use dashes rarely when
the comment is truly outside of the subject of the sentence, a
completely wild interjection of other comment. Below that is clearly not
the case.

#begin modified quote
Yellow fever, the disease that killed 4,000 Philadelphia's in
1793 and so decimated Memphis, Tennessee that the city lost its
charter, has reappeared after nearly two decades in abeyance in
the Western Hemisphere.
#end modified quote

I would argue for the above punctuation. In a complex sentence, leave
out any commas you can afford to go without. This ain't German!


--
"Throw me that lipstick, darling, I wanna redo my stigmata."
+-Jennifer Saunders, "Absolutely Fabulous"