The Oxford Comma, Robert Frost, and Comma Suicide

This will start out boring for non-punctuation-lovers, but then I'll quote Robert Frost, which is always a great benefit to society. So slog through the boring part to get to the poetry and my explanation of how Frost shows how important it is to "know the rules, then break them."

Oxford Comma

Here's a minor comma fix, and it's more "discretionary than obligatory:" The Oxford comma.

For some reason, the final comma in a series (before the "and") is called the Oxford comma, but it's also called the "serial comma". The rule is, when you have a series of three or more items in a row, with "and" before the last one, you put a comma before the "and" so that there's a comma after each item. So: The US flag is red, white, and blue.

This is done differently in journalism, where they used to have to save space and ink and so eliminated as many comma rules as they could. J So you'll see the "and" without a comma before in magazine and newspapers and often on news websites too.

Academic writing, however, follows the rules of book publishing, and the "Oxford comma" is the convention there. Just a minor change, and as I said, this is a rule in academic and book writing, so you'll often see series without that comma in the popular press.

More about the "Oxford comma"

See Commas, Commas, and More Commas.

What About Robert Frost, You Ask?

The great American poet Robert Frost surely knew the rules. No one made better use of the conventions of the language and grammar than he did in creating his deceptively simple and lovely poems. He's a great example of how understanding the convention (and how the reader would conventionally read something) in order to subvert it for a greater or deeper meaning-- punctuation becomes subtext.

Now as I said above, the general rule followed by book editors and publishers is that when there is a series of three or more like items (like three adjectives), you place a comma before the "and" or the last item in the series, indicating that these are all basically similar and yet separate from each other.

So with Frost's poem in manuscript, the book editor (or, as the Frost myth goes, the typesetter of the book, cleaning up after the editor ) saw this line with this series:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

Well, of course the punctilious editor/typesetter made haste to add that Oxford comma-- the RULE.

And usually, that would have been exactly correct.

However, again according to myth, Frost saw the proofs and quickly "stetted" or insisted that the original be maintained.

Why? Was Frost being stupid? Did he not know the rule?

He knew the rule. He knew what effect abiding by the rule would create for the reader. And he knew he wanted another effect, one that could be achieved by subverting the rule.

Let's look at the two meanings-- comma in or comma out.

Here's the entire stanza. This is the final verse of that achingly beautiful poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".  (You can read the whole poem, and you really should, here at the Poetry Foundation.)

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep

So this was what Frost ended up with-- what he started with, what he wanted-- comma out.

Why did he insist on that change, or rather, the change back? The defiance of convention? 

Let's look at the meaning conveyed by each option.  

Comma in:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.

With that comma in, the three adjectives are "equal in weight". That is:

The woods are lovely, the woods are dark, and the woods are deep.

They each modify or describe "the woods".

Now take the comma out, and see what happens:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

With the comma out, the "dark and deep" now modify "lovely":

The woods are lovely, because they are dark and deep.

See the difference?

The first is a placid and unremarkable (though perfect in its scansion :) description of the woods.

The second is a subtextual confession of the longing for "darkness and depth".

Here is a man who has stopped by a snowy woods on a winter evening, a man weary of his responsibilities, his "promises to keep", and momentarily transfixed by the "loveliness" of the woods. And what is lovely about them to him? The darkness and depth. The death. (This is poetry, so it won't be transparent. This is Frost, so we must always search beneath the extraordinary "prettiness" of his prose to find the deep meaning he always embeds.)

He looks at the woods. He finds the darkness and depth "lovely". He thinks of... well. No. He can't do that. He has promises to keep, and miles to go before he sleeps.

We have just witnessed a man choosing life. 

Those final lines (repeated just to make you ponder this):

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep

Those would have little resonance if all that had just happened was the man stopped and saw the pretty woods and commented on how they are "lovely, dark, and deep."

Coming after that line with the missing comma, however?

They mean he's made a choice. He will not succumb to the "lovely dark and depth." He will keep those promises and trudge those miles and then sink into a temporary (not permanent) sleep.

He knew the rules. He chose to break them-- for a very specific effect. That effect could happen only if he could trust that most readers would know how it "should" be punctuated, and stop and wonder why the comma was left out.

This is one of the great techniques we have when we craft and refine our own voice. We can know the conventional rules and the conventional and usually appropriate effects they will have.

And then we can choose to subvert the rules to achieve a different effect. 

It's not just breaking the rules to be defiant or because we're ignorant... but accepting the rules, knowing that they create a conventional meaning, knowing that now the reader-- trained in the conventions-- will be surprised and thoughtful in discovering this new meaning.

We are in control of our own voice. But we need to take control. We need to know more about the language and how it can be manipulated-- and most important, we need to know how the reader will interpret our choices.

Well, heck, time to go read that whole poem. I encountered this first in 5th grade at St. Aidan's School in Boston. Interestingly, the nun (nuns weren't known then for cross-curricular pedagogical innovations) Sister Hugh had us put this poem to music, and I could still sing our ballad if you want. (You don't.) I thought it was the most beautiful poem in the world then. (I'm still pretty in love with it.)

Grammar questions answered: Restrictive and non-restrictive

I asked for some grammar questions, expecting/wanting some softballs. Ha! Not a chance. But I will throw myself to the wolves and try to answer.

