Punctuation

Too bad we’re not studying Spanish (or French)

I’ve been telling the class that in twenty years’ time, comma splices will be gone. Everyone will use them, and nobody will think they’re wrong.

Then yesterday F.M. asked why I’m teaching the comma-splice rule if it’s going away.

Hah!

I’m teaching the comma-splice rule because today is today. Babies born this year (probably) won’t have to deal with comma splices when they’re twenty, but you’re not them.

You’re you, you were born when you were born, and today, in the year 2018, comma splices are still a thing. So I have to teach them, and you have to learn them. Tant pis! (That’s French for You have to learn not to use comma splices in English 110.)

I don’t mind teaching comma splices, by the way. Not at all. The comma-splice rule has always made sense to me.

That said, my view of comma splices changed when I discovered that  the French consider them correct. If French writers can use a comma to join two independent clauses, why can’t we ? 

It looks like Spanish-speaking writers don’t have a comma-splice rule, either. Spanish writers may not even have to trouble themselves over run-on sentences.

I wonder whether punctuation rules are easier to learn in French & Spanish.
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Compound sentence

A compound sentence consists of two or more complete sentences (independent clauses) combined into one:

Toes are chopped off; severed fingers fly through the air.*
Toes are chopped off; [INDEPENDENT CLAUSE] severed fingers fly through the air. [INDEPENDENT CLAUSE]

Toes are chopped off. [COMPLETE SENTENCE/INDEPENDENT CLAUSE]
Fingers fly through the air. [COMPLETE SENTENCE/INDEPENDENT CLAUSE]

There are 4 ways to combine independent clauses:

How to join independent clauses (compound sentence)
Important: these methods do not apply to joining a dependent clause with an independent clause (complex sentence)
Comma and FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet)   Toes are chopped off, and severed fingers fly through the air.
Semicolon   Toes are chopped off; severed fingers fly through the air.
Semicolon, “fancy FANBOYS,” & comma
(“fancy FANBOYS” = adverbial conjunctions or conjunctive adverbs)		 Toes are chopped off; moreover, severed fingers fly through the air.
Colon The main reason that Zipes likes fairy tales, it seems, is that they provide hope: they tell us that we can create a more just world.*
“Don’ts”
DO NOT join two independent clauses with a comma! **   Toes are chopped off, severed fingers fly through the air. WRONG!
DO NOT simply run the two independent clauses together! ***   Toes are chopped off severed fingers fly through the air. WRONG!

* source:
Acocella, Joan. “The Lure of the Fairy Tale.” The New Yorker. 23 July 2012. Print.
** As with so many grammar and writing rules, the comma-splice rule has an exception. However, I wouldn’t worry about it for college writing. When you are writing papers for college classes, do not use a comma to combine independent clauses.
*** There are no exceptions to this rule that I’m aware of.

AND SEE:
• 5+2: the canonical sentence (clause) patterns
• Independent clause
• Compound sentence – how to punctuate
• Complex sentence
• 3 ways to combine the 7 clause patterns

Commas after “introductory elements”

For example, [INTRODUCTORY PHRASE] the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” has appeared in many guises.

Reading “Little Red Riding Hood,” [INTRODUCTORY PARTICIPLE CLAUSE]* I am struck by the story’s lack of logic.

When I was little, [INTRODUCTORY ADVERBIAL CLAUSE] my mother read me the story of “Little Red Riding Hood.”

NEVER use a semicolon after an introductory element!

For example; the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” has appeared in many guises.
Reading “Little Red Riding Hood;” I am struck by the story’s lack of logic.

Doesn’t work!

* The participle clauses are often called the participle phrase.

“The semicolon is your friend”

From an amusing list of pet peeves posted by a writing teacher:

In my ten years of composition instruction, I have developed a set of pet peeves associated with the body of student writing I have read. Any of my students reading this should keep in mind that I do not direct this at any particular student — this list is a synthesis of common writing errors that I often find in student papers at every grade level 6-12 and every academic level, including Honors or AP.

[snip]

• Run-ons, comma splices, and fragments. Subject+verb+complete thought=sentence. Commas cannot join independent clauses. Independent clauses cannot simply be mashed together either. Let me introduce you to the semicolon. He is your friend.

No question about it: the semicolon is my friend.

The Oxford comma

I always use the “Oxford comma!”

The “Oxford comma” is the final comma in a series:

In class today, we discussed “Hansel and Gretel,” combined sentences, worked on sentence paragraph focus and did an exercise on misplaced modifiers.
[NO COMMA AFTER ‘PARAGRAPH FOCUS’]

versus:

In class today, we discussed “Hansel and Gretel,” combined sentences, worked on sentence paragraph focus, and did an exercise on misplaced modifiers.
[COMMA AFTER ‘PARAGRAPH FOCUS’]

Without Oxford comma:
This book is dedicated to my roommates, Nicole Kidman and God.

Oxford comma:
This book is dedicated to my roommates, Nicole Kidman, and God.

A panda walks into a bar

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

‘Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

‘Well, I’m a panda,’ he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’

Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham, 2006. Print ISBN-10: 1592402038 ISBN-13: 978-1592402038

Update 2/22/2012: Visual aid for the “Oxford comma” from Language Log