Just as the teacher was coming into the classroom, one of the boys, whose name was James, said loudly, “Teacher is a fool．” The teacher pretended not to have heard this．He went up to the platform and said,“ Today we are going to have a lesson on punctuation．Punctuation in a sentence is very important．Look at this sentence．” He picked up a piece of chalk and wrote the following sentence on the blackboard：James says the teacher is a fool．The class laughed．“Now,” continued the teacher, “with two commas I can change the meaning of the sentence entirely．” He then put in two commas and the sentence read：
James, says the teacher, is a fool．
Notes：
1．fool V．愚弄；玩弄，标题中的be fooled是被动语态。n．愚人；傻瓜
2．whose的先行词是one of the boys，由whose引出的从句，其前后均有逗点，是非限制性定语从句。
3．pretend v．伪装；假装，其后接动词不定式。在句中它后面接not to have heard，表示：老师假装没听见。
4．platform n．讲台
5．punctuation n．标点；标点使用法，a lesson on punctuation是关于标点使用法的课，这里的on相当于介词about．
