Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Paul Quinn:  
    
   ak>>  Yesterday, at 9pm, without declaring a war, my neighbors  
   ak>>  bought a piano.  
    
   PQ>   The sentence would still make sense if you drop the first  
   PQ>   comma. I.e. to read, "Yesterday at 9pm, without...".  
    
    
            I'd omit the first comma there just as Paul did, BTW.  
    
    
    
   ak>   [Yesterday, without declaring a war, my neighbors bought  
   ak>   a piano.] No damage for the humor.  
    
    
            Agreed.  IMHO "yesterday" is significant, but the exact time of  
  day  
  probably doesn't matter very much & may even be a distraction.  In Russia  
  one  
  can buy a piano at 9:00 PM & get it home within 27 hours??  Now I am  
  curious.  
  Unless you're referring to an electronic keyboard, a piano is not the sort  
  of  
  thing one would carry in a shopping bag.  The more traditional acoustic  
  piano  
  fits the joke better because it doesn't come equipped with earphones &  
  volume  
  controls & suchlike.  OTOH, it could easily weigh half a ton(ne) or more.  
  So  
  where did these people buy it & who do they know who owns a truck/lorry?  :-  
  )  
    
    
    
   ak>   [Yesterday, at 9 pm, my neighbors bought a piano.]  
    
   ak>   The sentence has lost its sense of humor! The comma  
   ak>   was put wrongly.  
    
    
            AFAIC the punctuation is correct there... but the sentence lost  
  its  
  humo(u)r when you omitted "without declaring war".  This phrase indicates  
  the  
  narrator does *not* enjoy his neighbours' attempts to play the piano....  :-  
  )  
    
    
    
   ak>   Well, let's wait for Ardith's comment. ;)  
    
    
            I see you've got my number!  Where the rules don't work, I look  
  for  
  principles.  It may take me awhile to come up with an intelligent answer.  
  As  
  Fidonetters say, however, you can have any two of good & fast & free....  ;-  
  )  
    
    
    
   ak>   PS: But the final rule in that manual was the following:  
   ak>   "if you feel that in your sentence there are too many  
   ak>   commas, throw out some of them. Abundance of commas cause  
   ak>   more harm than help and hamper reading." ;-)  
    
    
            Aha!  Yes, that's the way I write.  Now we're discussing what  
  these  
  rules were intended to accomplish.  Brits tend to use commas much more  
  freely  
  than USAians do.  Years ago I was criticized by a (USAian) English  
  instructor  
  for using "too many commas", and thus I omit them if I don't think they  
  serve  
  some useful purpose and/or if they're optional where others might not be.  
  In  
  the back of my mind always is what will make my writing understandable to  
  the  
  largest number of folks out there... most of whom I have never met in  
  person.  
    
            The placement of adverbs & adverbial phrases having to do with  
  time  
  and/or location is fairly flexible in English.  Whether you say "yesterday  
  at  
  9:00 PM" or "at 9:00 PM yesterday" is up to you, and if you prefer not to  
  use  
  punctuation which is more obviously needed elsewhere... I'd do the same.  :-  
  )  
    
    
    
    
  --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+  
   * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)