[JOB] Perl / Database Developer - Financial Sector

[hipps]

Like what Paul Orrock said on Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 10:35:06AM +0100:
> Luis Motta Campos wrote:
> >On Jun 6, 2007, at 2:33 PM, Andy Armstrong wrote:
> >>On 6 Jun 2007, at 13:11, Luis Motta Campos wrote:
> >>>   I never saw the need for parentesis in a spoken language before.
> >>
> >>In English it happens all the time :)
> >>
> >>For example
> >>
> >> "Magistrates in Cumbria close down a house used by people taking 
> >>drugs after complaints by neighbours"
> >>
> >>http://www.hexten.net/2007/05/24/drugs-house-shut-after-complaints
> >
> >  I don't see the need of parentesis...
> 
> A comma is usually used instead of parentesis in most cases to break up 
> the sentence into sections which helps to clarify meaning. The meaning 
> of the sentence above becomes perfectly clear when written as
> 
> Magistrates in Cumbria close down a house used by people
> taking drugs, after complaints by neighbours.

You can't just bung commas in willy nilly; that sentence is correct with
no commas. It is, however, probably better rewritten due more to ugly
construction than to an ambiguity which is fairly trivially overcome.

You could have the comma if you pulled the end of the sentence to the
front: "Following complaints by neighbours, magistrates in Cumbria close
down a house used by people taking drugs".

-- 
lx