Stacey asked-
Here's my question(s): What is a restrictive clause? What does it mean, really? What makes it restrictive?

I ask this, because I have a note that says if I'm using the word "which" in a restrictive clause, I should replace it with "that." It would be a helpful note if I knew what it meant! Hahaha! :)
 Okay, to get very basic, a clause is an element which has a subject and verb, and it can be "independent" (can be a sentence on its own, like This will be a long and tedious explanation), or dependent, (which can't be a complete sentence on its own, like which will be hard to understand). 
 Dependent clauses can be used in many ways in a sentence, like to establish some time or place condition--
When I was young, we used to have to walk three miles uphill to school.
or
Wherever we stay that night, we should get a suite with a view of the river.
"Restrictive" clauses are special types of  "relative" clauses. (A relative clause – I know, this gets arcane, but you know, you say and write these every day, even if you don't know the terms—is a clause which "relate" one thing to another. Forget that—just know that relative clauses start with those relative pronouns—who, which, that, what— and then have a verb, like Relative pronouns, which include "which and who," are how relative clauses start.) Relative nouns are usually "adjectival", modifying a noun (often but not always the subject of the sentence). So they are usually used as "appositives" and tell more about the noun that precedes them:  Governors, who serve a four-year term, are the chief executives of their states.
 You can see there that the relative clause—the appositive—just tells us more about governors. (Not all appositives are clauses—they can just be phrases, like The lady in the red hat ordered the soy latte. But let's not deal with that now. :)
What's important in that example is that it tells us more about ALL governors- that is, the meaning of the noun governor isn't narrowed by the appositive. ALL governors serve a four-year term.
 That is a NON-restrictive clause. It tells us more information about the noun it modifies, but it doesn't "restrict" the noun.

Relative clauses can be restrictive or non restrictive.  That is, they either restrict or don't restrict the noun they modify.

Let's come up with a RESTRICTIVE appositive/relative clause (so many terms! But "appositive" is syntactical—about the role this plays in this particular sentence—while "relative clause" is a grammatical term… well, never mind J).  
A restrictive clause will "restrict" or narrow the meaning of the noun it modifies, like:
Governors who take bribes should be impeached.
In this case, the relative "who" clause "restricts" the noun to a specific and narrow meaning. There are many governors, but in this case, I'm speaking only of the ones who take bribes. I'm not saying every governor should be impeached, only that special group who take bribes (I'm hoping that's a small percentage of them!). The restrictive clause stuck in there actually "restricts" the noun, see.
Now the noun phrase isn't just the single word "governors," but the narrower term "governors who take bribes."

Let's diagram both those sentences:
Subject (noun phrase)
Predicate (verb phrase)
Governors, who serve a four-year term, are the chief executives of their states.
Governors who take bribes should be impeached.
See the difference? Who are the chief executives of the states? Governors. You can take the appositive clause out and the main clause still means what you want it to mean—
Governors are the chief executives of their states.
But see what happens when you take the appositive out of the second one:
Governors should be impeached.
Even if we don't like politicians, we probably don't mean that all governors should be impeached!

So…
Relative clause (who/which/what/that + verb)
Appositive (a clause or phrase which explains more about a noun)
Restrictive clause (a relative clause which "restricts" the meaning of a noun) Governors who take bribes should be impeached. This is NOT set off with commas before and after because it is necessary to the meaning and actually becomes part of the noun.
Non-restrictive clause (a relative clause which explains more about a noun but doesn't restrict the meaning)- Governors, who serve a four-year term, are the chief executives of their states. These are set off before and after with commas, to show that they are "unnecessary" to the meaning.
--
What about "which and that"?
They are both "relative pronouns" which start relative clauses.
"Which" is used in non-restrictive clauses JUST BECAUSE. (I mean, I don't know why.) That means you use commas before "which"—not because it's "which," but because it's non-restrictive, which uses "which".
"That" means exactly the same thing, but is used with restrictive clauses and no commas.
(With people, btw, no matter what, we use "who." Also, my cat, WHO is named Bandit, reminds me we also use "who" with pets.)

Restrictive clause –  Pedestrian malls that are successful share three important factors. (that is, we're only talking about successful pedestrian malls).

(People= who) Pedestrians who cross against the light are taking a big risk. (Only those who cross against the light are taking a big risk.)

Non-restrictive clause -- Pedestrian malls, which limit car traffic on downtown streets, are popular with businesses because they increase foot traffic. (All pedestrian malls are popular with businesses.)

Pedestrians, who are often walking for their health, are tempted by the bakeries which line Ontario Street.

What do you think? Does that make sense?  Often if you speak the sentence aloud, you can tell if you mean the more narrow subject ("Governors who take bribes"), as you will speak that without the pause that would indicate commas.

Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive always gives me a headache to explain, and anyway, it's been explained better by others:
Restrictive_and_Nonrestrictive
Another site for this
Check these out. :)

Commas to set off introductory elements-- rationale for the "always"

I've been working with students on the purpose behind punctuation, so that they can feel like they don't have to learn a bunch of arbitrary rules or else spend the rest of their life kind of randomly sticking commas here and there.

The purpose of punctuation, at bottom, is to tell the reader what goes with what. So in that last sentence, I set off "at bottom" by a comma before and after because the whole term goes together, and it's meant to interrupt the sentence in order to emphasize something about the subject (the purpose of punctuation).

