Como se comma
Nov. 21st, 2003 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI haven't had as much time to work on this week's Usage Mythunderstandings as I would have liked -- turning out to be a busy day. Next week I might do it earlier than Friday, because of the big U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and my birthday, which means the Shopping with Evil Twin extravaganza. So anyways. This week's topic: The Larch. No, wait, sorry, The Comma.
I wasn’t going to tackle commas right away, because... well, you could write pages and pages on the comma and still not address all the confusion. And since I’m not here to write a “you must do this” column, I’m not going to waste those pages — seriously, grab a simple grammar book from the used bookstore, or the library, or www.bartleby.com, and spend a few minutes on the comma. There is so much info to take in, it might not penetrate for a while, but the more you look at it, the easier it’ll get. Trust me. If someone as stupid as I am can figure it out, you can, too. (Also, if you watch this space, take a look at how I use them here. You can see varying sentence styles with lots of different comma and punctuation uses, and just seeing where I’m putting them might end up being helpful. Who knows?)
The first thing to remember about commas is that some usage is based on grammar rules of standard English, and some is based on style — whether it’s a regional style, such as the difference between British English (BE) and American English (AE), or the styles publications, companies, or institutions choose for written materials. Much of what we think is wrong or bad may simply be a difference in style. I probably correct comma/punctuation misuse more than any other thing in my job, even more than the apostrophes I mentioned last week. Punctuation is a really challenging concept for many people, even well-educated people, and the inconsistencies in English make it even more difficult. Throw in those style concepts, and you’ve got trouble. Right here in River City...
I’m on this small e-mail list where once in a while we’re mean and do “turkey reads” (MST3Ks) of bad fanfic, and one time, one of the turkeyers said, “I weep for the commas.” Because this guy had no idea how to punctuate, so he never did. I’ve used one of his lines from a terrible X-Files story as a .sig for years because I love the utter purity of his stupidity — not only is there no punctuation, it’s a line of dialog that no human would ever speak: “Well lets talk some more and lets have some beer and snacks.” (And no, I have no shame about mocking someone like this in a public place.) Then another person turkeyed something with commas after every other word, so obviously she’d taken all of the commas and that’s why he couldn’t use them — because there was a worldwide comma shortage. Maybe even more than bad spelling and homophone abuse, comma problems plague fanfic.
What commas do best is create sentences that are more than just choppy single lines, and allow us, in writing, to show how we string words together into complex sentences in speech. I’m not gonna bore you with talk of independent clauses and all, but the big thing to remember is that a comma serves to link parts of a sentence when you combine those separate parts with a conjunction like: and, but, or, nor, and so on. So most of the time, you’ll want to use a comma with and or but or yet or so, or even or. “Mulder wanted to visit Scully in the hospital, but he was stuck on the alien operating table, and it looked like he’d be here a while.” Even if you’re not sure, sound it out — the comma goes where a slight pause or hesitation in speech goes, so if you think you’d give that slight pause, then you’ll probably want the comma. To make it more confusing, short phrases don’t necessarily require commas — “the bleached blonde is cute but sort of scary.” It takes practice to get the hang of this, and I realize many people just can’t sound it out— they won’t be able to hear it at all. Getting a good, well-edited book (or piece of fanfic) can help you learn to do this, though. And all of this presupposes AE, because in BE, they frequently leave off that comma before a conjunction that joins two parts of a sentence.
Another serious problem area I see a lot is the introductory phrase. In that bad example I cited above, the introductory phrase is just the word “well,” but it can be a much longer phrase. We have a natural, very slight pause in speech after introductory phrases, so you’re pretty safe to guess “yup, comma here” even if you’re not sure. “When you meet, tell Michael the code phrase or he’ll shoot you.” “Later on, we’re going to the Bronze to dance.” Most importantly, use it after a greeting — if I can impart nothing else to anyone, I want to impart this — use a freaking comma after a greeting or acknowledgement: “Hey, Buffy, want some blood?” “Come in, Angel, Wes is expecting you.” “Yo, Gunn, where’s your posse?” Please, I beg of you — it’s not Hi Mulder or Hello Scully or So Mr. Skinner. I weep for the commas!
