In addition to editing book manuscripts, Eric Schramm [schramm155(at)prodigy.net] also edits essays, brochures, book proposals, applications, journal articles, and advertising copy.
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--Edward Curtis, author of Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975
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--Howard Smither, A History of the Oratorio, Volume 4
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--David McGill, author of Sound in Motion: A Performer’s Guide to Greater Musical Expression
The misuse of commas is probably
the most common error made in English writing. And why not? Don Wilson
and the boys notwithstanding ("Down dooty do down down/ Comma comma, Down
dooty do down down/ Comma comma, Down dooty do down down. . . ."),
nobody speaks with an explicit comma. It's not a word; it's just a period
with a tail. Who notices it? Actually, we usually
do notice where commas go in speech: at the pauses, in the middle of sentences.
And that's the way you should think of commas in writing--as pauses for
breathing. A comma is your way of telling your reader to slow down, to
take a breath, and to mentally separate one part of your sentence from
another. Even if people don't read aloud, they do segment written sentences
in their minds as they read. Nothing helps them do this more than commas.
The big problem, though,
comes from a dirty little secret your English teacher never told you--if
in fact he or she even noticed it. There isn't just one, single comma
in English. There are in fact several different kinds of commas, and
they look alike! By all rights each should have its own distinctive written
form. We can imagine that one would be the familiar period-with-a-tail,
one would be a period with little sunrays coming out, and one would be
a small open circle with an optional smiley face. But who wants to have
to learn new punctuation? This is one of the few rotten things the Infernal
English Committee spared us, and for that we should be thankful. But it's
also confusing to use the same little ink splotch to carry out different
functions.
What sort of different commas
are we talking about? Let's discuss them one at a time.
First, there is the comma that separates two or more parts of a sentence that are essentially of equal importance. Oftentimes the word and is placed between these parts:
There are many dents in the golf balls of Prince Charles, and the royal polo mallets are similarly worn out.
You think you are an extremely clever little sot, but I know better.
It may be that global warming is upon us, or perhaps the election is imminent.
These commas--before and, but, and or--are often considered optional. Why? More important, when should you use this "optional" comma?
Remember, one of the best reasons to use a comma is to tell your reader where to create a mental pause in your sentence. A pithy rule for commas should be: "If it makes a sentence less confusing, use it!" Reread the first example sentence above, but put your finger over the comma. Without it, the reader might be led into thinking--just for a moment--that there are dents in the golf balls and in the polo mallets. The comma helps separate the two ideas here, and therefore should be used. Notice that a shorter sentence could easily do without such a comma:
I hate purple dinosaurs and you do too.
Here the best reason for using a comma is because you might want the second part of the sentence to be delayed a bit, as if you were speaking and wanted to withhold the last bit of information a moment longer. But because the sentence is so short, confusion is unlikely to result without the comma.
There is another comma that is very similar to this one. It is also used between two parts of a sentence:
Because you are my favorite nephew, I will spare your life.
If you sit here, I will not be amused.
There are many reasons to eat high-cholesterol foods, even though they can clog your arteries.
Your sister will be late, since her beauty parlor suffered a power outage this afternoon.
In these sentences, the comma is used between two parts of a sentence that often could be in reverse order. That is, we could take the second half of each sentence and make it the first part if we wanted. The difference between the two halves is that one of them (the so-called "independent clause") could stand alone as a grammatically complete sentence if the other half were erased. The other half (the "dependent clause") could not stand alone because it is weighed down by what we will call "needy words": in these sentences, because, if, even though, and since. Get rid of these needy words and the rest of that half-sentence could stand alone as a whole sentence. The bottom line is that a comma is often used between these two parts of a sentence. It helps smooth out the sentence by separating its two distinct sections. Sometimes the comma can be omitted, but always remember the pithy comma rule and ask yourself: would the reader's comprehension be made easier if you just spilled a little more ink and used the comma? (Be generous.)
Here's another use of a comma that separates essentially equal parts of a sentence, this time with the items occurring in list form:
Martians love to devour quartz, seaweed, and tonic water.