While there are a lot of rules (and some dispute about them!), I do think it will help writing students to keep in mind there is a purpose-- this is not arbitrary-- and the purpose is grouping words and phrases that belong together in the sentence.

One of the most common "dropped comma" opportunities is the introductory element in a sentence. More and more, I'm seeing students (and other writers) discard what I think is often essential for the reader to get what goes with what-- what the real meaning is.

Punctuation's main purpose is to signal to the reader what parts of the sentence go together.  For example, in this sentence done without the comma (which is, cough, becoming all too common in magazine and web articles):

 After he completed the fields in the application document all the software apps he needed for regeneration were automatically downloaded to his brain.

 (Yes, I know, ugly sentence, but it's a close copy of an actual sentence I came across, and is a good illustration of my point. We'd all rewrite that, I know! But just for now, let's let it be there in all its ugly so I can use that introductory element.)

That long a sentence, really, I'd be looking for a place to punctuate (a GOOD place) even if there weren't an appropriate rule. That many nouns all in a line-- the reader will get lost. And the most important of those nouns (for our purpose here) is "document" (at the end of the introductory clause), and that can also be a verb, especially when followed by "software." ("One of my jobs at Compudesign was to document the software.") Hang on to that thought about nouns that can also be verbs, as that's a common problem with these sorts of sentences.

We don't want the reader to get lost! Fortunately, I don't have to invent an excuse to punctuate and slow down that cascade of nouns. I can figure out what the elements are in the sentence:

Introductory element supplying some condition or information: After he completed the fields in the application document

Main clause explaining the important action of the sentence: all the software apps he needed for regeneration were automatically downloaded to his brain.

... and add a comma in between to separate.

 After he completed the fields in the application document, all the software apps he needed for regeneration were automatically downloaded to his brain.

...the introductory clause After he completed the fields in the application document creates a different "unit of meaning" than the main clause beginning "all the software apps". If you separate those with a comma, the reader won't run the two together --  document all the software apps. Sometimes without the comma, when we let the last word of the intro element run into the first words of the main clause, the reader will get confused. It’s especially confusing when the word at the end of the intro element can be either a noun—a thing or name—or a verb—an action. "Document" would generally be assumed to be a noun... but not when it's right by "all the software," because "documenting software" is an actual task.

In English, there are many words that started as mere nouns and then became also verbs, and vice versa. Here are just a few that I've seen at the end of intro elements:

time

report

comment

mention

demand

command

order

walk

talk

sight

survey

transport

bus

carpool

pool

harpoon

polish

...

Can you think of more? I know that you can. :) Hey, "CAN" would apply also.

And we don't even want to get into adjectives that can also be past-tense verbs (because a past participle, which is often identical to the past tense, can be used as an adjective, like "brushed" and "enlightened" and "solicited). 

When a intro element ends with a word like “time” or “report” that could be either a noun or a verb, the reader might automatically connect it as a verb to the next word—time it, report that….)  

So if we don't routinely use the comma to separate intro from main, quite often the reader will rush past the end of the intro to the start of the main and stop. Confused. What? 

At that time the swimmers...

In the report your comings and goings...

When she read through the survey the new highway....

After I started to walk down the street was the store where...

Since I already had everything in order the children....

Eventually the reader will go back and pick out what goes with what, and, well, mentally insert the comma we left out. Because I deal with so many student papers, I see many such sentences, and every time, I -- a trained reader, teacher, editor, writer-- pause, regroup, re-read. If I'm confused even when I'm carefully reading, imagine how confused the skimming reader will be.

We want readers to pause over our brilliant insights, not our confusing syntax.  And even a moment where the readers are confused and have to re-read brings the danger of losing their attention, and, indeed, their trust in our ability to control our own meaning.. 

Hence the rule: Introductory phrases and clauses should be set off from the main sentence with a comma:

This is pretty easy to fix as you revise, once you get used to recognizing these introductory clauses and phrases. They'll be at the beginning of the sentence, but the main part of the sentence, the main subject and verb clause, will be after that. It's just a matter of finding where the intro phrase or clause is, and where the main clause begins, and putting a comma to separate them. Some examples (intro phrase or clause bolded):

Intro phrases:

Therefore, Napoleon's invasion of Russia led to his doom.

In 1815, Wellington won the battle of Waterloo.

Well, I don’t know about that.

After that, she went to the university to study biology.

Already knowing everything, my teenaged son won't listen to me.

Garish with red and blue stripes, his shirt clashed with everything.

Intro clauses:

Even after Jane drank the warm milk, she couldn't fall asleep.

When she was 16, her parents bought the house in Surrey.

When I asked, he couldn't explain.

Before it starts to rain, let's finish painting the garage door.

Recently, I've been seeing many writers discard this in most of their sentences. I really don't get the rationale of not using this comma routinely.  Running together your intro and your main clause will almost always create confusion, and most of the time you won't want to create confusion.

Then-- if you usually follow this rule-- when you choose NOT to use it, to energize the flow of the sentence to create more of a sense of action say, your choice will stand out as meaningful. There's no meaning in breaking a rule you never follow anyway... so if a writer wants the additional speed and flow of NOT using that comma, following the rule most of the time will make the occasional rule-break stand out as significant.

