What's In a Comma?

A phrase, by any other mark,
would parse as well!

Convoluted attempts at any form of verse aside, I know I've talked about commas before.  Specifically, I got on a spiel about the pros and cons of the notorious Oxford comma, and left it at that.   I blame it on that whole frustrating deal where I keep having faith in humanity, thinking you lot can be trusted with basic punctuation - but no.  I just can't leave you alone for five minutes, or you'll come up with something like THIS:

"Employees must use proper hygiene - come in clean clothes, freshly showered with deodorant."

Let's just take a moment to digest this one.  "Come in clean clothes, freshly showered with deodorant."  According to this sign - displayed at the restaurant where I work on weekends - cooks and waitstaff must wear clothes that are a) clean and b) freshly showered with deodorant.  Even if this wasn't self-contradictory (if you shower something in deodorant, it's no longer clean!  It's covered in friggen' deodorant!) it would make absolutely no sense.  Clothes don't sweat.

What sweats? People sweat.  Well, okay, lots of mammals sweat, but they don't wear clothes or work at restaurants.  Okay, so employees must come to work freshly showered - this makes sense, but - freshly showered in deodorant.  That's disgusting just to think about!  Have you ever gotten that stuff in your mouth?  Ughhh.   And it would cake and scale and itch and...

Deep breaths.  Okay.  I'm all right.

Where were we?  Commas!  Right.  Commas.  All of this - see the above - could have been prevented with a single comma!  See the space between "showered" and "with?"  Just slip a comma in there, and we're good to go, free of bizarre implications.  You must come to work in clean clothes; you must be freshly showered; and you must wear deodorant.

The fact that it was necessary to tell people this is another story, but at least the sentence structure works.  It's really amazing, what a difference one tiny mark can make.  The comma itself is tiny, but it entirely changes the meaning of the sentence; my boss and her husband get a pass, as they're ESL, and self-taught at that, but I know they request native English-speaking employees to double-check anything they write, and we're all college graduates.

This leads to yet another rule of thumb: if you're going to make use of an editor, make sure the editor's competent.  Oh, and, another: if you have any question about a sentence, read it aloud, and if it doesn't make sense, figure out why, change it, and try again.