Indoctrinated early in my schooling with the casual rule that a comma goes where you would naturally pause or take a breath, I need only confess that I became an avid Star Trek fan at age 7 for you to imagine the havoc wreaked by this well-intended advice. I have written papers that William Shatner would have delivered with glee. In the "Punctuation of Phrases and Clauses" section of Kolln, I experienced a sharp and unpleasant desire to find and double-check the worksheet I made for my students about the usage of commas and semicolons. To my great relief, the examples I gave them do not betray my weakness. With this exception:
My brother, Zachary, a barista, doesn’t like his coworkers.
I wanted to make sure they understood that when I said a comma sets off inessential (or nonrestrictive) information, I meant from the sentence’s perspective and not theirs. However, this sentence stands alone. Who knows how many brothers the writer has? Especially in a sentence used to illustrate something, I feel like the extra comma just clutters things up and encourages extra commas.
My brother Zachary, a barista, doesn’t like his coworkers.
Not the prettiest sentence, but cleaner. If I *am* just dying to have that third comma in there, it might look something like this:
One of my brothers, Zachary, who works as a barista, doesn’t like his coworkers.
BONUS!
Far more upsetting that steering a bunch of freshmen –who probably ignored me anyway- slightly wrong, was this sentence that I included in a paper I delivered at the Louisville Conference (Nick, can you ever forgive me?):
Old: Even after Florence dies, Dowell is not unhappy, free of his invalid wife, and looking forward to the possibility of remarrying.
New: Even after Florence dies, Dowell is not unhappy; free of his invalid wife, he looks forward to the possibility of remarrying.
Whitney,
ReplyDeleteIndoctrination is a good word for this rule: a comma goes where you would naturally pause or take a breath. I always tell my students that this is the comma rule for bozos, then explain that they're not bozos, but that their previous English teachers certainly thought that they were because they didn't bother to teach them how to really use commas. I feel like we should revolt against junior high and high school English teachers who teach the comma rule for bozos. They have bred a generation of college students who throw in commas all over the place (comma here, comma there, pretty little comma there) and have chronic comma-splice problems. Who wants to join the revolution?
On a note about your sentences, they look much better. I wonder, though, if the double negative in the new Dowell version is problematic. It actually reads very clearly and isn't confusing like most double negatives. Nor do I think you'd capture the same meaning by just saying that Dowell is happy because that's not what you mean. Could you say something like this:
After Florence dies, Dowell surprisingly isn't grief stricken; free of his invalid wife, he looks forward to the possibility of remarrying.
Good comma work, in any case. Our bozo high school English teachers would be proud.
-Tessa
Sentences like this start freaking me out. When more than a set of commas *might* be involved, I get nervous. You are brave to tackle punctuation particularly.
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