Today at Strose I felt a bit wooden when faced with the task of explaining the secret life of commas. It’s difficult to teach anyone anything about a comma. Commas are things we don’t like to talk about. And most native English speakers don’t rely on any formal rules for using them. Instead, native speakers work by intuition, and most couldn’t explain the elaborate cognitive process by which they go about making fashionable and functional decisions about commas.
Well, there are two things I’d like be people to learn this semester about commas, at least.
1) Coordinate conjunctions: these are the FANBOYS words that team up with commas to join two independent clauses together. For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so are the words that can follow a comma that separates two independent clauses. An independent clause is a complete sentence, (or a phrase that has a complete subject and a complete verb).
The formula for using your coordinate conjunction powers is:
I.C. 1 , [coord. conjunction] I.C. 2
“The girl did not shower, so she was sent home.”
Now, when the coordinating conjunction is missing you go to the terrifying continent of:
(second thing to know about commas)
2. Comma Splices
Comma splices occur when two ICs are connected with only a comma. A comma is not powerful enough by itself to connect to ICs. That is the rule. For instance:
“The girl did not shower, she was sent home.”
It’s like you could just break that sentence in half over your knee! The comma is not a strong enough bond. We speak sentences like this all the time in daily speech, but in writing it is a big no no. Except for instances of dramatic emphasis, but you have to be aware of what you’re doing.
Anyway, three ways to correct a comma splice:
1. Use a coordinating conjunction
2. Separate the two sentences with a period. “The girl did not shower. She was sent home.”
3. Use a semicolon (comma on steroids). More on semicolons in a further episode. They connect two independent clauses by themselves–no other assembly necessary!
Ok, well, as far as the conversation on commas is concerned, I’d like for you to at least get those two connected commas concepts together. The conjunctions are our class gospel: you must know the FANBOYS words and dream about them. You must also be aware of committing comma splices and how to avoid/repair them.
OK, go forth brave compositioneers!
