Such use of marks utterly prevents a differentiation between commas and parentheses; and this disregard of sense relations finds an exact parallel in a disregard, only too common among careless writers, of such fundamental differences in meanings as exists between the words _vocation_ and _avocation_.
Let us also note that groups of words defined in Chapter III as “slightly parenthetical” do not make any break in the thread of thought, so that Sentence 67 is not at all similar to such sentences as were considered in that connection. In further proof of this statement, let us compare Sentence 67 with Sentence 10-2. If the _and_ relation in No. 67 does not exist between the two groups of words (all that precedes it, and what follows it up to “is”), the group “I have no doubt” should be set off by commas, as is a similar group in Sentence 10-2. This punctuation would make “and” connect “be” and “it is,” which would not make sense.
If it is not now clear that the punctuation of Nos. 67 and 67-1 violates the fundamental principles of the meanings of both marks and sense relations, it may be worth while to consider the subject further.
Mr. Teall does not go quite so far as Mr. Garrison, who puts the three marks into a class from which any one may be selected for the punctuation of Sentence 67. Mr. Teall, however, makes the following statement (page 50): “As in some instances there is no absolute choice between commas and parentheses, so also there is none between parentheses and dashes.” He illustrates the latter part of his statement, but not the former. His illustrative example is a sentence taken from Mr. Wilson’s work, which sentence, he says, may take either the parentheses or the dashes. We give the sentence (No. 68) as punctuated by Mr. Wilson:
68. If we exercise right principles (and we can not have them unless we exercise them), they must be perpetually on the increase.
Mr. Teall evidently agrees with Mr. Wilson in the punctuation of the sentence, which, he says, may as well take dashes; but he expresses no choice between the two modes of punctuation.
We have already said that this punctuation violates fundamental principles; and that it does so is evidenced by Mr. Wilson’s definitions. In one place (page 168) he defines a parenthesis as “words thrown obliquely into the body of a sentence”; and on the preceding page he says a parenthesis is “an expression inserted in the body of a sentence,[8] with which it has no connection in sense or in construction.” Mr. Teall gives a like definition of a parenthesis.