 To restate:
Breaking a rule you don't follow anyway provides no additional value or meaning.
Rebels need something to rebel against. :)
"Always and never" make the exception possible.


I would love some better examples of sentences that confuse, so if you come across some in your reading, can you let me know? Real examples are so much more... real... than the ones I make up.
Also, if you have examples of sentences where you've broken a rule (esp. this rule) for a particular effect, can you post that too and why you did it? I need good rule-break examples also, to show the contrast between accidental and intentional. Thanks, all!

Alicia

Coolkayer commented:

Alicia, perhaps you've already done this, but please consider a post on capitalization after a colon. Every time I think I've got it--if the post-colon portion of the sentence is a full sentence unto itself, capitalize--then I see someone not cap a full sentence, and once again, I'm sunk. It's better than he thought: He can run all day now. Or It's better than he thought: he can run all day now. (This example confuses me to no end as it might be a semicolon or an em-dash instead of a colon. Ugh!) Thanks! on Sentences: Why a clause? Why a comma? Rules bend for meaning construction

Good question! I think part of the problem is that like so much else, the colon does double duty. It's used to join an introduction with an explanation or definition:

(Explanation... "why")

You should know why I left the party: My former business partner, the one who embezzled, was holding court by the pool.

(Definition "what")

First, understand what sociopathy is: a personality disorder that causes the person to engage in antisocial behavior due to a lack of an awareness of morality.

But the colon can also signal that what follows will be a list:

(list of three or more)

My cousin has failed at marriage three times: with Mike the love-maker, with Joe the taker, and with Pete the faker.

The list can be bulleted or numbered also:

My completed legal coursework includes: 

• ·         Legal Research and Writing
• ·         Advanced Legal Research
• ·         Legal Ethics and Law Office Practice
• ·         Business Law  
• ·         Tort Law
• ·         Practice and Procedure in Litigation

Now the rule about capitalizing after a colon is conventionally that if what follows is a complete sentence, you capitalize the first letter after the colon. Why? Because the colon is sort of a super-powered period (end stop) then. It's separating two sentences:

You should know why I left the party.

My former business partner, the one who embezzled, was holding court by the pool.

But here we don't want to just be making two different sentences. We're connecting them to say that they go together, that (in this case), sentence B explains what we mean in sentence A:

You should know why I left the party: My former business partner, the one who embezzled, was holding court by the pool.

The capital letter at the start of the second sentence acknowledges that it's a sentence, while the colon acknowledges that the two sentences are meant to be read together.

When the second part after the colon isn't a full sentence, that capital letter would be distracting (indicating a full sentence when it's not), so we leave that lower-case, as with the definition sentence.

Bulleted and numbered lists, however, sometimes have capped first letters... for each item in the list. (No matter what you choose, the choice should be applied consistently for every item on the list.) This isn't really required, but often looks better. In the case above with the course list, those are all titles of courses, and so would probably be capitalized anyway. 

With your sentence, 

It's better than he thought: he can run all day now. 

I think the problem is "it's" as the subject. It's not informative enough to set up the "explanation," which is "He can run all day now."

That is, yes, the "He" should be capped after the colon, because what follows is the explanation (what's not as bad as he thought) and it's a full sentence. However, because "it's" is so uninformative, you're not really setting up the question in that first clause to be answered after the colon. Try this:

His condition is better than he thought: He can run all day now. 

or

His recovery has been better than he thought: He can run all day now. 

or

His leg is better than he thought: He can run all day now. 

or

His stamina is better than he thought: He can run all day now. 

So you were right-- colon is good, cap letter is good. However, your mind was telling you that something was missing or needed improvement... and that's the subject of the sentence. The first sentence or clause before a colon sets up what is to come, and so should probably be clearly informative.

What do you think? It's (as much as I use "it's" myself, as you can see!) always a good idea to check sentences with "it" and "this" and "that" as subject and see if a more precise term will sound better. The fact that I could come up with four plausible nouns there indicates that you might want to be more specific in what "it" is. :)

Good question! Punctuation has secret depths, huh?

Alicia

Interesting article about autocorrect's effect (positive) on the conveyance of good grammar

#Nuance ‏Atlantic Monthly: Will autocorrect save the apostrophe, and slow language's evolution? http://bit.ly/1opeXWN

Conclusion
(Joe Pinsker):
Meanwhile, as the battle rages on, our devices seem likely to nudge us even further in the direction of language preservation. The software company Nuance, which invented the predictive-texting technology known as T9, is developing autocorrect software capable of suggesting more-substantive grammatical changes, like proper verb conjugation. Which means that we could soon be texting like the grammarians our software wants us to be.

 Extra credit for the mention of the culture war between the extremist groups, Kill the Apostrophe and Apostrophe Protection Society.

Alicia 

Civil Disobedience Lives!

In defense of the apostrophe: Vandalism, protests, lawsuits. There'll always be an England!

Always ask "why" about punctuation rules

A student asked: I am wondering if you have any advice on avoiding the comma splices that I seems to create without realizing it? Apparently, I am horrible at following semi-colon/ comma rules.
 

What is a comma splice? It's usually a two-independent-clause sentence (two subject-verbs) with just a comma connecting them. The question is, why is it an error just to have the comma?

