Add a comma to the present clause, and, of a sudden, the mind is, quite literally, given pause to think; take it out if you wish or forget it and the mind is deprived of a resting place. Yet still the comma gets no respect. It seems just a slip of a thing, a pedant"s tick, a blip on the edge of our consciousness, a kind of printer"s smudge almost. Small, we claim, is beautiful. Yet what is so often used, and so rarely called, as the comma—unless it be breath itselfPunctuation becomes the signature of cultures. The hot-blooded Spaniard seems to be revealed in the passion and urgency of his doubled exclamation points and question marks, while the impassive Chinese traditionally added to his so-called inscrutability by omitting directions from his ideograms.Punctuation is something more than a culture"s birthmark; it scores the music in our minds, gets our thoughts moving to the rhythm of our hearts. Punctuation is the notation in the sheet music of our words, telling us when to rest, or when to raise our voices; it acknowledges that the meaning of our discourse, as of any symphonic composition, lies not only in the units but in the pauses, the pacing and the phrasing.Sometimes our markings may be simply a matter of aesthetics. Popping in a comma can be like slipping on the necklace that gives an outfit quiet elegance, or like catching the sound of running water that complements as it completes the silence of a Chinese landscape.Thus a comma gives us breath and heft and depth. A world that has only periods is a world without inflections. It is a world without shade. It is a music without sharps and flats. It is a martial music. It has a jackboot rhythm. Words cannot bend and curve. A comma, by comparison, catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling and returning along the course of its own sweet river music.