There are clear instances of over-punctuation and others of under-punctuation. In between it is a matter of style and preference. When in doubt, listening to the countours of how the sentence would be spoken can be a good guide, but not an

To an extent, yes. No one should lay down the law with hard and fast rules about punctuation.

So long as people use the phrase its meaning will not be obscure or opaque, though as time goes on its origins may become obscure. "Hang up" is, or is in the course of becoming, a macrosememe, that is a phrase the meaning of which

If you formulate a grammatical rule, it is likely it will have exceptions. It is more than possible that there will be exceptions to the exceptions, and even exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions. How long a grammar is is going to depend

This is a spin-off from: Post:77524 where (among other things) the sentence 1. '*Whom was given the book?' was discussed. I understand that in AmE, this sentence is acceptable: 2. Whom did you give the book? If 'whom' is acceptable

Your questions are really about the law, rather than legal English. I suggest you post them in this forum: http://www.swarb.co.uk/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=17&sid=3db45b3c04a86031bccecd57870614cd

The writer of the Wikipedia article holds this opinion: The phrase is often but erroneously stated as "first come, first serve" (instead of "served"). This is an error because "come" is grammatically (and somewhat

For example, the guy who's sitting next to me at the office says he's bilingual because he spent a couple of years in Australia when he was a child. I cannot deny he's got a very good accent, and speaks rather fluently (although not

You are right that it is unwise to try and adopt a specific accent such as a Bronx accent without living in the right area. You say that you want an accent that is pleasant to listen to; that is very subjective. The fact is that, at least in

Anyone who sets out to classify anything soon finds that not everything fits into the neat categories he has devised. Whilst zoologists and botanists do not exactly have an easy time (zoologists thought they had mammals sorted until they learned