the usage of comma

seniroa   Fri May 14, 2010 11:03 am GMT
hi everyone.

in this sentence "Peter Jones, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, said the ministry will get rid of rented school buildings next year.

why is the use of the comma here? (after education)?
Another Guest   Fri May 14, 2010 7:23 pm GMT
Consider the sentence "Peter Jones said the ministry will get rid of rented school buildings next year". Is this grammatically correct? Yes, it is (except I think that there should be a "that" between "said" and "the"). So, the phrase "Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education" is completely unnecessary, grammatically. It's simply "bonus" information that helps any reader who doesn't know who Peter Jones is. Thus, it is set off with commas to indicate that it's separate from the rest of the sentence.