The Comma in English
Here at Klutene HQ, we keep all the secrets of the English language. We will share this one with you for free. This article is about the English comma.
The English comma is used in lists, to join and to interrupt. We will start with the lists.
Here is an example. I overheard someone say, ‘My favourite people are my parents, Tom Holland, and Baby Shark.’ That is a list. Each item is divided by a comma. I do not always need that final comma before ‘and’. In this case, however, I do think I need it. What would happen if I took it away? The sentence would become ‘My favourite people are my parents, Tom Holland and Baby Shark.’ The meaning has changed. The sentence now means that the person’s parents are Tom Holland and Baby Shark.
I doubt very much they are the person’s parents. Is it likely that Tom Holland and Baby Shark have even met? So let us go back to ‘My favourite people are my parents, Tom Holland, and Baby Shark.’ I use the final comma to illustrate I am talking about four beings, not two.
The second use of the comma is to join. An example: ‘Tom Holland was good at learning languages, Baby Shark was bad at it.’ This is an incorrect use of the comma. It does not join clauses in this way.
Here is a correct use: ‘Tom Holland was good at learning languages, and Baby Shark was bad at it.’ The independent clauses need to be joined by a comma plus a connecting word, which would be ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘while’ or ‘yet’, in this circumstance. The comma joins clauses in tandem with connecting words.
Finally, the comma to interrupt. Here is an example: ‘The people of Norway, who depend on fishing, are angry.’ Those two commas interrupt ‘The people of Norway are angry’ with extra information.
Look at this second example. It has no commas, and has a different meaning: ‘The people of Norway who depend on fishing are angry.’
In the first example, all the people of Norway are angry, and all the people of Norway depend on fishing.
In the second example, only those people of Norway who depend on fishing are angry.
I used the commas to interrupt with extra information. If there are no commas, the sentence cannot be interpreted as having an interruption.
That was the use of the comma in lists, to join and to interrupt. There is more to say about commas, but I will stop here. Contact us, and we will discuss all the commas in your own writing!
Barry Kavanagh
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