A question on comma enclosure

Question

I have done some seraching on the internet and found little information about comma enclosure.
So, i decided to post it here to seek advice.

The problem that bothers me is the usage of commas of below examples.

"This,then , is the situation at present." a quote from a book

I interpret this line as a injection between the sentence.

The original idea would be "Then, this is the situation at present."

So it is simply the result of changing position of words.

"I ,personally, .............." a line seen everywhere

So this time, can the line be explained the way above?

If not, what is the purpose?

Thanks

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

Anonymous
"I ,personally, .." a line seen everywhere

Hi Anon,

Yes, it's the same thing. You can remove "personally" from the sentence and it will still read just fine, so you put the comma on either side to show that it's simply additional information -- in this case, to show the opinion is strickly personal and not (necessarily) related to how others think or act.

You can also write it as "Personally, I think..."

Anonymous · Answer

Grammar Geek
Anonymous
"I ,personally, .." a line seen everywhere
Hi Anon,

Yes, it's the same thing. You can remove "personally" from the sentence and it will still read just fine, so you put the comma on either side to show that it's simply additional information -- in this case, to show the opinion is strickly personal and not (necessarily) related to how others think or act.

You can also write it as "Personally, I think..."

So, other than changing the position of word, the line "i, personally, think" express a stronger emphasis on how personal the thought is than "Personally, i think".

Is this correct?

Thanks

BarbaraPA · Answer

I think I would agree with that. It's more likely to happen this way in speaking that writing. In writing, I'd say something like "My personal opinion is that..."

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