. That you can learn. If you do, you can communicate what you want to communicate in words other people can understand. This book will help by showing you what good writers do. | For more material and information please visit STOPS 405 In writing these signals must be replaced by punctuation. In business machines are built to become obsolete within a few years. In each case the object of the preposition can be misread as grammatically tied to the following word as if the writers were talking about writing these signals and business machines. Within a sentence adverbial phrases are punctuated with great variability. What the phrase modifies where it is placed what rhythm or emphasis the writer wants are all important. A key consideration is whether or not the phrase is felt as an interrupter that is as intruding into the normal grammatical flow of the sentence. If it is set off the phrase by commas. Interrupting phrases often come between subject and verb Jerusalem of course contains more than ghosts and architectural j monstrosities. Aldous Huxley 1 Barrett Wendell in his admirable book on writing points out that clearness and vividness often turn on mere specificity. Brand Blanshard But they may come elsewhere And their former masters were from the start resolved to maintain the old difference. Oscar Handlin Coughlin s activities were clearly after Pearl Harbor intolerable. Wallace Stegner Newspapermen have always felt superstitious among other things about Lindbergh. John Laidner In such cases the writer is seeking clarity or emphasis. The option is not so much whether to punctuate the phrase as where to place it. Any of the phrases in the three examples above could be positioned and more idiomatically at the end For more material and information please visit 406 PUNCTUATION and would then probably not need commas. But placed where they are they do require punctuation. At the close of a sentence or clause adverbial phrases are not generally punctuated The party adjourned to the kitchen. Herbert Asbury He was quiet and in-dwelling from early boyhood on. John Lardner Final adverbial phrases may be .