(I'm not going to get into the exceptions here, as they're just confusing... again, when we know the rules, we'll know when to break the rules. So ask me later and I'll see if I can figure out a good example of an exception and the reason for it.)

So let's think through the sort of sentence that would generate a comma splice.
"Two independent clauses" means that each could be a sentence on its own. We've just chosen to put them into one sentence. 
Let's make that one sentence, just to illustrate:
"Two independent clauses" means that each could be a sentence on its own, we've chosen to put them into one sentence. (THIS IS A COMMA SPLICE, BY THE WAY. I'M JUST DOING THIS TO ILLUSTRATE THE JOINING OF THE SENTENCES.)

See how we've taken two sentences and put them together. My first point is that we don't HAVE to join them! They're perfectly fine as two separate sentences. (And there's no danger of a comma splice if we keep them separate.)

So that's the central issue. Why did we put these two sentences together, risking a comma splice or a too-long sentence or some other problem? We did that, presumably, because there's some extra meaning or understanding if they're put in one sentence. And that little extra meaning is conveyed when we link them... but just linking them  isn't enough to get that meaning across. If all we're going to do is replace the period with a comma, we aren't indicating in the new sentence what the meaning is-- what the CONNECTION is. 

And that's shown not in the punctuation but in the addition of the connective word, the "conjunction." The most common conjunctions are abbreviated in the acronym FANBOYS: for (meaning because-- the old meaning), and, nor, but, or, yet, so. (For, nor, yet are kind of old-fashioned, but I think they're needed to make that acronym a word. :)

"For" implies a causal condition (Clause A happened because of Clause B).
"And" implies addition (Clause A and Clause B both happened the same time or way).
"Nor" implies negation (neither Clause A or Clause B is true).
"But" implies contrast  (Clause A and Clause B are in some conflict).
"Or" implies alternation  (either Clause A is true or Clause B).
"Yet" is another contrast like "but".
"So" is causal like "for," but in the other direction ( (Clause A causes Clause B to happen).

A comma splice is incorrect NOT because this is an arbitrary rule, but because without the conjunction, the reader won't know how these two clauses connect. Without the conjunction, the reader won't know what we're supposed to make of them together. This is really important when there's a contrast or a cause. The reader shouldn't have to puzzle about whether the author is confused and just doesn't know that the clauses conflict with each other -- I like blue best, (but) I chose a red car-- or that one causes the other -- Mary forgot Joe's birthday, (so) he forgot Valentine's day. Put in the doggone conjunction to show that you know what you're implying.

So let's go back to that first pair of clauses, and let's think about what the connection is:
"Two independent clauses" means that each could be a sentence on its own, (conjunction here) we've chosen to put them into one sentence. 
What conjunction would you put in there? ABOS? (I've taken out the old-fashioned ones, and you can see it's not as good an acronym!) And? But? Or? So? Which of those words best implies the linkage? (Read it aloud, and I bet you'll "hear" the right one.)

See, it's the conjunction more than the comma which adds meaning. The comma is just a substitute for the period that would be there if these were still two sentences. The conjunction is important, and yet, that's the element that's dropped in a comma splice. So don't think of a comma splice as a comma problem. It's a MEANING problem. There's a missing word that supplies meaning. Add that conjunction, and you add meaning (and oh, yeah, you fix the comma splice).

Now of course, you can also use a semicolon! And that might seem like a simple way to "fix" a comma splice. But it's not... because the problem with a comma splice isn't the punctuation! It's the missing conjunction. Just putting in a semicolon to replace the comma makes the sentence grammatically correct:
"Two independent clauses" means that each could be a sentence on its own; we've chosen to put them into one sentence. 
But it doesn't make the sentence more meaningful. It doesn't tell the readers how to connect these two things in their minds. Only the conjunction can do that. (Notice that the adverbial conjunctions like "however" and "moreover" are just synonyms of the usual conjunctions-- "however" means "but," "moreover" means "and." For a couple reasons I can only speculate, we use the semicolon with them.)

Why then-- meaning-wise-- would we use a semicolon rather than the more meaningful conjunction+comma?
Two situations:
1) When the linkage between the two clauses is completely and absolutely clear without a conjunction: I went to the store; I needed milk. However, I would not use a semicolon for some lame sentence like that, just because semicolons tend to stick out and are often considered "stodgy" and "too formal," so they should be used sparingly. (Some editors think they should always be edited out, by the way. We call this disagreement The Great Semicolon War, and I have to say, I'm a combatant on the "let's keep semicolons" side.) 
2) When the writer wants the connection to be presented as ironic, without spelling it out. Mary forgot Joe's birthday; he forgot Valentine's day. The reader is supposed to figure out that, you know, Joe didn't actually forget, that he did that deliberately. Again, less is more. I'd do this only when I wanted to force the reader to figure out what I'm implying.

Anyway, just remember... the problem with a comma splice is that a sentence like that is missing the conjunction, and the conjunction adds the additional meaning that should come when you put two clauses together rather than leaving them on their own. Think "connection," not "comma" here. It's not an arbitrary rule, but a guideline meant to guide us to the greater meaning.

Does that help, or just confuse things more?
Alicia

Commas before quotes

Usually, of course, when you hook a quote to a sentence, there's a comma in between, like:

He opened his eyes and said, "Not you again."