While the comma between quartz and seaweed is a must, the comma before and is often left out, as in some of our earlier examples. This omission is permitted because the reader can quickly figure out that the sentence contains a series of three items. However, I recommend using a comma here (formally known as the "serial comma") because some sentences could be ambiguous, if only for a split second, without it:
Unless Anastasia likes Boris Godunov, Ivan the Terrible and Dmitri Karamazov, she may be unhappy when they come to visit.
When you read "Ivan the Terrible" without a comma immediately following it, you may be unsure whether you are reading a series of three names, or just a coupling of Ivan and Dmitri. The comma following Dmitri tells you for sure--since no verb comes afterward--but that momentary confusion before you get there can kill a reader's unbroken concentration. You can avoid that by always using a comma before and when presenting a list of three or more items.
You might say: why not just use this comma when it's helpful, as here, and leave it to the stuffed-shirt writers the rest of the time? The answer is simple: consistency is good. This may not be so satisfying an answer to you, but to your readers it means a lot. It means they can count on your sentences to use this comma as a signpost whenever you list a bunch of words in series.
Another related form of this comma comes with lists that do not require and at all. This comma is completely straightforward. It merely separates different descriptive words:
I wish to tell you a deep, dark, horrible secret.
My Aunt Agnes is very, very old.
Okay, that's a good start at identifying a few commas. What are some others? How about the one used to start this paragraph? We might call this the "leadoff comma." Sometimes it can be used at the end of a sentence, so we might also call it the "closing comma." These are used when a sentence begins or ends with a word or phrase to separate some short idea from the rest of the sentence:
First, crack two eggs. Second, beat them with a three-pronged fork.
No, I have never been to Ulan Bator.
Horses are known to be allergic to coconut, of course.
We found out that he was dating a geisha, to our great surprise.
In my day, children were obscene and not absurd.
Fishermen are people, too.
Sometimes these commas are optional too--but remember our pithy comma rule
before turning up your nose.
Couldn't some of these opening or closing phrases be used in the middle of a sentence? Yes indeed, and there we may call the comma the "parentheses comma." We all know that if we use an open parentheses, we need to use a closed one somewhere afterward. In math or computer programming, it's essential; in writing, it's not so fatal if we forget the closed parentheses, but we shouldn't callously toss around open parentheses either: it's almost like abandoning someone we promised to help, or leaving the light on in the garage all night. Like parentheses, commas can also be used to set off parts of a sentence, and just like with parentheses there need to be commas both before and after. Notice how some of the following sentences could use a set of parentheses just as easily as a pair of commas:
Alexei, that debonair rogue, came to the soiree uninvited.
Why is it that I, a fifth-generation longshoreman, should be the first in my family to own a Corvette?
She went to the fair and, not surprisingly, found her contact lens.
In the third example you could leave out the commas altogether, if you so choose; but you may not use only one of them. These commas are as much a pair as Romeo and Juliet or Ernie and Bert: if you use one, use both.
Here's another example:
My wife, Latifah Fitzpatrick, was once Miss Teen Indiana.
These commas are obligatory because I (oddly enough) have only one wife. Leaving out the commas would be okay if I were identifying one of many people who fit a particular description, as in the following:
My cousin Francine is in love with a monk.
Since I have more than one cousin, the cousin about whom I am writing
is absolutely identified by deleting the commas.
But you might protest: wait
a second! So what if someone does it the other way? Doesn't everyone know
I only have one wife (stop smirking), and wouldn't the same information be conveyed
if Francine is wrapped in commas?
Perhaps the reader
would still get the point if you swapped out the commas between these last
two sentences ("My wife Latifah Fitzpatrick was. . . ." and "My
cousin, Francine, is. . . ."). But these parentheses commas don't come
without a responsibility: whenever they are used, it means that you could
delete the words between the commas, and the sentence would still be grammatical--though
less informative. Thus if I were to delete my wife's name above, readers
still know to whom I am referring. They just don't know her name, but they
surely know there's only one possible referent. In the next sentence, adding
the commas implies that my cousin's name could be deleted. The problem
with that is that I have more than one cousin, so the reader would not
know who the referent is. (It could be one of twenty or more lovesick people.)
