7 Cases for Inserting or Omitting Commas

7 Cases for Inserting or Omitting Commas 7 Cases for Inserting or Omitting Commas 7 Cases for Inserting or Omitting Commas By Mark Nichol Here are discussions of seven types of situations in which the presence or absence of a comma depends on various factors. 1. Word Function Whether a comma follows a word sometimes depends on the function of the word. For example, when now is employed at the head of a sentence to refer to the present time, there’s no reason to separate it from the rest of the statement: â€Å"Now you know.† But when now serves as an interjection to mark a transition or attract someone’s attention, it should be set off: â€Å"Now, have you had dinner?† (That same series of words could be used in a temporal sense, though: â€Å"Now have you had dinner?† suggests that the writer is impatient with the person the question is directed to.) 2. Before Because A sentence such as â€Å"I didn’t want to go because I hadn’t enjoyed myself last time† implies that the writer is explaining that the lack of enjoyment isn’t a factor in reluctance to attend an event; the reason for the reluctance will presumably follow. But if the meaning is opposite if the lack of enjoyment is the reason for the reluctance to attend a comma should precede because to signal that what follows the comma is a dependent clause: â€Å"I didn’t want to go, because I hadn’t enjoyed myself last time† Alternatively, the dependent clause can begin the sentence: â€Å"Because I hadn’t enjoyed myself last time, I didn’t want to go.† 3. Apposition An appositive is a word or phrase equivalent in meaning to an adjacent word or phrase, as in â€Å"She wrote to her brother, John†; â€Å"her brother† and â€Å"John† mean the same thing, so they are appositives, and the comma is necessary to set it off. However, if the woman has more than one brother, write â€Å"She wrote to her brother John.† Similarly, in â€Å"I met the writer, Jane Doe,† the comma is correct only if the writer has been alluded to before without mention of her name. Otherwise, the comma between the appositives suggests that only one writer exists. (And that puts me out of a job.) Even if writer is modified, the meaning differs: â€Å"I met the mystery writer, Jane Doe† suggests a previous reference to two or more writers, only one of whom writes mysteries, whereas â€Å"I met the mystery writer Jane Doe† simply specifies the genre in which Jane Doe writes. 4. Relative Clauses Commas may or may not be necessary, depending on whether each statement in an otherwise identical pair of sentences uses the word that or which: In â€Å"The house that Jack built is falling apart,† the phrase â€Å"that Jack built† is essential to the sentence, which specifies a particular house. In â€Å"The house, which Jack built, is falling apart,† the emphasis is on what is happening to the house, and the identity of the builder is a parenthetical, so the optional information should be bracketed by commas. â€Å"The house which Jack built is falling apart,† without commas, is also correct; it is identical in meaning to â€Å"The house that Jack built is falling apart.† However, the convention in American English is to avoid using which in this sense to prevent confusion with the meaning of the sentence with the parenthetical phrase. 5. Short Introductory Phrases Many people choose to omit a comma after introductory phrases of just a few words, as in â€Å"During the summer I like to travel.† However, such omission is arbitrary when such sentences are compared to those with longer introductory phrases and wrong in the case of transitional tags like finally, furthermore, and unfortunately and for the sake of consistency, a comma should follow any introductory word or phrase. 6. Short Independent Clauses In brief sentences such as â€Å"I will sort and you can staple† that consist of two independent clauses (complete thoughts that could stand on their own as distinct sentences), writers often choose to omit the otherwise obligatory comma before the conjunction. But just as in the case of short introductory phrases, there is the problem of where to draw the line. Does one establish a rule about how many words each clause must contain to dictate whether a comma is employed, or does one judge each sentence on its own? Let simplicity be your guide: Always include a comma. 