The importance of sentence composition

[AlphaDog]

I was just reading an article on tomorrow's Suds Summit and did a double take on this portion of a sentence, "...sits down with Prof. Henry Louis Gates and the police sergeant who arrested him in an attempt to smooth over a racial furor."

Gee, I thought the arrest was what prompted the furor, but it says here the arrest was an attempt to smooth one over. Huh, talk about me having misunderstood the whole thing.

[silvarios]

Ha.

[DP]

silvarios wrote:
Ha.

No kidding.

[richorlin]

There should be a comma after "arrested him" and it will read correctly.
I guess the proofreader was laid off.

[graylocks]

richorlin wrote:
There should be a comma after "arrested him" and it will read correctly.
I guess the proofreader was laid off.

not necessarily. times are tough and many departments are experiencing cut backs in their comma allocation budgets.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

graylocks wrote:
[quote=richorlin]
There should be a comma after "arrested him" and it will read correctly.
I guess the proofreader was laid off.

not necessarily. times are tough and many departments are experiencing cut backs in their comma allocation budgets.
...as well as their proofreaders.

[silvarios]

graylocks wrote: not necessarily. times are tough and many departments are experiencing cut backs in their comma allocation budgets.

Ha.

N-OS X-tasy! wrote: ...as well as their proofreaders.

And Ha.

[MartyStickle]

The panda, eats shoots and leaves.

[graylocks]

MartyStickle wrote:
The panda, eats shoots and leaves.

loved that book! i also loved diagramming sentences. sick, i know...

[decay]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.