Now apply that logic back to the sentence about my wife: if I were to
leave out the commas, it would imply that I am really confused about my
matrimony (or religion).
Think about it another way:
the comma is an interrupter. It's correct to interrupt the sentence before
my wife's name because there's only one gal in my life. I need to avoid
that interruption between cousin and Francine, however, because otherwise
it becomes possible that some other cousin is being discussed or that I
have but one cousin.
Having made it clear that you must always use parentheses commas in pairs, I think it's probably a good time to bring up exceptions. But don't groan yet: although there are cases where only one parentheses comma is used, its double is still there. It's just not actually written, because sometimes too many commas can clutter up your sentence. (This might not be so bad if they didn't all look alike!) In other words, one of the two is invisible, but its presence is strongly felt. A ghost comma? Well, you be the judge:
I have found that of all the countries in the world, Tanzania has the most interesting coastline.
What's going on here? This comma doesn't fit the description of any we have already seen. In fact, the sentence itself looks odd, because the first part looks like that weak or dependent kind of phrase that doesn't contain a complete thought. But it lacks that "needy" word we are used to seeing in a dependent clause, words like although or while. At the same time, the second part of the sentence is clearly the strong or independent clause that could stand alone, since it has a subject and a verb and it expresses a complete thought. How about if we changed the sentence slightly?
I have found that, of all the countries in the world, Tanzania has the most interesting coastline.
Ah ha! Now we can see a pair of parentheses commas at work. They make it clear that there is no dependent clause here at all, but only some parenthetical words in the middle that interrupt the main idea. So what can we conclude from this? First, the comma following that may be deleted because it interrupts the flow of the sentence. Our pithy comma rule doesn't require us to use a comma just because some other rule likes them. The reason? Our real goal is clarity, and if leaving out a comma helps make a sentence more easily understood, then out it goes.
Second, note in what kind of sentence this occurs. A verb that reports some idea or opinion--such as think, say, find, mention--is frequently followed by that and then the idea the subject is expressing:
He thinks that you are cute.
She believes that the Tooth Fairy is dead.
After that, however, one could toss in a phrase and end up with a longer sentence:
He thinks that when you aren't scowling, you are cute.
She believes that if there is no money under her pillow tomorrow morning, the Tooth Fairy is dead.
As we have seen above, some people might prefer to omit the commas
here altogether. But clarity is aided by including them, and so we can justify using at least one of the parentheses commas. (Another reason
for just using one: the words before the comma look like a dependent clause
because they can't stand alone, and so it seems a natural fit to use a
comma here.)
Notice that approximately
the same thing happens following and in sentences like the following:
Tomatoes are really a fruit, and, if I'm not mistaken, so are avocados.
In this case, however, I would prefer to omit both parentheses commas
(Tomatoes are really a fruit, and if I'm not mistaken so are avocados) because the sentence is short.
Next up is an infrequent use of a comma, and one oft forgotten:
The restaurant on Woods Avenue in Paintsville, Kentucky, is the birthplace of eggplant parmesan.
Few writers would mistakenly omit the first comma, but many would consider the second unnecessary. To leave out the "geographical comma," though, is to imply that the name of the state is information that belongs with the second half of the sentence. Actually, it merely gives more information about the city, and for that reason it should be offset with commas. It's just like a parentheses comma. And it could just as easily be called the "year comma," for sentences like the following one:
December 7, 1941, was a Sunday.
One of the sneakiest commas is the one that precedes or follows a quotation. We see it so often we might forget it's there:
And then I heard her say, "Buford, you better be gone by breakfast."
"My friends, we stand at a crossroads of history," he thundered.
When he hissed, "You will be lucky to get out of here alive," I suddenly remembered I had left the iron on.
"Whatever," the bus driver sighed.
We use a comma in these instances because the utterance is a complete thought--though not necessarily a complete sentence. More to the point, in each case it is a critical part of the action of the sentence because it describes an utterance that was made at a particular time. Compare the above to the following comma-less quotations:
She had a way of saying "you're out" that reminded me of my uncle.
Her Majesty says "holy mackerel" whenever something is amiss.
Big George whispered "ouch" after he was punched on the funny bone.