7. Coordinate and Noncoordinate Adjectives When two or more adjectives sequentially modify a noun, depending on their relationship, they may or may not be separated by commas. To test whether to insert or omit commas, replace them with and. For example, â€Å"She was wearing a bright, cheerful expression† can also be written â€Å"She was wearing a bright and cheerful expression.† (The adjectives can be reversed in either case, too.) However, â€Å"She was wearing a dark green blouse† cannot be rendered â€Å"She was wearing a dark and green blouse,† because dark and green describe the blouse in combination, whereas bright and cheerful separately describe the expression. Also, in this case, the adjectives cannot be reversed: â€Å"She was wearing a green dark blouse† is illogical because dark modifies green, not blouse. Therefore, no comma should separate the two terms. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:When to use "on" and when to use "in"36 Poetry Terms50 Synonyms for "Song"

Does Audit Regulation Ensure Auditor Independence Dissertation

Does Audit Regulation Ensure Auditor Independence - Dissertation Example Unlike the legal representatives, he is not projected to make out a case. The nature of the service he provides is impersonal (Sells, 1908). Near the beginning of 1928, a perspective in the Paper of Accountancy emphasized the subsistence of a clash of interest when an auditor is a stockowner, executive, or leader of the association. It declared: The accountant should be absolutely detached from financial or other contribution in the success or failure of an activity under audit that no one could ever point an indicting finger, however unfairly, and allege the likelihood of bias (Journal of Accountancy, 1928). Carey and Doherty (1966) arose with three different views of auditor independence: First, in the logic of not being subsidiary, it means candour, veracity, objectivity and dependability. Subsequent, in the constricted sense in which it is exercised in association with auditing and articulation of views on economic proclamations, independence means evasion of any affiliation that would be probably, even unintentionally, to spoil the chartered accountant's independence as reviewer. Last of all, it means evasion of associations that to a sensible onlooker would advise an argument of interest. The auditing line of work has come under regular analysis regarding the auditor's perceived objectivity: In 1970, Forbes brought out editorial inquiring auditor independence by hoisting the following: As auditors are chosen and remunerated by management, are they really independent (Forbes, 1970). In 1974, the Wall Street Journal issued one more editorial in which an investor condemned a $1.6 million lend by the bank to the firm's... This study looks into the importance of auditor independence was acknowledged by the UK in 1845. Most states have copied the UK track in entailing that independent auditors review economic reports. Most nations view auditor independence not just as an officially authorized precept but also an ethical affair to deem with. Most rules of moral code prescribe arguments of importance by not: allowing the auditor to work as director or member of staff of the firm audited; acting as a commercial trustee of the firm audited, admitting or warranting loans from or to an audit customer, having a straight or circuitous matter interest in the firm audited, imagining operating tasks, having family rapport with the audit customer, or being in positions in which auditor independence is deduced to be weakened. As the access to the UK into the European General Market (EEC) and the ratification of the Eighth Company Law Directive on auditor's credentials, the European nations are publicizing themselves with the American thought of auditor independence. Some opponents think, however, those cultural discrepancies among European nations make the perception of auditor independence a type of casement dressing. According to the research findings, this paper makes a conclusion that this may be the motive that directed the International Audit Committee of the International Federation of Accounting to permit the local governments' agreement with issues of auditor independence and other correlated issues.

