>>
Edmond,

     Martha and I have been in conversation with Terry Locke, from New
Zealand, editor of an international anthology that will include an 
article Martha and I co-authored and are now revising. He directed me
to a British government site that would back up the position that
current British practices do not call for a comma before a
conjunction linking independent clauses.
   www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/profdev/literacy and then click on
“grammar knowledge for teachers” and then “punctuation” and then
“comma”.

   They call for commas to separate items in a list (though not usually
before “and”), after introductory subordinate clauses (no comment on
phrases), with most connecting adverbs (like “however” ) and to set off
“extra information” (the example they give is a nonrestrictive
appositional noun phrase—“Jill, my boss,…”) In a paragraph focused on
the “comma splice”, they include a clear compound sentence without the
comma: “She turned round but there was no one there except a painting.”

   I have much respect for your own experience, so I wonder if this is a
generational shift in standards (with older practices still accepted?)

Craig




 Craig,
>
> I don't know where your British copy-editor got that extraordinary idea
> that
> we don't use the comma in compound sentences.  Perhaps it is one sad
> result
> of the disappearance of all things linguistic from our English syllabuses
> --
> the result of the great neo-romantic banishment of grammar in the sixties
> and onwards.  I have the commas for that purpose all over my book, as well
> as a crop of semicolons and colons, and my copy-editor was perfectly happy
> with them all.
>
> You ask about my book -- that is a distinct temptation to send you, and
> presumably (brazenly) everyone else! -- the advertisement for it and what
> the cover looks like, but I don't think ATEG accepts attachments.  I'll
> send
> them separately directly to you.
>
> Edmond
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Edmond,
>>    I have a British publisher (Equinox) for my book, Meaning-Centered
>> Grammar. Believe it or not, the copy editor took all those commas out
>> (hundreds, maybe thousands over the course of the whole book), and did
>> this despite the fact that I advocate their use in my chapter on
>> grammar and writing. I was told at the time that he was following
>> British practice. When I objected, I won the argument, and they were
>> dutifully put back in. Perhaps I was misled?
>>    It may be the systems that we get used to come to seem the most
>> functional, perhaps because we find ways to defy expectations
>> purposefully. If the final series comma is expected, then we can make a
>> point by leaving it out, as in "peanut butter and jelly" or "down and
>> out", which are often one thing rather than two.
>>    Is your book as interesting as its title?
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>> Craig,
>>>
>>> Where did you get the idea that in Britain we don't put commas before
>>> conjunctions in compound sentences?  We adopt the FANBOYS rule all
>>> right
>>> (unless your speaker was gabbling at high speed -- or was Dickens' Mrs.
>>> Lirriper or Joyce's Molly Bloom!).  As you say, we do largely omit the
>>> comma
>>> before the conjunction in a list of nouns or verbs, etc., though that
>>> is
>>> not
>>> absolute -- for there are occasions where the comma emphasizes
>>> distinctness
>>> for some reason:  for example, I kept this so-called 'Oxford' comma in
>>> the
>>> title of my recent book 'Narrative, Perception, Language, and Faith'
>>> because
>>> the appearance in the argument of the topic of faith is intended to be
>>> something of a surprise.
>>>
>>> Edmond
>>>
>>>
>>> Dr. Edmond Wright
>>> 3 Boathouse Court
>>> Trafalgar Road
>>> Cambridge
>>> CB4 1DU
>>> England
>>>
>>> Email: [log in to unmask]
>>> Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/
>>> Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Just to complicate the talk (after all these votes for simplicity),
>>>> British practice differs from American on this one. They don't ask for
>>>> commas here (before the conjunction linking compound sentences) or
>>>> before the final element in a series (with "and" or "or".) >
>>>>     What you would hope for, I think, is consistency, not just a
>>>> sporadic
>>>> sprinkling. If the comma is included or left out DELIBERATELY and
>>>> consistently, then I don't think we should command otherwise.
>>>>
>>>> Craig
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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