These instances do not require commas because the words in quotations are just like objects that the verbs are having an impact on. They are analogous to sentences like Her Majesty ate crumpets and George hit Joe on the chin. In other words, you need a comma before the quotation if the quotation is itself a complete thought and the verb is just introducing it.
For the record: in American usage, commas and periods go inside the second quotation mark. (The British put commas and periods outside the quotation mark, but they also use single for double quotation marks and drive on the left side of the road.) The only exception to this in American usage is if the quotation is followed in the same sentence by something in parentheses; in that case, to indicate that the parenthetical note belongs to the same sentence or the same part of the sentence, hold off on using the comma or period until after the second parentheses:
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends" (Hamlet, act 5, scene 2, line 11).
I said, "That's true" (though I didn't believe it), and now I'm in trouble.
Seemingly against all good rules of grammar (if there are any good ones), sentences like this one sometimes crop up:
My mother likes salmon, my father bluegill.
This shouldn't work, but it does. It shouldn't work because the second half is incomplete without a verb. And if it did have a verb, the comma should be changed to a semicolon (more about these guys later), or the sentence should be divided into two complete sentences.
The reason it works, though, is because of a poetic style that omits certain words that would only repeat words already given or implied. The above sentence is really just a shortened form of the following:
My mother likes salmon, while my father likes bluegill.
We already know we're talking about liking fish; no other verb could be inferred when the second likes is omitted. And while is similarly allowed to go undercover, because the simultaneous nature of these fish preferences is apparent--the omitted verb must be in the present tense just like the written one.
Now that you are familiar with the good commas, it's time to discuss their evil siblings. Why? Because it's easier to know where commas properly belong than it is to figure out where they should be stricken. Therefore, we need to look at some mutant commas that must be exterminated from your writing.
The most prominent is the dreaded "comma splice," the comma that sits between subject and verb like a chaperone at a drive-in. Normally, the path from subject to verb must be clear and direct. That's not to say there can't be commas in between them, however. We have already seen numerous examples of the parentheses commas coming in that position. Here are some more:
The devil, they say, is in the details.
You of all people, who pontificates on these matters from morning to night, should certainly know better.
These commas are not problems. They come in pairs, so we know they belong to each other. We could delete the commas and everything in between, and we would still have a grammatical sentence. But problems arise when you have only one comma between subject and verb. In that situation, beware the comma. In the following sentence, the asterisk (*) indicates an aberrant comma:
*The reason why this sentence should be rejected, is because the comma interrupts the subject and verb.
To get this, you must recognize that the subject is The reason and the verb is is. What comes in the middle (why this sentence should be rejected) is a group of words known as a clause, which by definition contains its own subject and verb. This is probably where many writers go awry. They fail to recognize the subject and verb of the main sentence, as opposed to those of the clause. The comma splice often lowers its ugly tail whenever a clause intervenes, even though the clause itself is perfectly legal. (Note, however, that some clauses require parentheses commas around them.)
Here are some more malodorous sentences (you can see for yourself why):
*The soprano of greatest renown in London of the late 1830s, was the Italian coloratura Isabella Manicotti.
*The first thing I want to tell you, is that you wear nice ties.
In these two sentences, the correct comma is none at all--so in the second one, do not include a comma after tell you, or after is, or after that. As written, there is a comma after tell you, which is clearly wrongheaded, coming as it does before the verb. Including a comma after is might sound good--there could be a pause in the sentence at that point--but don't do it. The reason you hear a pause there is not because of a comma, but a colon (:). In truth, however, you're better off not using a colon here either (but if you do, delete that). And using a comma after that in the above sentence is only good if it's a parentheses comma, with a phrase and another parentheses comma following. (See Uh-oh, above, on the subject of the "ghost comma"--there, we found it was often better to include only the second of a pair of parentheses commas following the word that and some phrase.)
(Perhaps a little discussion here could help with that. Just as commas are confusing because there are so many of them, that also has many different uses. The one I'm referring to is the one that introduces a descriptive phrase or a new idea after a verb. It is often optional. Sometimes it is used interchangeably with which, but let's not get into this subject [if you think you're catching a whiff of disapproval here, you're right]. We also know that that may point to or demonstrate something, in the same way as the word this,and sometimes the something can be deleted (That book is good; That is good). For our purposes, however, I mean the that that begins a phrase that either describes a noun or could be substituted for a noun. Before I get started on a whole different treatise, let's return to the commas.)
