Word

[A professor whose speciality is punctuation] queried twelve of fifteen commas in twelve or fifteen different New Yorker pieces, finding them "unnecessary and disturbing." From one casual of mine he picked this sentence. 'After dinner, the men moved into the living room.' I explained to the professor that this was [editor Harold] Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up. There must, as we know, be a comma after every move, made by men, on this earth. -- James Thurber