Path: csiph.com!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Daniel Bastos Newsgroups: comp.programming,alt.algebra.help Subject: Re: on cut edges and bonds, graph theory Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:41:05 -0300 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 55 Message-ID: <86poahabhq.fsf@toledo.com> References: <86wp4w3sz5.fsf@toledo.com> <87shfjpzgs.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <878thaq4ff.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87efr17b3g.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87fubgghsi.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <87k20qb3vy.fsf@bsb.me.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: x/NSojQT0SEhetcSIZcbhQ.user.gioia.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Frb8dC+MxrgoeOhSWTWdsMin7Ro= X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: csiph.com comp.programming:8035 alt.algebra.help:5021 Richard Heathfield writes: [...] > [...] After all, it's hardly /that/ difficult, in a discussion about > sets, to work out that, if there are two characters you can't read, > they are probably the union and interection symbols. [1] [...] > [1] Students of English are challenged to remove as many commas as > possible from that sentence whilst, at every stage, retaining or > improving its overall clarity. I'm certainly not the right person to claim I have a solution here --- as I don't know any English grammar --- but I'd just guess first that by removing all commas there we have a perfectly grammatical phrase. That is, After all it's hardly /that/ difficult in a discussion about sets to work out that if there are two characters you can't read they are probably the union and interection symbols. I can't say it improves clarity. I think the commas, even if unnecessary, are safeguards to clarity. But I think this phrase in particular sounds perfectly clear to me --- perhaps luckily. Second guess: After all it's hardly /that/ difficult in a discussion about sets to work out that if there are two characters you can't read, they are probably the union and interection symbols. Perhaps I shouldn't remove that last comma because we have a conditional there implying the two sentences (1) ``if there are two [...]'' (2) ``they are probably [...]'' have a relation of subordination, that is, the second sentence is dependent upon the first and so the comma indicates a separation of the two. (So we don't try to interpret it as one ``whole'', non-subordinate sentence.) That's my reasoning. I couldn't back it up with grammatical reference. In other words, I'm saying perhaps your phrase is clarified with this this parenthesis-notation. After all it's hardly /that/ difficult in a discussion about sets to work out that (if there are two characters you can't read, they are probably the union and interection symbols). That is, your phrase is It's hardly-difficult to work out that (X). Since X happens to be a ``long'' subordinate phrase, so a comma is required to organize it.