No, this isnt about the arsenal you should have to fight the zombie invasion, but rather about punctuation. The Second Amendment famously reads (at least in its official version): <\/p>\n
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. <\/p>\n
Whats with those commas after Militia and Arms? Well, as Steven Pinkers superb new The Sense of Style: The Thinking Persons Guide to Writing in the 21st Century notes, the famous first line of Pride and Prejudice likewise reads, <\/p>\n
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. <\/p>\n
The commas in this sentence are likewise odd to the modern eye, but that just reflects a shift in comma use from 200 years ago: Around 1800, commas were used in large part to indicate the flow of a spoken sentence: Pinker notes that [w]riters used to place them wherever a pause felt natural, regardless of the sentences syntax. Today, though, commas are generally used to demarcate particular syntactic features of the sentence; they arent used just to indicate pauses (though sometimes the syntactic comma does fall in a place where an oral pause would also be normal). <\/p>\n
The Constitution itself offers many more examples of commas in places where we wouldnt see them today, for instance, <\/p>\n
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof . <\/p>\n
[N]o Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office . <\/p>\n
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. <\/p>\n
Nor does this just reflect some general comma before shall' rule; the Constitution often uses no comma in front of similar shall constructions. Rather, the function of a comma seems to have more broadly changed (and largely narrowed) since 1791 and 1813. <\/p>\n
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See the original post here: <\/p>\n
Jane Austen and the Second Amendment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No, this isnt about the arsenal you should have to fight the zombie invasion, but rather about punctuation. The Second Amendment famously reads (at least in its official version): A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Whats with those commas after Militia and Arms Continue reading