Comma, Comma, Comma

I'll definitely have to try this as I'm a serial abuser of commas. @Homer Potvin accused me of "comma bukkake" once, and the jury agreed.

Unfortunately, as I and many others have sometimes bemoaned, Word's proofing is not, well, foolproof, simply because it blindly follows whatever general rules have been programmed in. And as is currently being discussed in the ongoing "stupid rules" thread, the rule-promulgators are not always in agreement anyway.

It's even worse when it becomes a judgment call. There's this apparently true Oscar Wilde quotation: “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma. In the afternoon—well, I put it back again.”

I can see that applying in your example. Your original, "Alberti seemed to accept this explanation, and said no more about the subject" has a subtle suggestion that both halves of the sentence are of equal weight, which could be in tune with the idea that he only seemed to accept the explanation, which might suggest he might change his mind later.

Without the comma, the sentence moves much faster, "Alberti seemed to accept this explanation and said no more about the subject," and makes the second half seem almost a throwaway qualifier to the first half. Which might suggest that Alberti actually did accept the explanation and thought nothing more about it.

I'm not sure how clear -- or even correct -- I am in this, but I do know commas can have subtle impact on the way a sentence conveys information, regardless of what any general rule says.

Every time I come across this title in your blog, my mind goes back to that 1983 song by Boy George and Culture Club, "Karma Karma Chameleon."

Please make it stop.

I assumed that was the intention.