Sandra
2015-01-21 16:57:07 UTC
Well, it's certainly been well-illustrated so far that, even with a clear rule cited, people will still find ways to argue and disagree about "correct" comma usage. Partly I think that's because people are simply haughty and don't want to be told what to do, but partly I think that's because the reality is, despite there being clear rules about punctuation in many (most?) cases, there is also great potential for open interpretation and individual style.
Rule-citing LLThrasher, for example, suggested a reading where "not one" would be considered an independent element, either parenthetical or essential, then determined it would indeed be essential and so would require no commas.
Others have suggested that, rather than being either parenthetical or essential elements, "not one" and "but two" are both modifiers of the noun "rare gold-plated widgets", and as both modify their noun to the same degree, they must be separated by a single comma to set them apart (unlike "rare" and "gold-plated", which require no comma between them because they modify "widgets" to different degrees).
I agree this particular sentence a difficult case because, as H Gilmer earlier pointed out, the number agreement with "widgets" differs between "one" and "two". So in order to be strictly correct, you might need an expanded sentence looking something like this: "The man owns not one rare gold-plated widget, but two rare gold-plated widgets."
I'm proposing a single comma in that expanded sentence because the "but two..." phrase seems to me to be a clarifying phrase akin to an appositive--it reflects back on the "not one..." phrase, effectively re-defining it. (That is, "two..." could be equally substituted for "not one..."; both mean the same thing. The "but" in this case is just a conjunction which disappears if the sentence is split apart, hence the reason for the "'two' is equal to 'not one'" equation rather than a "'but two' is equal to 'not one'" equation.)
As Lars Eighner also stated, though, "open style" seems to be in strong use these days (for better or worse), so totally omitting the comma and leaving the meaning up to context would also be acceptable, I think.
As for the original, shorter sentence, I'm going to opt not to bother about the number agreement at all, because the only way to fix the number agreement problem would be to restructure the sentence entirely (as I did above, for example), but all we're really wondering is how best to punctuate this not-this-but-that construction. So since that's out of the way, in keeping with the pseudo-appositive spirit of my earlier example, my suggestion is this: "The man owns not one, but two, gold-plated widgets."
And there I conclude.
However, if you want to keep playing with the sentence to see if you can come up with other arguments for various punctuation strategies, I have one bit of food for thought that I want to just throw out there: reverse the placement of the "one" and "two" phrases. Try this variation, for example: "The man owns two--not one--gold-plated widgets."
Happy editing. ;)
Rule-citing LLThrasher, for example, suggested a reading where "not one" would be considered an independent element, either parenthetical or essential, then determined it would indeed be essential and so would require no commas.
Others have suggested that, rather than being either parenthetical or essential elements, "not one" and "but two" are both modifiers of the noun "rare gold-plated widgets", and as both modify their noun to the same degree, they must be separated by a single comma to set them apart (unlike "rare" and "gold-plated", which require no comma between them because they modify "widgets" to different degrees).
I agree this particular sentence a difficult case because, as H Gilmer earlier pointed out, the number agreement with "widgets" differs between "one" and "two". So in order to be strictly correct, you might need an expanded sentence looking something like this: "The man owns not one rare gold-plated widget, but two rare gold-plated widgets."
I'm proposing a single comma in that expanded sentence because the "but two..." phrase seems to me to be a clarifying phrase akin to an appositive--it reflects back on the "not one..." phrase, effectively re-defining it. (That is, "two..." could be equally substituted for "not one..."; both mean the same thing. The "but" in this case is just a conjunction which disappears if the sentence is split apart, hence the reason for the "'two' is equal to 'not one'" equation rather than a "'but two' is equal to 'not one'" equation.)
As Lars Eighner also stated, though, "open style" seems to be in strong use these days (for better or worse), so totally omitting the comma and leaving the meaning up to context would also be acceptable, I think.
As for the original, shorter sentence, I'm going to opt not to bother about the number agreement at all, because the only way to fix the number agreement problem would be to restructure the sentence entirely (as I did above, for example), but all we're really wondering is how best to punctuate this not-this-but-that construction. So since that's out of the way, in keeping with the pseudo-appositive spirit of my earlier example, my suggestion is this: "The man owns not one, but two, gold-plated widgets."
And there I conclude.
However, if you want to keep playing with the sentence to see if you can come up with other arguments for various punctuation strategies, I have one bit of food for thought that I want to just throw out there: reverse the placement of the "one" and "two" phrases. Try this variation, for example: "The man owns two--not one--gold-plated widgets."
Happy editing. ;)