The punctuation is correct, but it's a clumsy sentence.
I don't think leaving out the comma between "said" and "famously" is going to confuse anybody.
The commas bracket subordinate phrases:
Humphrey Bogart (at the end of Casablanca) said (famously) "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Since I make a living as a writer and editor my credentials make me an authority here, albeit at the lowest recognizable level. I don't find it clumsy and I would not edit it except to delete the last comma.Humphrey Bogart, at the end of Casablanca, said, famously, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." The punctuation is correct, but it's a clumsy sentence.
It's adequate and I would not change it either, not even the punctuation. However, I find putting "famously" before "said" more off-putting than the (allegedly) unnecessary comma in the original.I like Robert's re-write above.
Since "pomp" can mean both "splendor" and "ostentation," I guess I can say truthfully that your statement has ambiguity.Read it out loud. It has pomp.
I can find no dictionary that defines "famously" individually. It's just listed offhandedly as the obvious adverbial form of "famous." In my practice I give words that come with no guidance a lot of leeway. The lexicographers apparently believe that we can be trusted to A) use them in sensible ways without stretching their definitions too far and B) understand them well enough when others use them in such sensible ways. I think the use of the word in this case is sensible and I understood it. I daresay everyone participating in this thread understood it.One can say something loudly, or gently, or quietly - but can one say something famously?
Remember that the primary use of a comma is to represent a pause in speech. I can imagine the sentence recited out loud both with and without a pause there, so the comma becomes a matter of style.So like James says, the comma between "said" and "famously" seems to be necessary.
"Remember that the primary use of a comma is to represent a pause in speech.
The lexicographers apparently believe that we can be trusted to... understand them well enough when others use them in such sensible ways. I think the use of the word in this case is sensible and I understood it. I daresay everyone participating in this thread understood it.
Personally I think leaving out that last comma lessens the sentence somehow... you lose a sense that the "famously" is almost a reminder rather than a statement.In my writing and editing I look for clarity. I put in the minimum punctuation to achieve that. I would remove one comma from that sentence: Humphrey Bogart, at the beginning of "Casablanca," said famously, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Punctuation standards even differ between the US and the UK. The Brits leave the period off of common title abbreviations such as Mr and Dr, and they often leave out the closing comma in phrases which, to me, seem to be clearly in need of bracketing.Not in German, nor in many other languages. I have trouble with English comma rules, they are not much like German ones.
It changes the reader's focus. I didn't remember that quotation, so I didn't know it was famous. Now I do. Of course in the context of this discussion we don't know why that's important, but this is merely a side effect of taking the sentence out of its original context in order to analyze its grammar.Afterall, if what was said is supposedly "famous", then there would be no reason to merely state it as a fact as in "said famously"
They're all correct. Being a good editor requires a lot of discipline, because you only get to enforce rules, not your own preferences.. . . . so we'd I also prefer the original over the other variations offered. But I do prefer "famously said" to the comma-free "said famously" (although the original "said, famously," version is my preference).
German is an unusual language because even though it is much more highly inflected than English it also has a much more inflexible syntax.
Many languages have features that set them apart from their relatives. Romanian is an unusual member of the Romance language branch because it alone retains the Latin noun case system.German certainly is not "unsual" to Germans.
That's part of it. Syntax is the set of rules for constructing phrases and sentences. In the Indo-European languages, this refers to the kinds of words used (nouns, adjectives, etc.), their placement in the sentence (word order) and their inflection (case, tense, number, etc.). Other language families have different components and different rules.I don't understand what you mean by "flexible syntax"? 'Flexible word order,' perhaps?
Many languages have features that set them apart from their relatives.
The rules for English syntax are rather flexible.
When you're constructing a sentence you don't have many choices for the sequence of the words,
very few of the words can be optionally eliminated,
and there is almost no leeway at all in the inflections.