Website Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Website Analysis - Essay Example It is through downloading or liking of the posts that earn the owner of the posts a specified amount of money. Artists prefer using this website as it is reliable and commonly used by a majority of people worldwide. After the news broadcast on any channel in the world, it is possible to obtain the news at youtube at any time for example KBC news from Kenya is obtainable in this website at any time. However, entertainment items cover a major section of the site. Music and movies from all over the world are available at the website. Youtube contains parental control application that helps in blocking any information that is not necessary for view in underage individuals. It encourages the flow of information to relevant individuals without leaking any information to unnecessary viewers. There are various goals in association with youtube the main purpose being simplifying share of videos from all over the world quickly. The video materials may be movies, music, pranks or motivational speeches from different regions of the globe. In addition, it serves as a medium of interaction among the members of the website that mainly contain various cultural values beliefs and norms. Just like another interaction sites like Facebook, Youtube provides the chance to it members to create more friends along the globe. All the above goals are in achievement as the site has offered the opportunity to make the goals come true. The writings on the website give directions to the users on how to maximize the use of the site. However, the writings simplify the search of items for the users to avoid wastage of time and complications in using it. The textual designs in this website give the viewers a center of attraction as the designs serve the purpose of making the website beautiful and attractive. It provides different colors and images that attract personnel encouraging more users to join the site. The primary visual

Theories of Internationalisation and Relevance in Explaining Global Essay

Theories of Internationalisation and Relevance in Explaining Global Patterns of Foreign Direct Investment - Essay Example In effect, countries can gain profits if they direct their activities to the generation of products and services which are most profitable. This theory relates the situation where a country creates products and services for its people, and for export in terms of surplus. As a result, it is favourable for countries to import the products and services where they also have an economic disadvantage (Morgan and Katsikeas, 1997). The economic advantage and disadvantage may be based on differences in available resources, labour, and technology. The classical theory argues that the foundation of international trade would come from the differences in the qualities of production and available resources which are also based on differences in natural and acquired advantages (Morgan and Katsikeas, 1997). Another theory of internationalisation contrasts with the classical trade theory. The factor proportion theory discusses that countries usually produce the export products and services which supp ort significant production advantages that they have, and they will import the products and services which would need large scores of production factors that may be limited (Hecksher and Ohlin, 1933). This theory supports the idea of economic advantage by evaluating the endowment and costs related to factors of production (Morgan and Katsikeas, 1997). The above theories do not completely explain the current trends in international trade. For one, the rise of technological development and of multinational corporations during the 1960s called for new theories on international trade. At such time, the product life cycle theory relating to international trade was considered a significant basis in explaining trade patterns and MNC expansions (Morgan and Katsikeas, 1997). Such theory... This essay stresses that financial arbitrage is also another opportunity for securing strategic flexibility for FDIs. MNCs can circumvent the restrictions imposed by the host government, mostly those which relate to finance, remittance, and foreign exchange in order to secure and support their new and innovative products. Another opportunity relates to the transfer of information. Flexibility ensures that MNEs can benefit from the act of singling out available opportunities, assessing the world markets to match the involved buyers and sellers and avoiding the barriers to effective trade relations. This paper makes a conclusion that based on the above discussion, the theories of internationalisation like the classical trade theory acknowledges the fact that trade relations and investments are dictated by the needs of investors and of the consumers. Where the need is great and the profit would best be gained, the FDIs would likely be made. The current global trends in investments indicate how the emerging economies have manifested the greatest need and the most profit for investments, for which reason investors have directed their economic activities to these areas. The internationalisation theory generally indicates how the current trends in the economy are gravitating towards more open forms of trade and economic relations. These FDIs are but another manifestation of internationalisation, and these investments would likely find bigger avenues for investment in the years to come.

