among grammarians, a point or character marked thus (,), serving to denote a short stop, and to divide the members of a period. Different authors define and use it differently. According to Bullier, the comma serves to distinguish the members of a period, in each of which is a verb and the nominative case of the verb; thus, "That so many people are pleased with trifles, is owing to a weakness of mind, which makes them love things easy to be comprehended." Besides this, the comma is used to distinguish, in the same member of a period, several nouns substantive or nouns adjective, or verbs not united by a conjunction; thus, "Virtue, wit, knowledge, are the chief advantages of a man;" or, "A man never becomes learned without studying constantly, methodically, with gusto, application," &c. If such words are united in the same phrase with a conjunction, the comma is omitted; thus, "The imagination and the judgment do not always agree."

The ingenious author of the tract *De Ratione Interpunktionis*, printed with Vossius's *Element. Rhetor.*, London, 1784, lays down the use of a comma to be, to distinguish the simple members of a period or sentence; that is, such as only consist of one subject and one definite verb. But this rule does not hold throughout; the same author instancing many particular cases not yet included in it, where the comma is advisable.

It is a general rule that a comma ought not to come between a nominative and a verb, or an adjective and substantive, when these are not otherwise disjointed; thus, in the sentence, *God ruleth with infinite wisdom*, a comma between *God* and *ruleth*, or between *infinite* and *wisdom*, would be absurd. But to this exceptions may occur; as when not a single word, but a sentence, happens to be the nominative; thus, in the example first above given, where the sentence *that so many people are pleased with trifles*, forms the nominative to the verb *is*, a comma at *trifles* is proper, both for the sake of perspicuity, and as coinciding with a slight natural pause. See Punctuation.

in Music. See INTERVAL.