"Stories like this are legion. I still remember the example from primary
school that got us all excited about cannibalism: "Have you eaten Mother?"
became a much more serious matter than the simple question about mealtime
that a comma would have made it."
- from today's Age website/articles/"Pedant's progress".
* * * * *
Comment: This is an interesting example. A comma inserted after "eaten"
solves the problem, and removes any cannibalistic connotation. It does
this, grammatically, by converting a transitive verb into an intransitive
one. You could also rephrase the sentence - "Mother, have you eaten?"
Translated from a question into a factual statement, the sentence is -
"Mother, you have eaten." where Mother is part of the subject of the
sentence; something implied all along, though not so obvious.
The point is - a knowledge of grammar helps in the allocation of
punctuation.
* * * * *
Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was struck
off.
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