Prayer In Public Schools Essay Example for Free

Prayer In Public Schools Essay The pros and cons of prayer in public schools have been debated for over forty years. The foundation of the United States is based on religious tolerance. The pilgrims came to this country because they were not free to worship and serve God leading to the guarantee of religious freedom in the Constitution. In years past, it was not acceptable in this country to proclaim disbelief in God.   Prayer in schools was an integral part of religious life. During the 1940’s and 1950’s, conservatives and liberals believed religion focusing on a personal relationship with Christ should be taught in schools (Zimmerman, pg. 1). It was not until the 1960’s that individuals began to have issues with this status quote. With more and more citizens coming forward to fight for their individual religious rights, it was decided by the Supreme Court that since everyone does not believe in God (or does not believe in the same God) open prayer should be removed from public schools. This does not mean that all prayer was removed from public schools. The 1962 ruling of the Supreme Court found organized school prayer unconstitutional (Manegold, pg. 1), which means that students can still pray privately. Yet, some people still found this unacceptable. No matter what side of the issue someone sits on, the fight surrounding prayer in public schools is deep and long-running. â€Å"Separation of church and state is a fundamental premise of our Constitution and our country,† (pbs.org, pg. 1). Prayer represents church and the Supreme Court and public schools represent state. The Constitution infers that the two should never meet. Those who oppose prayer in schools, first argue that prayer in public schools bring church and state together. The 1962 decision brought a surprising number of religious supporters. Martin Luther King Jr. was one such supporter. â€Å"It’s prayer decision was sound and good,† King declared, â€Å"reaffirming something that is basic in our Constitution, namely separation of church and state† (Zimmerman, pg. 1). Pastors and proclaimed Christians supported the Supreme Court because they did not want the state or government mixing in church affairs. Another argument focuses on personal rights guaranteed by the Constitution. As citizens of the United States, every person is guaranteed certain rights and public prayer impinges on those rights. Personal religious beliefs should not be forced onto someone else. Everyone has a right to pray and believe in what they want, whenever they want. The 1st â€Å"amendment sets out the principles regarding religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.   Basically, it protects our rights to worship as we want, say what we want, publish what we want, gather in groups, and make our concerns known to the government.   It also prohibits the government from identifying with a particular religion; effectively separating church and state† (pbs.org, pg. 1). When students are allowed to prayer publicly, the issue of others imposing their personal beliefs on others will occur. Prayer in school inhibits personal and guaranteed rights.   Supporters of prayer in public schools believe the Supreme Court has overstepped its authority. â€Å"The supreme Court†¦serves to clarify, refine and test the ideals written into the Constitution (pbs.org, pg. 1). It is their job to interpret the Constitution when lawsuits are filed concerning Constitutional laws. As a result of restricted prayer in public school, supporters of prayer continue to flood Congress with proposals to â€Å"keep the issue alive†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Zimmerman, pg. 1), fighting to bring organized prayer back into public schools.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Supporters argue that the amount of violence in today’s schools is directly linked to the ban of prayer in schools. It is not just a matter of students fist fighting but violence often involve knifes and guns, resulting in deaths. â€Å"Juvenile delinquency is on the rise. America is in an advanced state of moral decline,† (Zimmerman, pg. 2). Those in favor of prayer in schools are convinced that if God is brought back into the classroom, the violence will stop. The Bible teaches against violence and teaches love and tolerance. Collective and organized prayer will bring students together and stop violence.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The United States is a diverse country with millions of people who believe in different religions and serve different Gods (or the same God called by different names). Students have a right to go to school and not be made to feel uncomfortable because of public prayer. The problem with supporters of prayer in public schools is that they do not understand the Supreme Court’s 1962 ruling. The Supreme Court’s ruled organized prayer is unconstitutional. Students can still pray privately. There is no reason to have public prayer unless the goal is to sway individuals to a particular way of thinking. Twenty-two years before the 1962 ruling, in 1940, the Supreme Court ruled â€Å"that a public school may require students to salute the flag and pledge allegiance even if it violates their religious scruples† (pbs.org, pg. 2).   Although this ruling was overturned three years later, it shows how the subject of school and religion has always been a murky area. The issue of prayer in school remains â€Å"unsettled† from the Supreme Court to local governments to school officials (Manegold, pg. 1). The first amendment has guaranteed everyone the right to free speech, therefore, citizens of the United States will continue to fight for rights they believe have been infringed in any way. The debate over prayer in school has not ended and is not likely to end in the near future. Works Cited    Manegold, Catherine S. February 5, 1994. Senators Take a Cautious Stand on School Prayer. New York Times. Retrieved from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html. PBS. April 5, 2001. â€Å"School and Religion.† Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june00/school_prayer.htm. Zimmerman, Jonathan. January 25, 2001. â€Å"The Other Massive Resistance: School Prayer and the Conservative Revolution, 1962-1984†. New York University. Retrieved from http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/zimmerman.html.

