Hand-book of punctuation

by William Johnson Cocker

EXAMPLES.

“When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness we repent of but our severity.”—George Eliot.

“The exploits of Mercury himself, the god of cunning, may be easily imagined to surpass everything achieved by profaner hands.”—Leigh Hunt.

REMARKS.

1. An appositive is a word, placed by the side of some other word to explain or characterize it.

2. The comma should be omitted,—

a. When two nouns without modifiers are in apposition; as, Cicero the orator was born near Arpinum. If the sentence was, Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators, was born near Arpinum, commas would be necessary.

b. When a noun and a pronoun are in apposition; as, Mercury himself surpassed everything achieved by profaner hands.

c. When two pronouns are in apposition; as, He himself did this.