What do you do, however, when the quote is just a piece of the quote, and the sentence isn't a nice neat quote tag (he said)?

This is a sentence I adapted (just the details changed-- same construction and punctuation) from the newspaper we have often relied on for perfect copy editing (that one with all the news that fits, I mean, that is fit). If it weren't in The Newspaper, I'd probably just sniff and feel superior. But... but... surely the Gray Lady's copy editor can't be wrong????

Here 'tis:

She once termed this, “the ultimate trend in technology.”

 Your thoughts on that comma? I would never use it. The quote isn't the full quote, and the tag is really a substitute for whatever identifying clause came in the actual quote. The quote itself is really just the appositive (explanation) for the pronoun 'this," "this" being the object of the verb "termed".

I wouldn't use a comma there, but let's try a non-quote substitute. (Clearly, I'm still assuming if the NYTimes -- oops, told ya-- copy editor puts a comma there, it was done judiciously.)

She once called Paul the last honest man.

Hmm. No, I wouldn't put a comma there. 

Ruling from you all? And rationale?

Alicia

Taking tone OUT

I might not be the best to say this-- notice the capitalization in the heading-- but I'm noticing that one all-too-common and somewhat anachronistic trend is perhaps overused, causing too much "tone."

That's capitalization. I was just reading a student paper that felt like a rant to me, but as I read it over, I realized that the content was appropriately contained and the word choice neutral. So why did it seem so rant-y?

Capital letters. Too many. The student was perhaps using an old usage guide, or capitalizing what he thought was important, or assuming that most nouns were proper nouns. Anyway, a sentence would be like this:

When I entered The University in the Fall, I immediately knew that I wanted to study Political Science, so that I could learn more about the Founders of our Nation and how they protected the rights of  The People.

The only letters I'd capitalize in that sentence are "W" (to start the sentence) and "I".

Each capital makes the reader sort of lurch forward and emphasize that word. So we're focused on the specialness of something. What's special about this university above all other universities? (If "university" is part of the title AND the whole title is there, yes, cap-- the University of Chicago-- but not when the rest of the title is missing, and pace Ohio State alums, but capitalizing the before "university" shows a certain fear of inadequacy, sort of like wearing a codpiece.)

To me, this reads as some perhaps adorably naive, very freshman-ish. (It was from a graduate student, alas.) It's the equivalent of dotting your i's with little circles. And when coupled with an even vaguely political slant, it comes off as a bit rant-ish. The People, you know? You mean, uh, us?  Oh, no. You don't mean "us," you mean The People who deserve better than the rest of us, huh?
You don't actually mean that, so don't capitalize a common noun.

As long as we're on the subject, I realize my overuse of "air quotes" (just like that, and you know, I ought to admit I overuse parentheses too), which I think is both amusing and precise, is probably in actually arch and annoying.

So...  confess now. What's a typographical or punctuational -thing- you do that you can't give up, but might cause an unpleasant and unplanned tone?
(I almost put "" around that last word. Arrgh.)

Alicia

The reports of comma death are greatly exaggerated

It lives!!!

A miracle!
Alicia

Punctuation confrontation

No comment: The Case—Please Hear Me Out—Against the Em Dash

On Punctuation Gimmicks

Here's a good question from the comments. Tinlizzie says,

Off topic here but I had a question. I recently came across a book (reasonably well reviewed and published by a reputable house) that drove me nuts because the author substituted dashes for quotation marks.

Uhm, excuse me? Although the book did have pretensions to being more, it was basically a mystery/thriller and I was rather surprised that this was allowed to get through the editing process.

What are your thoughts on the apparent trend in *inventive* punctuation and structure that seems to be rising in publishing today? I, for one, can't stand it.

After all, if you think you're Faulkner, chances are you aren't Faulkner and should abide by the rules.

Well, yes. I'm no fan of bling -- my pet term for punctuation gimmicks that stand out on the page like sequins on a dust rag -- and this kind of punctuation definitely falls into the bling category. (Unless you're writing in French for the French market, in which case, allez-y.) (Past rants on bling: ellipses, colons v. em dashes, hyphens, and Alicia's open discussion of the punctuation in Cold Mountain.)

But your question hints at something else, and maybe it's worth mentioning here. You hint that Faulkner wannabes and other literary types might be able to get away with this, and it's worth examining why this would be the case. If we're all operating with a basic set of punctuation rules, why would litfic writers ignore those rules?

One of the fundamental differences between litfic and its commercial siblings is that litfic expects its readers to be sensitive to the manner of presentation. Things like word choice, diction, punctuation, sentence rhythm, paragraphing, and so on are all manipulated to achieve certain effects. And it's anticipated that the reader will expect these kinds of things in the text, much the same way a murder mystery reader expects a dead body or a romance reader expects a happily-ever-after ending. Litfic readers don't just remain awake to the possibility that form will be manipulated to achieve effects. We delight in it. (Or, at least, I do when I read litfic. And my fellow litfic fans appear to read it much the same way. Extrapolate from there.)

With books on the commercial end of the spectrum, however, it's expected that story will take supreme importance over anything that might distract from story. We routinely cut long passages of thematic description, for example, that would survive the knife in a more literary book. We are ruthless about pruning bling and other distractions so that the reader will never blink while turning the pages. We want them to be so caught up in and breathless with anticipation over the story that they might not hear a ringing phone.