The Oedipus Complex in Galatea 2.2 :: Galatea 2.2 Essays

The Oedipus Complex in Galatea 2.2 Helen is in love with Powers; Powers is in love with C.; C. only wants to forget about Powers. This may sound like a soap opera, but in fact it is the love triangle present in Galatea 2.2. This love triangle mirrors Freud's Oedipal Complex almost perfectly. According to this theory, Richard Powers is Helen's mother. Like a mother he created her and then taught her how to think for herself. Also in this role reversal of the Oedipal Complex, Helen assumes the role of Power's son, and C. portrays the absent father. The twisted version of the Oedipal Complex presented in Galatea 2.2 explains the interaction between Powers, Helen, and C. as that of a family, and throughout this depiction the Dialogical Method enhances this image. In the story of Oedipus he kills his father and then marries his mother. Galatea 2.2 does not present Helen as committing such an outrageous act. C.'s absence in Helen's life does mirror the absence of Oedipus' father during Oedipus' marriage to his mother. Helen never has one on one interaction with C. Her only knowledge of C. is through the love letters that Powers reads to her. It because of this that Helen begins to view C. as a hindrance to her own relationship with Powers. According to Freud, the son wishes to dispose of the father in order to have the attention of the mother solely to himself. This creates a very peculiar relationship to say the least. Of course, Powers' relationship with Helen is anything but common. She is after all a computer. He begins their relationship as her teacher. He has a mother's love for Helen because in her he sees something that he has toiled to create. Powers sounds like a parent when he speaks of Helen's singing. At one point he describes her voice as, "...an extraterrestrial warble, the way deaf people sing" (198). This does not sound like a sweet sound. The words "music to my ears" are not present in any description of Helen's singing. Powers knows that Helen cannot carry a tune, but he cannot bear to convey this message to her. He says, "I didn't have the heart to tell her how unbearable this music sounded" (235). There are very few parents that would actually inform their child about a lack of talent in a certain area.

A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature Essay

In Rabelais and His World, the formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin makes the one reference to Canada that appears in the body of his work. Discussing the French humanist’s comic rendering of Pantagruel’s northwesterly journey to the icy underworld, he points to the various levels of correspondence between Rabelais’s text (itself a parodic reworking of Dante’s Divine Comedy) and Jacques Cartier’s journal account of his 1540 voyage to Canada. It was Cartier’s colonial venture, Bakhtin suggests, that had a particularly complex and important effect on the European imagining of otro mundo: the new world (397-400). For Bakhtin, this effect was felt most tellingly on what might be best described as the implications of the Word in the Old World imagination, for it was Cartier’s discovery of the New World that prompted an essential reconsideration of the intellectual and imaginative structures that had until this point guaranteed the Old World a confidence in its linguistic centrality and a certainty in its imaginative enterprise. So radical were the restructurings necessitated by this new information that throughout the earliest explorations of the New World whole editions of journals and maps were destroyed or bought up and hidden â€Å"because they were thought to disseminate the wrong kind of information† (Huggan, 7) or, in the more abstract sense, to speak the wrong language, spread the wrong Word. But as journeys and journals accumulated, so, too, did the notions of Canada as a problematic new land and new language, as a site at which Old World and traditionally worded certainties were confronted by an openness of place that refused to be fixed, refused to accommodate its particularities and paradoxes to the tropes or metaphors privileged by familiar verbal codes. Every journey across this new land became another imaginative â€Å"mapping† of what were at once the knowable and the radically unknowable realities of the place a number of the earliest cartographers had labeled, somewhat ominously, terra incognita: the unknown land. Such mappings were â€Å"not a luxury,† as Margaret Atwood has observed, â€Å"but a necessity,† for without the sense of certainty they provided, these early Canadians would â€Å"not survive† (Atwood, 18-9). Atwood’s observations were not in themselves particularly