Sometimes, though, what trips people up here is that you don’t always need a comma when the rest of the sentence is closely linked with that intro phrase — “I won’t be joining the CTU because my application was rejected by Jack Bauer.” It’s a tricky thing to understand, but sometimes that reading aloud thing can really help you. And in BE, they don’t often use the comma after an intro phrase as much as we do, so that adds to confusion. There’s tons of subsets to this rule, but like I said — pages and pages and pages. The Harbrace College Handbook, Diana Hacker’s Writer’s Reference... there’s gajillions of good books and probably lots of web sites that will explain more about commas than you want to know.
Last week, a couple people mentioned the serial comma, and some didn’t know what that was. Commas are used to separate items in a series. The serial comma refers to how it’s used when all items in a series have the comma after them, rather than all the items but the last that’s joined with a conjunction. So you’d have: “Blair had long hair, big eyes, short legs, and round glasses” with a serial comma (that last comma there after legs), but without the serial comma (most commonly used in BE and in many newspaper/periodical style guides) it would be long hair, big eyes, short legs and round glasses. I have peculiarly strong feelings about serial commas — I think they can aid in understanding, and indeed, even style guides that prohibit them recognize that if the serial comma will aid in understanding, then it should be used. So why people insist on not using it no matter what the circumstances, I do not get. But I see this all the time on my editing list, where the BE speakers will not budge that they do not use it under any circumstances. That’s the hardest part of my job — explaining to people that style guides are style GUIDES, not laws that can never be broken or else you'll be taken outside and executed with a double-tap to the back of the head. Even if your style guide says “don’t use,” like my company’s does, when you get a really long, complex series of things, you’ll want that serial comma to help readers out. To me, it’s asinine to make things harder for the reader — it’s not about your fucking style laws, it’s about the reader: our jobs as writers and editors is to make everything clear and understandable and elegant, not to blindly follow some dumbass “rule” that isn’t even a grammar rule, but a style choice. Grrrr.
So for a long, complex series, even if you’re a BE writer, that last comma may be a godsend to a reader. As well, if there’s even a slight possibility of misunderstanding, use it — lawyers frequently use the serial comma because it can make a legal difference. An example commonly cited (that’s probably apocryphal) is “I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.” Does this mean his parents are Ayn Rand and God, or is he dedicating to all three of them? It’s open to interpretation, but throw in that last comma and there is no interpretation. (Someone mentioned one that they saw in a TV guide thing, which I liked tremendously, that said: “Tonight’s guests include Desmond Tutu, an elderly somethingorother and a dildo collector.” Which, you know, could easily confuse someone into thinking Mr. Tutu was the elderly somethingorother as well as a dildo collector. While he could just be one, perhaps that’s a confusion you might wish to avoid. Most of the Brits chimed in with, “I understood perfectly that there were three distinct people involved,” but I thought that was just stubbornly obtuse.) The serial comma never hurt anyone, it often can help (and can be crucial to technical or legal documentation), so why be stubbornly obtuse? Why not just use it if there’s any potential misunderstanding? Do. Not. Get it.
I won’t get into the last big thing commas do, which is set off elements that seem kinda parenthetical, because most people don’t have too much trouble with this — stuff like “Some people, according to Angel, just can’t be saved.” When you do this, the commas travel in pairs, but usually if you can write a basic sentence, you can handle this one. What people don’t get — but something I’m seeing way less of — is what’s called a comma splice, where there’s punctuation but no conjunction, or a fused sentence (run-on sentence) where there’s no punctuation at all. Don’t just stick a comma in the middle of a sentence because you think it might sound like it should be there — not “The stakes were sharp, he feared them greatly” but “The stakes were sharp, and he feared them greatly.” If you really want to be the serious punctuator, use a semicolon there: “The stakes were sharp; he feared them greatly.” A run-on would be where you didn’t use any punctuation at all — “Xander sent her a valentine she sent it back unopened breaking his heart.” That would be better separated into two sentences with periods, or with a semicolon, or with a comma and then “and.” Of course, BE doesn’t even really have the concept of a comma splice, so a lot of this is peculiar to AE — keep that in consideration if you’re betaing, because not all of this stuff applies if you’re working across the pond.
BE uses commas far less often than AE, but in recent years I’ve seen study results that say reading level comprehension has been decreasing in the UK, and sometimes I wonder if some of the stylistic things we use, such as lots of commas, might not start showing up there as well to aid reader comprehension. Could be interesting to watch. Commas are probably the most flexible and helpful pieces of punctuation you can find, but that may be why they’re so misunderstood — familiarity breeds contempt. You can find whole chapters about them in most usage books, but when in doubt, read something aloud, see how it sounds, and that might help you decide where to throw in a comma — or take one out. Myself, I go through these periods where I follow different styles — almost all of my X-Files fic, I was in my British style is better phase, and I wasn’t using commas half as much, driving my American betas nuts. Now I’m back to a middle ground, but who knows? Maybe I’ll adopt the no punctuation style and save them all for someone else, so there won’t be a worldwide comma shortage.