In between these two ends of the spectrum is a middle ground where writers aim to incorporate some of the effect-generating flourishes of the literary crowd with the mass-pleasing story emphasis of the genre crowd. The book you describe might have been hoping for a shot at this middle ground. It's interesting terrain, and there's plenty of room for books to succeed in both commercial and critical terms. Past books of this ilk which we've discussed on this blog include An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears (brilliant manipulation of first person unreliable narrators), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (footnotes, intrusive narrator), Mr. B Gone by Clive Barker (incredible meta) -- I'm sure there are more, but I'm too lazy to look in the archives to remember what else we might have discussed.

In any case, as Alicia did when she questioned the dialogue punctuation in Cold Mountain, the important thing for all of us is to remain hyper-aware of the effect these kinds of things can have on the narrative. Litfic writers incorporate them because of those effects, and genre fic writers avoid them because of those effects, and middle grounders try to walk the tightrope between those two positions.

But for me, regardless of the type of book, my preference is still to avoid this kind of bling dialogue punctuation because it's a distraction without a purpose. Some find this kind of dialogue (without quotation marks, that is) to read more softly, as if it's incorporated seamlessly into the rest of the narrative. I don't. I take that beginning dash as a speech signal no different from an opening quotation mark. And I find the lack of a close-quote extremely distracting because I will find myself looking for the moment the dialogue ends and some other narrative element begins. There might be signals, such as verb tense shifts or paragraph breaks, but sometimes it's not clear. If I don't consciously stop to find those signals, then I'm likely to read everything as if it's being spoken by a character. Like this:

--But nobody wants to walk to school in the rain. Heavy rain, too, likely to break daffodil stalks. And it would ruin her hair, and she didn't want Jason to see her with a disgusting rain-do.

So the first (present tense, dashed) sentence is dialogue, that's pretty clear. And the last (past tense) sentence is interior monologue, also evident. But is the second fragmented sentence part of the dialogue or part of the character's interior monologue? It could be either. It takes me out of the story, and for me, at least, the dashed dialogue doesn't lull me into blending the dialogue into the narrative. It just confuses me because I no longer know what I'm reading.

All of which is to say, there are rules, and there are ways to break the rules, and there are those of us who will wish you would find other rules to break instead. Not sure that really answers your question, but that's my take on it.

Theresa

Major punctuation news!

AP removes the hyphen from email!!!!

Clunk

Good article on "sentences that clunk" and why students can't punctuate.

Em and En

Thomas keeps asking about dashes, one of my guilty pleasures. I use way too many dashes! Anyway, he asked about en-dashes and em-dashes.

First, understand that this is a house style thing. That is, no matter what you do, the copy editor is going to "fix" it to fit the publishing house style or what the typesetting software interprets correctly. So that's a good thing to ask your editor about, just so you can put the correct one in to make sure that the copy editor "reads" it right, as a dash and not a hyphen.

But en vs. em isn't something that will earn you a rejection.

Just in case, though, here's the customary usage:

Hyphen
A hyphen isn't actually a punctuation mark as it's used within a word or term to join. A hyphen is a very short line (in typing it, you'd type - just once) which is generally used within a word or term to make two parts into one unit, like "half-soused." (There are, of course, other uses of the hyphen, but that's the most important.)

That means that the first part (before hyphen) and second part (after hyphen) go together and are to be regarded as one term. These combinations are usually called "coined terms" because the writer has "coined" the term by putting together two other words. The first modifies the second, and together they might modify another word.
The half-soused writer stumbled home to his blank pages.
I've been free-lancing my real estate articles.

The longer a term has been in the language, and the more common it is, the more likely you are just to make it a word and not a hyphenated "coined" term. So "halftime" and "lifestyle," which were once hyphenated terms, are now just words.

Hyphens and dashes are physically similar, and they both "join" things. But hyphens are used within words, and dashes within sentences and phrases.

En-dashes
En-dashes are longer than hyphens and shorter than em-dashes. (The "en" and "em" refer to the length of the line-- the "en" is as long as an "n" relatively, and the "em" is as long as an "m" character.) En-dashes are usually used for from-to ranges:
The open house is from 2–4 pm.
The Atchison–Topeka–Santa Fe railroad linked three major western towns.
Joan Parker, RIP. 1934–2010.

En-dashes are NOT two hyphens. Most word processors use "insert symbol" to put in the dash of sufficient length.

Em-dashes
Em-dashes are longer than either the hyphen or the en-dash. In the days before word processors, we used to type the hyphen twice to make this. Some of us still do. :) It's usually possible in a word processor "auto-correct" to have an automatic substitution-- you type in the two hyphens, Mr. Word supplies a em-dash. Doesn't work in Blogger, however!

Em-dashes are used within a sentence to create a parenthetical (but without parentheses) to show an interruptive thought or aside.
Maybe -- alas, fond hope!-- she would call him back with news.
Douglas-- my first boss-- was exactly a year younger.

Notice that the first is truly interruptive, but the second is me being lazy-- I could use commas instead. But as you can see, I overuse dashes.

Also, an em-dash signifies when you're ending a sentence abruptly before the end. ("Fading out" is signified by an ellipsis-- ...)
She should call him back and-- No! She wouldn't humiliate herself that way!
On Donder and-- Donder? Are you there? Blitzen? Where are you guys?

