The almighty comma

It's clear to me now that I have my mother to blame for my love of language in all its aspects.

At the drop of a hat she would repeat an anecdote that stressed the importance of the lowly comma. The fact that the tale was bawdy, the punchline turning on a double-entendre, only added luster to the lesson and would always brought a gleam to her eye. Consider, she would say, what becomes of the innocuous Cole Porter standard entitled "What is this thing called love?" Add a comma, and it becomes "What is this thing called, love?" Somehow I understood the altered title was meant to allude to the sex organs.

Listening recently to an episode "Selected Shorts", I was reminded of the almighty comma during a typically stentorian reading from a work of literature. In this case, however, the narrator gave no clue to the context and I really wasn't certain which reading was correct.

Here is the same sentence punctuated in two ways with vastly different meanings:

He just wanted her lying there.

He just wanted her, lying there.

+ + + + + + + +

Postscript: Isn't the Internet marvelous? Using just this sentence I managed to find a single Google result that answered not only how to read (and punctuate) the sentence but cites the source. The story, "Red," is by Maile Meloy and collected in her Half In Love.

The episode of Selected Shorts is mentioned here. The story is read by Keith Szarabajka (right).

Comments

[Kathryn Deiss]

This is a great story, Ross! Your Mom's fascination (and toying) with the potential change in meaning AND the fleetness with which you found the source and the answer to the question regarding the sentence you were pondering.
I love things like this.

[anyjazz65]

So true.
So, true.