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I've got a quick question for the prescriptivists. How would you punctuate the following:
"Yesterday afternoon, a book arrived in the mail: Robert A. Hall, Jr.’s, Leave Your Language Alone! in its first, hard-cover, vanity press (Linguistica–Ithaca, NY) edition."
I'm sure I got it wrong; so, correct away. Commas delimiting Jr? Apostrophe on Hall or Jr.? Commas wrapped around the parenthetical? I tried, but my potsherd cracked.
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Carpal Tunnel
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If nothing else, I'm glad to see you've spelt Ithaca correctly.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I would remove the comma after afternoon. Not sure why, but if you recast the first phrase "A book arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon: . . . ." you would not have a comma; that makes me believe it would not have a comma in its original form.
I would certainly have typed it automatically without the comma.
Peggy pointed out to me when we were talking about it that she would not put a comma after Jr.'s. I admit I missed that, but after considering the matter I agree with her. The comma does nothing for the sentence.
I would leave the 's where it is. That is exactly how you would say the phrase if you were reading the sentence aloud. And you should not sow too many commas into a sentence lest you become known as a comma suturer. Sentence erections are funny things.
TEd
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Yes, I misspelled it on my blog, even though I had the book in front of me when I typed it. I have corrected that now, too.
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I would remove the comma after afternoon.
When I first typed it online, there was no comma after afternoon, but when retyping it here (or cutting and pasting it), I corrected the misspelled Ithaca and put in an extra comma to ward off the evil punctuating spirits.
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Pooh-Bah
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I'd leave that first comma in. It's a (phrase or a clause, can't remember which is which right now) that qualifies what follows. No comma means it runs on and could be misread.
Been running network cabling and I'm hot and bothered, so my prescriptivist hat got left downstairs ...
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FWIW, I learned, many moons ago, that you use a comma to separate coordinate adjectives, ie, if you would put an "and" or "but" between them, use a comma. Example: a tall, slender lady, but a little old lady. You might say "a tall and slender lady," but probably not "a little and old lady." Using that reasoning, I think you could eliminate the commas in first, hard-cover, vanity press edition. At least the one after "first." Guess I could make a case for saying "hard-cover but vanity press."
Or is the coordinate adjectives rule no longer relevant (if it ever was)?
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I think the sentence is over-punctuated and that there are some optional maneuvers that make it easier to read, which is the point!
Here's the original:
"Yesterday afternoon, a book arrived in the mail: Robert A. Hall, Jr.’s, Leave Your Language Alone! in its first, hard-cover, vanity press (Linguistica–Ithaca, NY) edition."
Here's how I would change it to make it easier to read:
Yesterday afternoon a book arrived in the mail: Robert A. Hall Jr.'s Leave Your Language Alone! in its first hardcover, vanity press edition (Linguistica-Ithaca, NY).
I am taking the vanity press to be the generic term since it wasn't capitalized in the original rather than an actual company that goes by the name Vanity Press, although there could be. I also got rid of the hyphenation in hardcover, which is fine according to Webster's, again to help the poor reader with the heavily punctuated original. I changed word order, too, to make the reading easier.
I can even imagine taking the ultimate leap and leaving out one more comma that I don't think detracts from the sense of the sentence. Call me a renegade, but I think Nancy will agree:
Yesterday afternoon a book arrived in the mail: Robert A. Hall Jr.'s Leave Your Language Alone! in its first hardcover vanity press edition (Linguistica-Ithaca, NY). Edit: I put my final choice in bold because I think it's the best form.
In other words, the commas clutter up this sentence unnecessarily, and I can easily read it aloud without feeling any necessity for comma placement. The "Jr." offset with commas is something that is optional, and here the sentence reads better and easier on the eyes without those commas.
Please do disagree!
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Excellent, WW! I absolutely do agree. 
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You might say "a tall and slender lady," but probably not "a little and old lady."
You would say that she is tall and slender because she is tall irrespective of her being slender and slender irrespective of her being tall. Why would you say that being little and being old do not have the same degree of irrespctivity?
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