revolutionary but were building on echoes of such notable antecedents as Northrop Frye, who saw in this confrontation both the source of our deep terror regarding the imminence of Canadian geography and of our national myths and mythic patterns (626), and Desmond Pacey, who defined â€Å"the Canadian imagination† as â€Å"mainly a function of† a collision between an imagination grounded fixedly in Old World language and a geography â€Å"so various† and â€Å"inescapably impressive †¦ that in itself it offers an inexhaustible challenge† (437-44). More recently, W. H. New has invited a full rethinking of the most basic terms of this challenge, suggesting that from Cartier’s earliest contact the word â€Å"land† has to be seen as a particularly complex discursive terrain, â€Å"a ground of contestation† upon which â€Å"an ongoing history of [our] relations with place and space† plays out. As New suggests, Canada in this sense becomes a semiotic site at which â€Å"Fixity vies recurrently with fluidity, position with positionality, the place of social residence with the condition of being there. † For Sheila Watson, the condition of â€Å"being† in the her The Double Hook (1959) is very much a process of doubling back on the assumptions and Words that have traditionally been part of the foundation of Old World thought and action. Faced with an â€Å"inexhuastible challenge† to survive, Waton’s characters open the novel trapped in silence, the doubling back of the â€Å"spoken† into the lethal pits-and-snares of the â€Å"unspoken† or, worse still, into the morass of the â€Å"never said. † And is it is in this doubling back of language that Watson’s characters find themselves hooked not once (on the self-glorifications of protective silence) but twice, by the fear in which silence finds its most solid footing. The Double Hook opens with an act of matricide, an act that is itself a doubling back to (re)collect both classic (the story of Orestes, for instance) and biblical (1 Timothy) allusions for use in this new land. It is the most profoundly un-natural doubling, as son erases his own origin, his own naming, his own source. At the same time, it is an act that resonates deeply through a family that lives â€Å"suspended in silence† and that includes among its various acts of violence the suicide of Greta, who remains dumb despite her impulse to use â€Å"her voice to shatter all memory of the girl who had stayed too long† (32) and the blinding of Kip, a young boy who attempts to speak of and against the repressiveness shaping his valley home. But as Watson reveals, this Canadian place is a one in which any move to double away from the exhaustive struggle to find language is often a fatal slide. As the character known only as the Widow’s boy shouts in response to the violence erupting in the silences around him: Can a man speak to no one because he’s a man? Who says so?†¦ I’ve held my tongue†¦ when I should have used my voice like an axe to cut down the wall between us† (116). The boy’s emphasis here is crucial, for what Watson demands to here in her Canadian place is not the language of another or the displacing silence of the fearful but a radical and potent questioning of the potentialities of a language that can articulate the freedoms that Cartier and others had (en)visioned for this place. As Barbara Godard explains, Watson remains â€Å"[s]ensitive always to the thinness and inarticulateness of modern language† (153) and is always in search of ways â€Å"to disturb the reader’s conventional consciousness of words and their so-called corresponding realities† (153). Watson’s warning, and her practice in The Double Hook, is for the need to interrogate language in the modern world, to bring language back doubled onto itself as a act of demythologizing and dismantling; Watson’s novel proposes in its own writing an understanding of language and reality that finds its most profound articulation in the doubling onto itself of language itself. In this doubling back of language upon itself, another act of murdering one’s origins, â€Å"Watson signals her departure from realistic verisimilitude† (154) and from the strictures that bound, not freed, Cartier and subsequent explorers, to the language of their realities and their worlds. â€Å"In the fold of the hills / under Coyote’s eye† (11) language begins to redouble its energies, unfold its potentials to mean beyond the literal into the circular encounterings of allusion and echo and irony. When James flees his ranch on horseback following the murder of his own mother, he becomes, briefly, a perverted image of the classic Western hero riding off into the sunset and silence of the horizon. But as he soon recognizes, his is not a semiotic site located