I wasn’t going to tackle commas right away, because... well, you could write pages and pages on the comma and still not address all the confusion. And since I’m not here to write a “you must do this” column, I’m not going to waste those pages — seriously, grab a simple grammar book from the used bookstore, or the library, or www.bartleby.com, and spend a few minutes on the comma. There is so much info to take in, it might not penetrate for a while, but the more you look at it, the easier it’ll get. Trust me. If someone as stupid as I am can figure it out, you can, too. (Also, if you watch this space, take a look at how I use them here. You can see varying sentence styles with lots of different comma and punctuation uses, and just seeing where I’m putting them might end up being helpful. Who knows?)
The first thing to remember about commas is that some usage is based on grammar rules of standard English, and some is based on style — whether it’s a regional style, such as the difference between British English (BE) and American English (AE), or the styles publications, companies, or institutions choose for written materials. Much of what we think is wrong or bad may simply be a difference in style. I probably correct comma/punctuation misuse more than any other thing in my job, even more than the apostrophes I mentioned last week. Punctuation is a really challenging concept for many people, even well-educated people, and the inconsistencies in English make it even more difficult. Throw in those style concepts, and you’ve got trouble. Right here in River City...
I’m on this small e-mail list where once in a while we’re mean and do “turkey reads” (MST3Ks) of bad fanfic, and one time, one of the turkeyers said, “I weep for the commas.” Because this guy had no idea how to punctuate, so he never did. I’ve used one of his lines from a terrible X-Files story as a .sig for years because I love the utter purity of his stupidity — not only is there no punctuation, it’s a line of dialog that no human would ever speak: “Well lets talk some more and lets have some beer and snacks.” (And no, I have no shame about mocking someone like this in a public place.) Then another person turkeyed something with commas after every other word, so obviously she’d taken all of the commas and that’s why he couldn’t use them — because there was a worldwide comma shortage. Maybe even more than bad spelling and homophone abuse, comma problems plague fanfic.
What commas do best is create sentences that are more than just choppy single lines, and allow us, in writing, to show how we string words together into complex sentences in speech. I’m not gonna bore you with talk of independent clauses and all, but the big thing to remember is that a comma serves to link parts of a sentence when you combine those separate parts with a conjunction like: and, but, or, nor, and so on. So most of the time, you’ll want to use a comma with and or but or yet or so, or even or. “Mulder wanted to visit Scully in the hospital, but he was stuck on the alien operating table, and it looked like he’d be here a while.” Even if you’re not sure, sound it out — the comma goes where a slight pause or hesitation in speech goes, so if you think you’d give that slight pause, then you’ll probably want the comma. To make it more confusing, short phrases don’t necessarily require commas — “the bleached blonde is cute but sort of scary.” It takes practice to get the hang of this, and I realize many people just can’t sound it out— they won’t be able to hear it at all. Getting a good, well-edited book (or piece of fanfic) can help you learn to do this, though. And all of this presupposes AE, because in BE, they frequently leave off that comma before a conjunction that joins two parts of a sentence.
Another serious problem area I see a lot is the introductory phrase. In that bad example I cited above, the introductory phrase is just the word “well,” but it can be a much longer phrase. We have a natural, very slight pause in speech after introductory phrases, so you’re pretty safe to guess “yup, comma here” even if you’re not sure. “When you meet, tell Michael the code phrase or he’ll shoot you.” “Later on, we’re going to the Bronze to dance.” Most importantly, use it after a greeting — if I can impart nothing else to anyone, I want to impart this — use a freaking comma after a greeting or acknowledgement: “Hey, Buffy, want some blood?” “Come in, Angel, Wes is expecting you.” “Yo, Gunn, where’s your posse?” Please, I beg of you — it’s not Hi Mulder or Hello Scully or So Mr. Skinner. I weep for the commas!
