這種逗號不如餵給熊貓吃掉吧！
范范真是「好範兒」，另一個事業巔峰就是為台灣大眾示範了好何謂言多必失。她日前顯然本想藉著撂英文顯示高尚以博得同情，哪知不自量力的低級英文一po出，成為負面示範，刺激全民探討英文、重拾學英文的樂趣。截圖是 Dub & Ko Language Services（來源：臉書）提供批改范瑋琪英文的範例，造成大轟動，雖然轟動的背後難免有政治立場煽風點火，但就學習語言來說，仍也是極佳的學習範例。祝這個抓緊時事脈動的英文改寫和翻譯服務事業蒸蒸日上。不過，有一個英文寫作規則必須指出。最後一句的改寫：
She who talks much, errs much.
這在今天已經不是好的英文，絕對會被英文編輯和老師視為錯誤。去掉逗點就好了。句子主詞與述詞之間的逗點，歷史上曾經出現，那是至少200年前的寫法，今日不宜，除非你是在直接引述古人的英語，否則請注意不得加逗號，無論主詞多麼長。
以下直接引述兩本權威用法指南供參：
一、Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1989) 262頁
Comma between subject and predicate.
It is no longer cricket 〔按：n. 正人君子之舉；合度的行為〕 to separate the subject and predicate with punctuation. “How,” asks Simon 1980 rhetorically, “can one possibly separate the subject... from the predicate ... by a comma?” The comma between subject and predicate is an old convention that has fallen into disuse and disfavor. It was common in the 18th century:
What Methods they will take, is not for me to prescribe —Jonathan Swift, “A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue,” 1712
The words for all that, seem too low —Murray 1795
The first thing to be studied here, is grammatical propriety —Murray 1795
This comma is now universally frowned on and tends to be found only as a vice of comic-strip writers, advertisers, and others who are not on their guard. You should avoid the practice.
二、The Sense of Styles, Steven Pinker （有中譯本《寫作風格的意識》）
Still, a few common errors are so uncontroversial—the run-on sentence, the comma splice, the grocer's apostrophe, the comma between subject and predicate, the possessive it's—that they have become tantamount to the confession “I am illiterate,” and no writer should be caught making them. As I mentioned, the problem with these errors is not that they betray an absence of logical thinking but that they betray a history of inattention to the printed page. In the hope that an ability to distinguish the logical and illogical features of punctuation may help a reader master both, I'll say a few words about the design of the system, highlighting the major bugs that have been locked into it.
可是，有幾個常見錯誤不那麼具爭議性，像連寫句（兩個主句間沒有連接詞或誤用標點）、用逗號連接兩個完整句子、複數名詞誤加撇號、主詞和述語之間誤加逗號，以及屬格誤加撇號（例如it’s〔它的〕），假如連這些都用錯了，恐怕就稱不上是個讀書識字的人，任何作者不容許在這裡犯錯。像我曾說的，犯上這種錯誤，問題不在於欠缺邏輯思考，而是對書面文字的歷史漠不關心。我期望能把標點的邏輯與非邏輯元素分開，讓讀者兩者都能掌握；我會談一下標點系統的設計，指出隱藏在系統中的一些缺失。 （江先聲譯）
