when an adverbial clause is to be stopped, but incompletely stopped, the omitted stop must always be the one at the beginning, and never the one at the end. Transgression of this is quite intolerable; we shall give several instances at the end of the section to impress the fact. But it is also true that even the omission of the beginning comma looks more and more slovenly the further we get from the type of our above cited sentence. The quotations immediately following are arranged from the less to the more slovenly.
His health gave way, and at the age of fifty-six, he died prematurely in harness at Quetta.–Times.
If mankind was in the condition of believing nothing, and without a bias in any particular direction, was merely on the look-out for some legitimate creed, it would not, I conceive, be possible...–Balfour.
The party then, consisted of a man and his wife, of his mother-in-law and his sister.–F. M. Crawford.
These men in their honorary capacity, already have sufficient work to perform.–Guernsey Evening Press.
It will be observed that in the sentence from Mr. Balfour the chief objection to omitting the comma between and and without is that we are taken off on a false scent, it being natural at first to suppose that we are to supply was again; this can only happen when we are in the middle of a sentence, and not at the beginning as in the pattern Cranmer sentence.
The gross negligence or ignorance betrayed by giving the first and omitting the second comma will be convincingly shown by this array of sentences from authors of all degrees.
It is not strange that the sentiment of loyalty should, from the day of his accession have begun to revive.–Macaulay.
Was it possible that having loved she should not so rejoice, or that, rejoicing she should not be proud of her love?–Trollope.
I venture to suggest that, had Lord Hugh himself been better informed in the matter he would scarcely hare placed himself...–Times.
The necessary consequence being that the law, to uphold the restraints of which such unusual devices are employed is in practice destitute of the customary sanctions.–Times.
The view held...is that, owing to the constant absence of the Commander-in-Chief on tour it is necessary that...–Times.