Sometimes, though, what trips people up here is that you don’t always need a comma when the rest of the sentence is closely linked with that intro phrase — “I won’t be joining the CTU because my application was rejected by Jack Bauer.” It’s a tricky thing to understand, but sometimes that reading aloud thing can really help you. And in BE, they don’t often use the comma after an intro phrase as much as we do, so that adds to confusion. There’s tons of subsets to this rule, but like I said — pages and pages and pages. The Harbrace College Handbook, Diana Hacker’s Writer’s Reference... there’s gajillions of good books and probably lots of web sites that will explain more about commas than you want to know.
Last week, a couple people mentioned the serial comma, and some didn’t know what that was. Commas are used to separate items in a series. The serial comma refers to how it’s used when all items in a series have the comma after them, rather than all the items but the last that’s joined with a conjunction. So you’d have: “Blair had long hair, big eyes, short legs, and round glasses” with a serial comma (that last comma there after legs), but without the serial comma (most commonly used in BE and in many newspaper/periodical style guides) it would be long hair, big eyes, short legs and round glasses. I have peculiarly strong feelings about serial commas — I think they can aid in understanding, and indeed, even style guides that prohibit them recognize that if the serial comma will aid in understanding, then it should be used. So why people insist on not using it no matter what the circumstances, I do not get. But I see this all the time on my editing list, where the BE speakers will not budge that they do not use it under any circumstances. That’s the hardest part of my job — explaining to people that style guides are style GUIDES, not laws that can never be broken or else you'll be taken outside and executed with a double-tap to the back of the head. Even if your style guide says “don’t use,” like my company’s does, when you get a really long, complex series of things, you’ll want that serial comma to help readers out. To me, it’s asinine to make things harder for the reader — it’s not about your fucking style laws, it’s about the reader: our jobs as writers and editors is to make everything clear and understandable and elegant, not to blindly follow some dumbass “rule” that isn’t even a grammar rule, but a style choice. Grrrr.
So for a long, complex series, even if you’re a BE writer, that last comma may be a godsend to a reader. As well, if there’s even a slight possibility of misunderstanding, use it — lawyers frequently use the serial comma because it can make a legal difference. An example commonly cited (that’s probably apocryphal) is “I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.” Does this mean his parents are Ayn Rand and God, or is he dedicating to all three of them? It’s open to interpretation, but throw in that last comma and there is no interpretation. (Someone mentioned one that they saw in a TV guide thing, which I liked tremendously, that said: “Tonight’s guests include Desmond Tutu, an elderly somethingorother and a dildo collector.” Which, you know, could easily confuse someone into thinking Mr. Tutu was the elderly somethingorother as well as a dildo collector. While he could just be one, perhaps that’s a confusion you might wish to avoid. Most of the Brits chimed in with, “I understood perfectly that there were three distinct people involved,” but I thought that was just stubbornly obtuse.) The serial comma never hurt anyone, it often can help (and can be crucial to technical or legal documentation), so why be stubbornly obtuse? Why not just use it if there’s any potential misunderstanding? Do. Not. Get it.
I won’t get into the last big thing commas do, which is set off elements that seem kinda parenthetical, because most people don’t have too much trouble with this — stuff like “Some people, according to Angel, just can’t be saved.” When you do this, the commas travel in pairs, but usually if you can write a basic sentence, you can handle this one. What people don’t get — but something I’m seeing way less of — is what’s called a comma splice, where there’s punctuation but no conjunction, or a fused sentence (run-on sentence) where there’s no punctuation at all. Don’t just stick a comma in the middle of a sentence because you think it might sound like it should be there — not “The stakes were sharp, he feared them greatly” but “The stakes were sharp, and he feared them greatly.” If you really want to be the serious punctuator, use a semicolon there: “The stakes were sharp; he feared them greatly.” A run-on would be where you didn’t use any punctuation at all — “Xander sent her a valentine she sent it back unopened breaking his heart.” That would be better separated into two sentences with periods, or with a semicolon, or with a comma and then “and.” Of course, BE doesn’t even really have the concept of a comma splice, so a lot of this is peculiar to AE — keep that in consideration if you’re betaing, because not all of this stuff applies if you’re working across the pond.