There is also a variant on comma splicing in which the way to fix it is not to delete the comma, but to add the missing parentheses comma:
*Theresa Renteria, a celebrity of the 1970s has receded into just another faded memory.
(Add one comma after 1970s, then hurry back to the present.) So where are we? Remember, I said that you should beware any sentence with one comma between subject and verb. A matched pair, as we have seen, is fine. Three or more can work also:
Cucumbers, which Hugo has grown every summer since he was twelve, and which make wonderful sandwiches with cream cheese, are probably his children's favorite vegetables.
Three commas are okay here because, you may have noticed, the second is paired with both the first and third commas. It does double duty, closing the first pair of parentheses and beginning the second pair. Here are some other three-comma jobbers:
A picture of a big, tall, ugly, frightening motel hangs next to my moose head.
That woman who brought me roses, chocolates, cupcakes, and a teddy bear is really just an old friend.
These examples may tip you off to the possibility of a good sentence with only one comma between subject and verb, but such sentences must be of a certain type:
The president of this great, wonderful country is a graduate of Millard Fillmore Junior High.
You will recall this comma as one of the list, or serial, commas. Similarly, if you were to skip the second of the list commas, you might also have only one comma between subject and verb (even though I still recommend keeping that second comma as long as you're not low on toner--hence the ? below):
?The uncle of Huey, Duey and Louie is named Donald.
So except for these circumstances--a series of two or three words in a prepositional phrase or clause that immediately follows the subject--you may not use only one comma between subject and verb--or between a verb and its direct object, for that matter. That's a comma splice.
A run-on sentence is like the world's two stubbornest (or fattest) people becoming roommates. They just can't live together. Similarly, a run-on is really two sentences trapped together in one sentence, forced to share a single period. There are many different kinds of run-ons, but let's just look at one:
*That stupid little bunny keeps going, it makes me sick.
Both parts of this sentence, on either side of the comma, are really strong enough to go out on their own independently. (That's why they are called independent clauses.) The problem is that the comma isn't strong enough to keep them from getting at each other's throats. Thus to stop a run-on and to keep the peace, there are four basic solutions (not all of which will work for every run-on):
You are not likely to encounter the following situations often, but in the interests of completeness let's cover them anyway. I'm talking about sentences in which the poor little comma comes in conflict with one of its punctuation brothers. As just noted above, the comma is weaker than other forms of punctuation (which is probably the leading reason why it is so often misused), and thus is forced to take a powder when push comes to shove.
When would this occur? One obvious situation is in quotations:
The umpire yelled, "You're out!" much to the dismay of the batter.
"Do you know the way to San Jose?" she asked.
Normally we would use commas at the end of these quotations, but ! and ? are here able to muscle them out. That shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, we know a period is stronger than a comma, so it's fairly natural that other sentence-ending punctuations are more powerful as well. (Why not use them both? No good reason--this is English grammar. Just don't do it.) In these two examples, confusion is avoided since the word after the quotation is not capitalized. If it ever is capitalized, you might consider recasting your sentence:
"That's ridiculous!" Rupert yelled into the phone.
Here's a less-seen example of the same comma problem:
Regina, Saskatchewan's mayor used to be a rodeo star.
In this case, the second geographical comma is bumped by an apostrophe. Clearly we couldn't retain the comma after the apostrophe + s, so we just hold our breath and keep only one of these fellows. If you think it still looks strange, you're correct--which only means that a complete rewrite of the sentence might be a better option (The mayor of Regina, Saskatchewan, . . . ). But if you ever find yourself unable to reaarange your sentence, the correct strategy is to send the comma into retreat.
This covers virtually every comma you will use in writing modern English prose. Above all else, remember the pithy comma rule and make sure you know why you are using a particular comma. If you can't identify a comma in your writing with one of the good guys described above, it probably doesn't belong in your writing.
