This paragraph has comma splices, these actually are a problem. The sentences are short, but Strunk & White adds an "alike in form" requirement, this requirement feels right to me. The sentences here aren't alike in form, I wouldn't submit something like this. There's no holy writ, others can do as they please, I wouldn't risk it.

Sometimes, a writer is going for a particular rhythm and deliberately adds a comma where one wouldn't normally be found.

If you want a really good book that covers commas, among other things dealing with the "art" of punctuation, then read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. Not only is the book informative, but it's funny and engaging. I plowed through it in about an hour and a half -- it's a tiny book, but expensive.

So, my point is: a comma is sometimes just where the author wants the reader to pause; maybe for poetic effect. Do you need it? Probably not. Could you live without it? Yeah. But you want it there, so there it is.

There is also a difference between American comma usage and British comma usage. For instance, the "Oxford" (American preference) Comma is: Red, White, And Blue. The British comma is: Red, White And Blue.

Even within England, some people will say that the Oxford comma is the preferred punctuation.

Interestingly, some dude wrote an entire book without using a single comma. I haven't read it, but I have to now just to see how it reads.

Billboards and signposts often omit commas. Taken from the above mentioned book, one common sign is: "No dogs please" Which begs the contradiction that, yes, some dogs DO please.

Still, it's clear when an author has a firm grasp of punctuation and when they don't. I don't worry too much about commas on a first draft. Crumbs, I use too many, probably.

It isn't as if nobody teaches it anymore. Grammar and punctuation rules were drilled into our brains for almost as long as I can remember. It's something that you have to know how to use properly no matter what job you end up with.

The thing that still throws me is using single quotes for dialogue. Depending on the words insides the quotes, sometimes I get easily confused when a quote ends.

For instance:

'They ain't hurtin' me none, the Jones', an' they's all 'bout hurtin' folk 'round these here parts. Figger I's lucky is all.'

It can get a lot worse than that. Trust me.

Business language has nothing to do with proper English. It is its own language with its own set of rules. Of course someone with strong English skills can write effective business communications. But most employees follow and use the norm provided them by their work environment.

Email language is even more bizaare and strange with its exotic acrostics and abbreviations. It is moving into the business world and causing an even greater deterioration of the language.

I spent 15 years as an engineer and when I returned to pick up the pen I realized I wrote in a gobblyspeak of the construction industry. Look at this:

In this industry (contruction) comma's are only used: in lists, after greetings, and to splice sentences, therefore semicolons are not used, all lists are began with a colon:

Sentences will be spliced with commas,

Periods are not used until the end of the paragraph,

Punctuation and Capitalization are used to provide "Decorative Highlights and join Single Themed Paragraphs."

You don't start out intending to write like this. It sneaks up on you and then one day you are writing just like all the other desk monkeys.

One day you decide to write again. So you write something and submit it. Nervously you read the reviews and realize you have no idea what is and what is not proper grammar. SO you begin to restudy the rules of grammar and realize that all the rules you once learned are corrupted or gone.

So it's start all over again. All the while at work you are still writing gooblyspeak because that is the standard.

In other words if a writer deviates from this rule, how much does it detract the reader from the story? Are we writing for the masses, or for editors?

This whole thing started as a response to a crit of one of my pieces. I'll admit that there are a few comma splices, and I intend to change them. But they found their way there because of the conversational tone I had chosen to give the narrative. People tend not to talk and think in complete sentences, they very often <i>are</i> spliced together.

The first thing that comes to my mind in a debate like this is all the authors and pieces I've read that completely ignore this rule or that and are wildly successful. Then I remember that without exception all of these authors are keenly aware of each and every rule they are breaking. I've actually never been taught about the rule of comma splicing before. I'm glad I know now, so that I may break it at will .

PS: It is a bit flattering to be given as an example of "what not to do."

quote:

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[Puting punctuation inside or outside final quotation marks] makes little difference in the end

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lol