BE uses commas far less often than AE, but in recent years I’ve seen study results that say reading level comprehension has been decreasing in the UK, and sometimes I wonder if some of the stylistic things we use, such as lots of commas, might not start showing up there as well to aid reader comprehension. Could be interesting to watch. Commas are probably the most flexible and helpful pieces of punctuation you can find, but that may be why they’re so misunderstood — familiarity breeds contempt. You can find whole chapters about them in most usage books, but when in doubt, read something aloud, see how it sounds, and that might help you decide where to throw in a comma — or take one out. Myself, I go through these periods where I follow different styles — almost all of my X-Files fic, I was in my British style is better phase, and I wasn’t using commas half as much, driving my American betas nuts. Now I’m back to a middle ground, but who knows? Maybe I’ll adopt the no punctuation style and save them all for someone else, so there won’t be a worldwide comma shortage.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 12:35 pm (UTC)I have an incredibly hard time with punctuation as a non-native speaker, b/c somewhere deep down there are some German rules left over who use commas differently and semicolons much less often. I loved your explication of the serial comma to which I am quite attached, In fact, I love Strunk&White for that reason alone (well, and for retaining the Yeats's and Keats's :-)
Just one general observation which is how I always explain to my students why I personally do not think the comma splice is a mistake ever in the same ball park as the fragment: why does but require the comma yet nevertheless starts a new sentence? (I mean, I know why grammatically, but my gut sees little difference!) And what about the yet?
One question: I've looked around but have yet to find a really good guide on that. I betaed for a Brit speaker and put in all the commas to separate sentences with but and and. She told me it wasn't required in B.E. Now, what's the Canadian and Australian usage? And are there clear rules where it *would* be required?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 12:51 pm (UTC)I've always had a hard time with the concept of comma splices, because I frankly have never thought them quite the grammatical crime all my guidebooks, and many of my friends, think they are. The example I wrote actually doesn't even bother me at all -- and in BE, it's perfectly normal (the Harbrace Grammar Handbook actually has a note about English as a Second Language that warns if you're teaching British English to students, they often link independent clauses with a comma, so that whole comma splice thing is irrelevant). Maybe it's because I've loved learning other languages, or maybe because I read so much Brit and Canadian pub'd literature, I don't know, but that whole comma splice linking two independent clauses just never bugged me. I think, frankly, you're on the right track, but for American readers/betas, it's something to expect you could get flak for.
Even though AE insists on commas before conjunctions, the British way just never bothered me. Anyways, re the nevertheless thing and all that, I really have come to treasure Diana Hacker's Writer's Reference book. But another popular book is The Transitive Vampire, which gets into some seriously difficult notions of grammar in a fun and entertaining way. It can be very obscure and challenging though, I think, so I don't necessarily recommend it to everyone.
I think most of my Canadian compatriots say they use a mix of styles most times, mostly BE, a little AE. And the Australian folks on my copyediting list mostly seem to follow fairly closely the BE styles.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 12:58 pm (UTC)"My family is made up of Irish, Republican, Army brats."
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 01:02 pm (UTC)Glad I'm not the only one with that opinion about the c.s.--I mean, fragments...hello! There is some serious basic grammatical understanding lacking!!! The other is just a comma rule.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 01:34 pm (UTC)And I'm so terribly self-conscious of my grammar and punctuation in this comment! Also no commas...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 01:47 pm (UTC)Commas are the bane of everyone's existence, I swear. It's especially hard for me because I have three different styles I have to juggle at work. That's another thing I like about BE -- less reliance on style books and rule books. I think the Yank tendency is so structured it gets silly sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 01:51 pm (UTC)Would actually love to 'hear' you pontificate on comma splicing in some future posting! Thanks for taking the time to write these up, too. I wonder if you'd be willing to have them republished elsewhere on the web at some point?
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 01:52 pm (UTC)I know I tend towards a hybrid US/BE style re commas. Hopefully it works.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 07:25 pm (UTC)I can't imagine anyone else wanting to read these ramblings of a crazed editorial mind, but I guess I ought to at least put them in the memories thingie -- thanks for reminding me!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 12:02 pm (UTC)I have a tendency to recast a sentence when faced with something like the above: "I dedicate this book to Ayn Rand, my parents and God." (Of course, after I said that I nearly put the serial comma in. Must be habit.) I think the most important thing is consistency within a document. If you're going to use a serial comma, use it everywhere.
Here's one that's always confused me: explain restrictive versus nonrestrictive clauses when using commas to set off names. [g] The example in Strunk & White is:
My cousin Bob is a talented harpist. (restrictive)
Our oldest daughter, Mary, sings. (nonrestrictive)
Argh. I was taught that you always set the name off, but I know that's not correct. (Damn California school system.)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-19 11:49 pm (UTC)