Commas
Without:
The popular tendency toward minimal punctuation would have Sir Ernest Gowers turning in his grave, because misguided adherence to this trend renders too many sentences ambiguous, their clauses running into one another, the calamitous effect being a commucation train wreck, the reader having to go back to the start and reconsider. Beware, and understand that commas among other grammatical curlicues are merely innocuous but fundamental pauses of breath.
With:
The popular tendency toward minimal punctuation would have Sir Ernest Gowers turning in his grave, because misguided adherence to this trend renders too many sentences ambiguous, their clauses running into one another, the calamitous effect being a commucation train wreck, the reader having to go back to the start and reconsider. Beware, and understand that commas, among other grammatical curlicues, are merely innocuous but fundamental pauses of breath.
Second version wins for me. What brought this on, Grammaticus? You been looking at my stuff again? (Sometimes I put a comma in, sometimes I don’t. Could drive an editor mad …)
I wrote this ages ago and just whacked it up the other day for fun. I just noticed people getting lazy with commas and figured I’d complain about it. Because I have nothing better to do.
Also, editors ARE mad: authors just bring out the best in them.