Having just celebrated a birthday, it’s hard not to forget I’m getting older—maybe even, “over the hill”. And I’m doing okay with that. I have no urge to be young again even though I have great memories. While I don’t need to keep up with the latest trends in fashion, I do need to keep up with writing trends. I don’t want my writing to seem out-dated. If age gives us one thing, surely it’s a bit of life wisdom we might impart on our fellow humans, or at least an interesting perspective.
I’ve already had to learn to let go of the double-space after the period in a sentence. And I’ve learned to read some works without quotation marks for dialogue. (A trend I’m not fond of.) But lately I’ve felt like I might be using more commas then necessary. That there’s a trend to fewer of these little curly cues. Surely, they couldn’t all be unnecessary? But which ones could I do without? (I will not be dealing with lists or the much debated Oxford comma.)
My go-to reference is, “The Elements of Style,” by Shrunk & White:
- Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas.
- Place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause.
- Do not join independent clauses with a comma.
They always sound so definitive. So what’s the issue? Everyone uses an example from Dickens to illustrate when the comma was considered high-fashion in literature:
Indeed, the quarrel, from slight beginnings, rose to a considerable height, and was assuming a very violent complexion, when both parties, falling into a great passion of tears, exclaimed simultaneously, that they had never thought of being spoken to in that way . . . (Nicholas Nickleby)
So what’s changed? We have to remember that Dickens was being paid by the word. Today’s writing strives to be efficient, saying the most with the least amount of fewest words possible. People don’t have as much time to linger over prose. And the world of social media has made short shrift of all the rules of grammar.
But there’s a difference between writing a tweet and writing a novel. In the novel, we need to vary sentence length and structure to give rhythm to our language. We need to invert sentence order and write complex sentences that use commas to create meaning and give nuance to our words.
For a more fulsome description I turn to, “Eats Shoots & Leaves,” by Lynne Truss:
- Commas for joining – Used when two complete sentences are joined together, using such conjunctions as and, or, but, while and yet: p. 87 If there is no conjunction, then a semi-colon or period is required, breaking up the sentences.
- Commas filling gaps – for missing words implied by commas: Annie had dark hair; Sally, fair.
- Commas before direct speech.
- Commas setting of interjections – “Stop, or I’ll scream.”
These rules seem pretty straight-forward yet she devotes a whole 35 pages to the comma itself. So where does the comma confusion come from? According to Lynne Truss, it gets tricky for “commas that come in pairs”, or bracketing commas.
The first rule of bracketing commas is that you use them to mark both ends of a “weak interruption” to a sentence — or a piece of “additional information”. p. 90
She goes on to explain that the issue is whether or not the clause is defining.
Non-Definning: The Highland Terriers, when they are barking, are a nightmare.
Defining: The Highland Terriers that live in our street aren’t cute at all. p. 93
I can feel my desire to put a comma between street and aren’t. This is probably a holdover from when the sentence would’ve been written like this: The Highland Terriers, that live in our street, aren’t cute at all. Eureka! It is this second comma that gives me pause.
Lastly, Lynn Truss advises us not to use commas like a stupid person. Put them in the right place.
Even the title of her book illustrates how necessary the comma is to understanding the written word:
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Is the subject a dining murderer, or a panda?
On my journey ase a writer, I’ve had to learn to punctuate complex sentences. I’m no authority on the matter, but a couple of good reference books will help you sort out your comma conundrum and other punctuation puzzlers.