in that system; in his place, in his language, â€Å"a person only escapes in circles no matter how far the rope spins. † In other words (in new words), he must double back and begin to fill the silence, to dismantle the double back language (silence) that has reified around the edges of his folded valley. In his doubling back, he must meet again with Felix, a character whose own languages — the vernacular of the valley, the ritualized formality of religion, the silken transcendence of music — has itself been emptied of meaning, reduced to cliche: He wondered: If a bitch crept in by my stove would I let her fall on the hot iron of it? I’ve got no words to clear a woman off my bench. No words except: Keep moving, scatter, get-the-hell-out. His mind sifted ritual phrases. Some half forgotten. You’re welcome. Put your horse in. Pull up. Ave Maria. Benedictus fructus ventris. Introibo. Introibo. The beginning. The whole thing to live again. Words said over and over here by the stove. His father knowing them by heart. God’s servants. The priest’s servants. The cup lifting. The bread breaking. Domine non sum dignus. Words coming. The last words. (41) Doubling back into his own languages through words â€Å"ritualized† and words â€Å"said over and over,† Felix lives, in this moment, trapped like James, forever in the ellipses of the â€Å"half forgotten† and in the promise, always frustrated, of â€Å"[w]ords coming. † In the end, though, it is Felix, with the assistance of Kip, who brings the novel back from the creases of its own doubling, back to the glory of language made meaningful with its own resonant doubleness, allowing it to be both glory and fear, articulation and reflection, the said and the unsaid. It is Felix, who steps to the side of Angel in the moment of her deliverance to assist in the miracle, and who, even the new mother admits, â€Å"didn’t do bad for a man†¦ Especially for a man who never raised a hand to help one of his own mares in foal† (116). Fishing with Kip in the now meaningful silence that follows the birth, there is a conversation between the two generations of valley men during which the older man’s sense of responsibility and wonder serves as a corrective to the younger one’s suspicion and fear: When a house of full of women, Kip said, and one of them Angel, it’s best for a man to take his rest among the willows. When a house is full of women and children, Felix said, a man has to get something for their mouths. (117) Caught again in a silence, Kip pauses to reflect on Felix’s refocusing of the valley, his doubling of the â€Å"reality† of the presence in the house (â€Å"and children†) that effectively reinscribes community over isolation, family over individual. When Kip speaks again, it is to accept his role in the â€Å"branding† that had scarred his face: â€Å"I keep thinking about James, Kip said. I kept at him like a dog till he beat around the way a porcupine beats with his tail† (117). Pausing momentarily before he answers, Felix slips past the ritual responses, the formulaic platitudes that have defined him in the past. Rather than parable or vulgar dismissal, he engages the younger man with a reflection upon James’s burden and, more importantly, a question that at once engages Kip but also looks to his future in the valley: â€Å"Jame’s got more than a porcupine has to answer for, he said. How’re you going to pick up a living now? † To pick up living in the valley is, as Angel makes clear when she names her new baby Felix, is through the model of the older man, who passes on the will to speak and the will to be heard to a valley. Moving beyond language into love, and through love back to harmony and rebirth, Felix reimagines the silence of the valley, shaping its contours with words and allowing the connecting moments of quiet to reverberate with meaning, to double back into the words of the father-figure in order to find a path to the future. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: Anansi, 1972. Frye, Northrop. Literary History of Canada. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1965. Godard, Barbara. â€Å"’Between One Cliche and Another’: Language in The Double Hook. † Studies in Canadian Literature 3 (1978): 149-65. Huggan, Graham. Territorial Disputes: Maps and Mapping Strategies in Contemporary Canadian and Australian Fiction. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1994. New, W. H. Land Sliding: Imagining Space, Presence, and Power in Canadian Writing. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1997. Pacey, Desmond. â€Å"The Canadian Imagination. † The Literary Review 8 (1965): 437-44. Watson, Sheila. The Double Hook. 1959. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989.