Trough or Knives and Forks?

Does punctuation count? Punctuation matters little to people who eat out of a rhetorical trough. But for those who want to pick up forks and knives, punctuation is the next level of writing civility. ldd

By RAY REYES of The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 19, 2008

Charles Beck never missed a day of work and he would call if he was going to be late, employers told deputies.

A comma goes after “work” for a coordinating conjunction’s dividing two independent clauses.

By Daniel Ruth

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 20, 2008

By now it has probably dawned upon you as a resident of Florida, and therefore an eyewitness to hysteria, that the ham-handed galoots running the Democratic Party hereabouts make "The Honeymooners" Raccoon Lodge seem like a Marine Corps precision drill team.

The commas after “Florida” and “hysteria” are redundant. The phrase is restrictive. “Precision drill” is a hyphenated adjective before a noun: “precision-drill team.”

By MARTIN FENNELLY of The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 20, 2008

There weren't official greeters for Siena coach Fran McCaffery and his lads, unless you count] freshman forward Ryan Rossiter's dad. Steve Rossiter, a retired New York City firefighter, is here for Friday's game against Vanderbilt.

The comma after “lads” is superfluous: it cuts off a restrictive trailing adverbial clause.