OK, I’ll admit it. This is one of
those places where being a creative writer has completely ruined me. I tend to
use commas as pauses, and if there is no sense of pause, then I use no comma.
So for me at least, the second sentence: “Matthew
wanted to play soccer, but the doctor said he should rest his injured leg.”
does not look “cluttered” at all, but sensible – there is a
pause implied by “but” that, in my head, requires a comma. The
first sentence: “Grandad has actually got manners but he doesn’t
use them that much anymore and he hasn’t let the dog see them, which is
why Cement is utterly mannerless.” could work as it stands, if that is
the rushed utterance of a child (in dialogue), but if I were to write it myself
I would probably end up with: “Grandad has actually got manners, but he
doesn’t use them that much anymore; he hasn’t let the dog see them,
either, which is why Cement is utterly mannerless.”
And all, some, or none of those might be “correct,”
from a prescriptive bias! I don’t even know if I know when to apply that
particular rule anymore. But what I do not know, and would be interested in
hearing, is how other people express the teaching of comma usage.
-patty
From:
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008
2:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Commas in compound
sentences
I'm wondering how many people are still teaching that placing a comma before
a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence is the rule and omitting the
comma is the exception? I have been reading through mostly fiction books
for elementary and middle school readers, and in those books it is certainly
the other way around. So in teaching kids at those levels to use the
comma, we are up against most of what they see in print.
Last night, I made up some compound sentences to use in a workshop for
elementary and middle school teachers. I inserted the comma before each
coordinating conjunction. Then I read most of a delightful book, Clarice Bean Spells Trouble by Lauren
Child. It is full of sentences like this: "Grandad has
actually got manners but he doesn't use them that much anymore and he hasn't
let the dog see them, which is why Cement is utterly mannerless."
This morning, when I returned to my carefully made-up sentences, the commas
looked like clutter: "Matthew wanted to play soccer, but the doctor said
he should rest his injured leg."
I know that fiction narrated in the first person is the likeliest place to find
compound sentences without commas. But, though I haven't searched
methodically, I think I have noticed them all over the place, in both fiction
and nonfiction for both younger and older readers.
I wonder whether the comma-before-the-conjunction "rule" has
become one of those pedagogic oversimplifications of reality we sometimes
resort to in order to give learners something clear and secure to grasp until
they're ready for more complexity. Whether such oversimplifications are
effective or justified is a whole other question. What I think I'd prefer
is a better rule.
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