Today I had an email exchange with my initial drafts editor I feel I should share with you. I have to give him credit. What he gets is generally far worse than my blog posts here. Editors are those people who make authors sound intelligent.
What lead to this exchange was my use of the comma after the word “but.”
there is no comma after “but” in 99% of all uses in the English language, yet you do this with almost 100% of your usages of “but”
Even Grammar Girl says the comma must go before the word “but.” I’m sure if I pull down my copy of the Chicago Manual of Style it will agree as well. But, this rule is for a time when ethics, honesty and integrity mean nothing. I was raised during a different time when a person’s word meant something.
Some of the most oft repeated writing advice you will ever get when it comes to self editing is to read your work out loud. When one does this one realizes this comma rule was created for Keller MBAs, Wall Street Bankers and politicians, not honest, hard working folks.
The true skill of a “confidence man” criminal isn’t hiding the truth, it is making you believe a lie while telling you the truth, hence the group I chose.
Yes! We will deliver the new system on time and under budget,
but it won’t work.
Yes, I believe elected officials should be held to a higher ethical standard,
but I’m still taking the $750,000 bribe and calling it a “speaking fee.”
Yes we will pay taxes on the money we have stashed overseas,
but we will never tell you just how much that is.
I deliberately placed the “but” part of the sentence on a separate line because that is how a fraud artist will deliver it. When most people read out loud and read a comma they don’t even take a breath. The flimflam artist takes a pregnant pause at the comma, completely changing the meaning of the sentence for those who hear it. Are you aware that most people, when told what they want to hear before a pregnant pause, never hear the “but” at the end? It’s true. Your mind veers off. It’s on to “what’s next?” while you get screwed with your pants on.
Many of you reading this will have either watched a few episodes of or read the books behind “Game of Thrones.” One of the running truisms throughout the seasons is a phrase many of the characters manage to work into conversations.
Everything before the word but is shit.
This phrase is true when the comma is before “but” in the sentence. Placing the comma prior to the word “but” shows intent to deceive. Placing it after, so the word “but” occurs in the same breath as the preceding statement keeps the listener’s mind engaged. It gives them fair warning you are about to screw them with their pants on. It is more ethical.
When I was in my early 20s I worked at a DEC VAR (Value Added Reseller). I was just a programmer and there were more senior developers with the title Programmer/Analyst (PA). Our PAs developed a self defense mechanism when talking with the owner. He would ask if something was done and they would respond
It’s done, except . . .
The dude had a bit of a temper so this self defense mechanism is understandable, it was also an intent to deceive. When the Big Guy heard “It’s done” he was already sending the invoice to the client in his mind. The fact the project really wasn’t done because some (in some cases most) of it was nowhere near done never reached his conscious thought because the comma and the pause came before the word “except.” Of course he found out a week or two later when the client refused to pay the invoice on the grounds the work was not done, but there was always the possibility it could be by then.
DEC BASIC (maybe as far back as PDP BASIC PLUS) used to have the statement qualifier IRREGARDLESS. It doesn’t exist anymore. It was a tool programmers too lazy (or without any line numbers left in the range) could use to force a statement which was in the middle of a complex set of nested if-then-else decision logic to execute no matter what. It was placed at the end of the statement, usually far enough to the right (pregnant pause) another developer trying to read through the code would not “see” it. Things got dicier to read if you were mashing a bunch of statements together on one line to conserve line number usage.
While IRREGARDLESS was not created with an intent to deceive, that was the outcome. While some may claim the rule of placing the comma before the word “but” was made without intent to deceive, that is also the outcome. Good luck with it under oat on a witness stand in a court which takes perjury seriously. You won’t get out of jail free like Bill Clinton.
The plane landed at the airport in Columbia,
but . . .
