I
tell my (college) students that it’s one of those rules that they need to apply
in formal academic writing, but can take less seriously in other styles.
Frankly, I have to admit that I tell them this mainly because I think
other teachers / editors enforce it, not because I think it’s a
particularly valuable rule. One difficulty, though: telling students they need
to use it in formal writing doesn’t work very well if they’ve never had any
exposure to the independent / dependent clause distinction, so even if we don’t
present the rule until late high school or early college, the groundwork
for it needs to be in place already.
I’m
not sure of its history, but I suspect it’s one of those many, many cases that
started out as a helpful suggestion about warding off ambiguity and ended up
being a rigid requirement.
Bill
Spruiell
Dept.
of English
Central
Michigan University
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Michael Kischner
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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