h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some dane should write an article about the placing of commas in danish. Aren't you having a big debate about it right now? I would think a comparison between placing commas in the english way, and, placing them like they do in germany is sufficiently useless and cool to be worth a mention.

The old danish comma rules are pretty weird, but a few years ago a new set of comma rules was introduced. They are very much like the english rules (actually they are a direct translation of the norwegian rules). The "big debate" is about some (many) people who for some reason likes the old rules better.

Probably only about 50 people (no, that's not an typo - only fifty) of 5 millions fully understands the old rules, and they (the rules - not the people) are extremely annoying in many situations. For example, the old rules require that there is a comma after "saw" in the sentence "He saw that the dog took the ball".

By now, I think people just puts thier commas whereever they feel like it. The schoolsystem seems to have given up teaching the rules, since most of the teachers themselves don't know them.

I, myself, these days, just puts them where they sound good.

Hmmmm - I probably am too much of a "language purist" to happily accept the "whereever you like"-theory.

Unless, of course, you get "enough" Gammel Dansk first

Considering the general weirdness of Danish laguage and grammatical rules I, for one, think it is time for a small Danish revoulution. You know, one of those little, very Danish, small outbirsts of civil disorder, where no one really notices the disorder, until it is actually over. One of theese rules to protest against would be the rules of the comma, or the new edition: lack of rules of the comma. Being a fairly inteligent person, (this is ofcourse just an assumption based on my prior engagments with other presumably inteligent human beings), allows me to be critical to rules. Having a rule about where to set a comma seems to like having a rule stating how many rules a collection of rules can contain. Yes. Thats right. Totally an utterly superfluous. I think we should view laguage as being a free form of expression (and certainly, when I write i English, i sincerely hope that it is, as I am not keen on doing jailtime if busted by some laguage rule abiding police), and leaving the rules to the pendants. Free the commas from years of Danish oppresion, put them where you like. Here is a few, place them whereever you like, im sure they will like the place you select: , , , , , ,

And remember that: Gammel Dansk goer godt. Especially when trying to read text without commas at all...LOL

Hi Hunter - if you take the time put put an ever so small message about yourself - or whatever you like - on your space, we can actually leave messages there...

Other than that, I need quite a lot of GD to make me feel revolutionary...

Will do shortly..Thanks for the tip..Gonzo forever..

Not that revolutionary myself these days, unfortunatly...