From Lynne Truss, #2

This is another entry I particularly enjoyed from Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves calendar, for April 5, 2009

Humorist James Thurber was once asked: “Why did you have a comma in the sentence, ‘After dinner, the men went into the living room’?” And his answer was one of the loveliest things ever said about punctuation. “This particular comma was a way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up.”

This is such a perfect explanation. Beyond the charming way of expressing his use of the comma, it is useful in actual writing. More than once since reading this, I have assessed the use of a questionable comma on this basis.

Good stuff!