The structure and grammar are solidly Germanic and that's what identifies it taxonomically. It has a huge overlay of foreign words--French from the Norman occupation, Latin and Greek from the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and lately from all over the world. But most of the European languages borrow heavily, if not quite as heavily as we do. German is, once again, unusual for its reluctance to borrow foreign words. Everybody else says "automobile," "hydrogen" and "television," but you say Kraftwagen, Wasserstoff and Fernseh!English is hardly a Germanic language, given that it is basically a mixture of some old Germanic languages and especially Latin.
I didn't mean to imply that it was either good or necessary. Every language has to carry a certain amount of redundancy. But in a language with many inflections, the inflections carry a great deal of the meaning, and this makes it possible to rearrange the words in the sentence, or simply eliminate some, without making it hard to understand or even changing the meaning.Why would that [optional elimination of words or choice of inflection] be good or necessary?
German is, once again, unusual for its reluctance to borrow foreign words. Everybody else says "automobile," "hydrogen" and "television," but you say Kraftwagen, Wasserstoff and Fernseh!
Your examples notwithstanding, word order in German does not allow as much freedom as in English: for example you can never separate a preposition from its object, which we do all the time. And there aren't very many words in a sentence that can be eliminated:
you have to include the definite article in places where it conveys no meaning at all but simply identifies the gender and case of the noun!
You can't say "I want air," or "Cats are nice companions." The air, the cats, the companions.
I am not complaining. I'm simply pointing out an attribute of German that differentiates it from the other Germanic languages.If such eliminations and changes of word order are neither good nor necessary, then why complain about them?
We dumped that 1,000 years ago.... which [declining nouns by case] is something we find important.
I see. Our professor neglected to tell us that.Of course you can; in fact, in this kind of general sentences, you're supposed to not use the article: Ich will Luft! -- Katzen sind nette Gesellen.
Humphrey Bogart, at the end of Casablanca, said, famously, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
The punctuation is correct, but it's a clumsy sentence.
The commas bracket subordinate phrases:
Humphrey Bogart (at the end of Casablanca) said (famously) "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Remove those and you're left with:
Humphrey Bogart said "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
The extra information about where he said it and that it is a famous saying is not vital to the sentence; it just adds colour.
I like Robert's re-write above.
Since I make a living as a writer and editor my credentials make me an authority here, albeit at the lowest recognizable level. I don't find it clumsy and I would not edit it except to delete the last comma.It's adequate and I would not change it either, not even the punctuation. However, I find putting "famously" before "said" more off-putting than the (allegedly) unnecessary comma in the original.Since "pomp" can mean both "splendor" and "ostentation," I guess I can say truthfully that your statement has ambiguity.I can find no dictionary that defines "famously" individually. It's just listed offhandedly as the obvious adverbial form of "famous." In my practice I give words that come with no guidance a lot of leeway. The lexicographers apparently believe that we can be trusted to A) use them in sensible ways without stretching their definitions too far and B) understand them well enough when others use them in such sensible ways. I think the use of the word in this case is sensible and I understood it. I daresay everyone participating in this thread understood it.
English is only slightly inflected compared to most of the other Indo-European languages, but that means that is is, indeed inflected. It suffers the fate of all inflected languages: Syntax and inflection taken together may leave some ambiguity in divining the meaning of a sentence. We may have to also take into account (omigod no!) context. The context of this sentence makes the meaning of "famously" obvious. We know that both Bogart and "Casablanca" were and still are famous, yet not for a moment do we wonder whether "famously" applies to either the actor or the film. No, we instantly associate it with the quote that follows.
In Chinese, with its total absence of inflections and its unbendable rules for syntax, we'd probably have to say something like "the famous phrase, 'I think this is the...'."Remember that the primary use of a comma is to represent a pause in speech. I can imagine the sentence recited out loud both with and without a pause there, so the comma becomes a matter of style.
Everybody else says "automobile," "hydrogen" and "television," but you say Kraftwagen, Wasserstoff and Fernseh!