Rule 5: You Don't Talk About Style Club

 The sample sentences that are used to teach grammar and style are inimitably entertaining, whether they are hilariously inept or simply awesome. Those found in “The Elements of Style” are of the latter variety, employing such suspenseful samples as, “he saw us coming, and unaware that we had learned of his treachery, greeted us with a smile.” I should like to write an entire murder mystery or spy thriller based on that one sentence.

 That aside, the punctuation of our fair and grossly convoluted language is its breath, for it controls our breath. And as breath is life, so punctuation is the life-giver of language. That is, unless you are an authentic Ancient Greek, in which case you do not use punctuation or even spacing in your writing and it is a wonder that you get anything done at all.

 I wish to take to heart many of the technical specifications and clarifications of “The Elements of Style,” for my time under the reign of Montessori-inspired education ruined my sense of grammar and punctuation, so it is a wonder I can read and write my native language at all. In all seriousness, I have no significant trouble with the English language—though I do hold grudges against it—but I do not understand the fine mechanics behind some of its more loaded scenarios, such as conjoining various combinations of independent and dependent clauses. I tend to get it right, but without knowing why.

 I shall therefore defer to a book that actually uses the word “indefensible” in reference to certain usages of the comma, for any style guide with as straightforward and austere a title as “The Elements of Style” must be able to rein in the unbridled forces of the English language. I will start by paying closer attention to some of the suggestions in Rule the Fifth, for there are innumerable ways to combine independent clauses. But don't do it with a comma. I must remain especially aware of using “so” in the middle of a sentence, primarily to show a cause-effect relationship, as it is apparently an adverb and so must be preceded by a semicolon. However, I will have to continue my quixotic quest for an adequate way to rectify the situation when I stumble across it, for the book's suggestion to transmute the “so” to an “as” and place it at the beginning of the sentence is awkward and—in the case of a string of causes and effects—much more noticeably repetitive when at the beginning of the sentence. I also will not precede the “so” with a semicolon, for that is a terrible waste of powerful punctuation (like dunking a nuclear power rod into lukewarm bathwater) and, as Vonnegut says, semicolons are “transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”

 I've been to college; I'm proving it right now.