Dashes are very seductive, as they can substitute for other punctuation marks (commas and periods, mostly). And so some of us-- not all of us!-- use them so we don't have to think about whether this is a restrictive modifier (no commas) or a non-restrictive (commas) or if this is more a statement or a question or an exclamation. I for one always have to go through everything I write and replace half the dashes with non-dash punctuation. (Here are some examples from a grammar book writer.) My first drafts look like Emily Dickinson verses, only without the profound thought and rhymes:
"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

(Emily D probably didn't mean for her "end-line" marker to be set in type, but many editions of her work have all those dashes.)

So-- well. Use the symbol when you can (as when you're typing in the word processor), and understand in a submission, your purpose is to let the eventual copy editor know what she/he should put in right there. That is, you don't have to know the house style, but you do have to type this in a way that conveys your meaning to the copy editor who does know the house style.

Oh, and what about spaces before and after? Again, the copy editor will do that if the copy is going to typesetting. But in something like this-- a blog, I mean-- I usually put a space AFTER but not before the dash. That's because the "before" is being interrupted, so no pause (space), but "after" is resuming in a more deliberate way. I don't like the look of it all smushed together without spaces--like this--so I put the space in after the dash to separate the dashed-phrase from the real sentence.
HOWEVER, when you use a dash at the end of dialogue to signify an interruption, you probably don't want a space between the dash and the close quote, so:

"You have never respected my right to spe--"
"Yes, I have!" he protested.

And now back to our regularly schedule mullings. :)

Alicia

Quotation marks... still needed

Good article about quotation marks, or the lack thereof---

Quotation marks, rah!

You know I'll agree with this: an editorial in support of the quotation mark.

Alicia

Marks of the amateur-- starting a list

By popular demand--

This is something I'd never really contemplated before becoming an editor, but every editor I've spoken to since knew immediately what I meant. That is, "What tips you off about a submission that this isn't an experienced writer? What are the marks of the amateur?"

Now I don't mean to be insulting here. These marks don't actually mean that the writer is an amateur, rather that we see these mostly in submissions by newer or inexperienced authors, and so we sort of automatically assume.... well. What's important is to make sure you don't inadvertently trigger our "oh, amateur" assessment.

So anyway, when I was in England (very nice-- I want to live there, seriously, and I've narrowed my future home choice down to Somerset, Wiltshire, or the Yorkshire Dales), I asked my friends who had edited what they would put on this list.

Just to get started, and please add on or ask questions as we go:

1) Improper dialogue formatting. That's first for me, because, uh, if you've been reading for decades and never noticed there's a comma after the quote tag and before the quote mark, and a capital letter starting the quote, and the punctuation INSIDE the quote mark, and a new paragraph with a change in speakers, well, you are apparently not really absorbing writing conventions as you read. That will make the work of editing this rather onerous.

2) A whole lot of introductory participial phrases. One or two or three, sure. Sometimes the meaning of the sentence calls for that. But for whatever reason, whenever there are many intro participles on a first page, the submission proves to be a little amateurish in several ways. Hey, I don't make the rules. I'm just reporting.

3) Lynn said semicolons, but really, I'm okay with the occasional semicolon, even in fiction. (Theresa is sighing-- another round in the Great Semicolon Battle.) But more than one or two semicolons on the first couple pages? Trying too hard to sound mature, are you? And improperly used semicolons? Even worse. It looks like a 10-year-old wearing mascara.

4) Clumsy quote-tagging. Everyone agreed on this. I am the most lenient (yes, really-- I am a positive libertine compared with Some Sticklers Recently in Yorkshire), as I don't mind the infrequent "hissed" or "grumbled" if that's in fact what the speaker sounded like. But the default for tagging your dialogue should be "he/she said" or an action.
He adjusted the rearview mirror. "I think we're being followed."
A bunch of "creative" quote tags-- He intoned, she simpered, he ejaculated (I couldn't help it, sorry!), she expostulated, she exclaimed, he temporized-- indicates to me that the writer is more obsessed with the tags than with the actual thing being said by the speaker.

5) More than a couple homophone mistakes (then/than, here/hear, etc.). This suggests the writer is making too extensive use of spell-check rather than actually READING the sentences.

6) Starting the passage with whatever the latest trend is-- an unattributed line of dialogue, a "cute meet" and (this is important, because a good writer might do this and I'd like it) doing it badly. Yeah, those are so old they should be interred with Milton Berle, but I'm still seeing them, and what they say is, "I don't care about what makes my story unique. I want to sound like all the others."

7) Starting with odd stuff that we might put in the published edition, if we got that far, but shouldn't be in a submission (acknowledgments, dedications, a history lesson). But you know, I do like maps. Go figure.

8) Too many names in the first couple paragraphs. Who is the POV character? That's the name we need.

9) POV shifts on the first page. This presages a book full of headhopping that I really don't want to have to fix. Not to mention this must be a submitter who has not read my many posts and articles (and book!) about POV. :) (I am NOT against multiple POV-- but keep it controlled, and open in one POV and stick with it awhile, okay? So I know you know how to do that? (Again, a good writer might have a good reason for doing this, but I'll know the difference when I see it.)

What else? We'll make a list.

Alicia