'No Comment. Comment, Comment, Comment ...'

Company spokesman Bob Flacker declined to comment.

"The investigation will bear out the truth in due time, and until it is complete, we feel that it is inappropriate to say anything about the matter," Flacker said.

"We have no comment at this time" is a "declined to comment" comment. When you can save a good column-inch of space by cutting a non-comment, it's a safe bet that it doesn't qualify as a lack of comment.

Questions and Answers

I joined Don Podesta, Washington Post assistant managing editor for copy desks, for a Washingtonpost.com chat.

Mother and Child Reunion

A note on telecommunications history:

AT&T was "Ma Bell" when it was the parent of all the regional phone companies (the "Baby Bells," if you must).

The AT&T that was recently acquired by one of the so-called babies, SBC Communications Corp., was, almost by definition, not Ma Bell.

Pretend the Quote Marks Aren't There

Quotations are generally introduced with commas:

She said, "How are you?"

Unfortunately, a lot of writers and editors take that guideline to mean that every quotation mark must be accompanied by a comma. Observe:

The president was heckled by protesters who held signs with slogans such as, "Leave My Social Security Alone," and, "No More Lies," as his motorcade arrived.

What in the world are those commas doing there? To write that is like writing:

The animal lover has had pets including, piranhas, and, boa constrictors, over the past three decades.

Punctuate with your brain, not with the search-and-replace function. And, as I've said before, even a correct quote-introducing comma is negotiable if it also introduces awkwardness (as the incorrect ones do in the Social Security example).

(The) Globalization Marches On

I have added ordering links to the Canadian, British, French, German and Japanese branches of Amazon.com to my "Elephants of Style" and "Lapsing Into a Comma" pages.

Bonus content: Note that I used "Elephants of Style" in an adjectival reference to "The Elephants of Style." Nothing wrong with that; in fact, it's preferable. For a related reason, don't go capitalizing the in something like "the Hague-based International Court of Justice," even if you normally cap The Hague. In that instance, the goes with International Court of Justice, not with Hague.