Welcome to the first post in the Grammar & Romance series! A quick introduction on what this is about, why this is about and where this is headed, i.e., why should you bother reading past this first paragraph? Grammar & Romance is about looking at the small-to-large things in the English language that make it grammatically interesting, confusing and fun. I have always imagined that sentences are strung together like a combination of different food items, flavours or ingredients. The best and worst combinations will both leave a memory on the tongue that is unlikely to be forgot, but one usually wants to be on the side of cooking up the good memories. I decided to start this series partly because I was interested in relearning some grammar concepts that my years since graduating have left behind, but also because I have a passion for the subject, and I believe that whenever someone comes along, able to stir up that heart-felt fire on a topic that most people in the world regard as bland (taxes, contracts, administration, grammar), then that someone has an opportunity to present said subject to the world in a new (and tasty) light. This is my humble attempt to do just that.
Now that you have the what and why, let’s talk about the where. This series will consist of five parts, each dedicated to an aspect of grammar that gives to the English language that experiential je ne sais quoi I regard as more-or-less equivalent to what separate aspects of a meal offer to the fine-dining enthusiast. I chose this particular metaphor for a number of reasons: Drawing upon my experiences as guest and waitress in fine-dining restaurants, my love for wine, my mental connection between sentence construction and food, and because of that open, positive expectation one gets when sitting down to eat at the restaurant. I especially like that bad experiences are almost forgiven and not expected to repeat there, instead, a blank slate is given to the new place and positive reviews guide the guest’s palette in their choices for the evening.
Dear reader, let us enter this place together and look around in appreciation of the potential our meal together holds. Call to mind those aroma-filled books and freshly ground beans of literature. Sip at the reservoirs of thought and admire the subtleties of punctuation that touched the barrel of ideas before being brought to us for a tasting. Let’s thank the chef d’oeuvre for the literary meals prepared and already devoured, but first, let’s enter the doors of this place and, with curiosity, accept the offered apéritif.
The comma is probably one of the most misunderstood pieces of English grammar, made more complicated by the different usage preferences among speakers around the world. Where American English offers the comma to any and all who may be passing by, British English (arguably more refined) is far more picky in terms of why the offering and when it is appropriate to make the offer at all. I like to think of the first as a sparkling white wine, waiting at the door and given to all guests as they arrive- regardless of taste preferences. The latter is more a display of choices, including gin, dry sherry (with a delectably nutty undertone) and the classic vermouth. So where should the comma be used? I am not going to waste words by putting up a “top ten comma usage tips” list, because the internet is littered with enough repetitions of the obvious that you could practically bathe in their printouts. Instead, I will talk about the three comma usage errors that grate my personal brand of cheese the most.
1: The Oxford Comma
The main purpose of this little guy is to relieve the reader of ambiguity in a sentence. An example I learnt from one of my English lecturers at university always gives me a bit of a giggle:
I went to the Kruger National Park and saw two rhinoceros, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
While the above has plenty of humour value for the reader to enjoy, the joke is in the ambiguity. Are Trump and Clinton being referred to as part of the animal kingdom’s Perissodactyla order, or were they simply spotted in the vicinity of these animals? In the case of the latter (and where humour is not the writer’s objective), below is a better sentence:
I went to the Kruger National Park and saw two rhinoceros, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton.
Here is where my earlier jab at the American preference for generalised and over-simplified usage of the comma comes in. Below is an example of a perfectly unambiguous sentence:
I went to the shops to buy one bag of potatoes, three pomegranates and a toothbrush.
Note the sophisticated flow of the sentence, un-pocked by unnecessary punctuation. Now see (what I call) the American version*:
I went to the shops to buy one bag of potatoes, three pomegranates, and a toothbrush.
Why must the three pomegranates be so ostracised between comma centurions? This sentence remains the same in meaning with or without the extra comma. The list was not ambiguous before the comma was added and is therefore not improved by the addition. When this is the case in your writing, going without the extra comma is like choosing the display of welcome drinks over the thoughtless sparkling wine and, after some contemplation, picking up a glass of dry sherry because it best suits your tastes. It is a thoughtful decision and readers will thank you for it.
*Many people have chosen to use the oxford comma in this way- American or not- but requiring it is an American prescription, so I blame America for it. There are British style-guides of note that insist upon it too, but I suspect the confusion that Americans studying in England faced upon arrival sans comma etiquette may have had something to do with this slight. Eyes narrowed, on continue…
2: The comma as a pause
Many people go by the rule-of-thumb which directs the writer to use a comma whenever they might pause in speech. There are many examples of this rule being used correctly, but when the writer starts to slash their page to pieces simply because they pause more often than most when speaking, the sentence loses its fore-mentioned sophistication. Here is an example of the correct way to use the comma in place of a pause:
One day, when I’m old, I want to travel the world with my sister.
Without the commas, that sentence would still make sense, but the commas help to break up the word-chunks so that it has a more natural flow to it. These commas also show that when I’m old is extra information that does not necessarily need to be there. Below is an example of literary butchering:
One day, when I’m old, I want to travel, the world, with my sister.
Don’t be that guy.
3: And, Or, But…
The reason for confusion here is that the writer is too zoomed in on the word (and, or, but) that they do not look at its context. The question to ask yourself (if you are that writer) is what am I using this word for? The function of but in a sentence determines whether or not it will be preceded by a comma, the word itself is not eternally chained to the mark. The same goes for and, or, so and a handful of others. So what’s the context? Well, take a look at this sentence:
John and Sally have been married for 10 years, and tomorrow is their anniversary.
The comma before and is there because it stands as a bridge (conjunction) between two independent clauses. To test if this is the case when writing complex sentences, try separating each half into its own sentence:
John and Sally have been married for 10 years. Tomorrow is their anniversary.
Now look at this:
John and Sally’s car ran out of petrol and left them stranded.
There is no value in putting a comma after petrol because and is not acting as a conjunction between two independent clauses, but between a main clause and a subordinate clause. In other words, this does not work at all:
John and Sally’s car ran out of petrol. Left them stranded.
In case you’re wondering what doesn’t work..?, the second sentence lacks a subject. Without the help of the first sentence for context, the question, who/ what left them stranded? floats around, ever unanswered.
You can find lists of other words that are used as conjunctions between clauses online, but the thing to remember is that they do not automatically come with a comma whenever they are used. When using the comma to indicate a pause, less is always more. Inundating your readers (colleagues, classmates and other victims) with unnecessary commas is like topping up your guest’s apéritif all night- never giving them a chance to move onto a more appropriate drink to pair with their main meal. It should also be noted that pauses can just as well, if not better, be expressed through the use of ellipses. When it comes to the oxford comma, there are those who choose to make use of the comma in case of ambiguity, instead of putting in the effort to determine whether or not a sentence’s meaning is really unclear. The point of an apéritif is that it is something small that enhances the flavour of a meal. Similarly, the comma is meant to enhance the reader’s experience of a text, without its presence becoming over-bearing.
I hope that you enjoyed reading this first post of the series as much as I enjoyed writing it! I aim to keep these posts on the shorter side of 2000 words (preferably under 1500), and not to bully American English all the way through (though they really had it coming with this topic). If there is one thing you take away from this, let it be that like one’s first sip of a restaurant’s apéritif, when it comes to the comma, less is always more.
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