In Today’s Journal
* On Comma Usage “Rules”
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
On Comma Usage “Rules”
When I was in college we used the HarBrace College Handbook in English classes. It contained 19 PAGES of comma rules.
In today’s Of Interest you’ll find a link to an article in Writer’s Digest listing the “10 Most Important Comma Usage Rules.” The article is mostly correct, but like HarBrace—as well as Strunk & White and pretty much anything else that regurgitates the “rules”—it’s also as dusty and dry and mechanical as an ancient bone bleached in the Arizona sun. Bleh.
I’ve seen and forced my way through dozens of such texts. But when I started teaching English and Writing to remedial students and GED students and ESL (English as a Second Language) students in college, I decided all of that was just a tad ridiculous.
Naturally, the dean of the college wanted me to place an order for HarBrace and require my students shell out the bucks for it.
But I decided not to do that.
I love the rhythms of the language, and I see no reason why it should be rendered tedious by a bunch of starched-collar types who are so stiff they probably couldn’t bend at the waist to pick up a $1000 dollar bill if it rolled up to them on the sidewalk.
So I sat down and wrote a sixteen-page handout titled “The Rules as They Should Read.” Then I made about 200 copies and doled it out, free, to my students in all of those classes.
The students engaged with it easily and quicky, and when they left my class, they could pass any English test with an A. More importantly, they knew how to use commas and other punctuation and had a basic grounding in grammar.
Maybe best of all, in “The Rules as They Should Read,” in addition to a lot of other guidelines on punctuation and grammar, I included only FIVE “rules” for comma use. And really there are only three. Two of the rules are the reverse of each other.
Today, that expanded 16-page handout is a nonfiction book titled Punctuation for Writers. Here are the comma rules, verbatim:
The Five Rules of Comma Use
- Never place a comma between a subject and its verb or between a verb and its object. (Realize that a subject may have more than one verb and that a verb may have more than one object. See Chapter 7.)
- When a subordinate clause introduces an independent clause, separate the two with a comma. (If you aren’t sure about clauses, Rule #2 is an example of itself, as is this explanation. Also, see the discussion about clauses in Chapter 7.)
- Do not use a comma to separate the clauses when a subordinate clause follows an independent clause. (In Rule #3, “Do not use a comma” is an independent clause and the remainder is a dependent clause. This rule, again, is an example of itself.)
- Use a comma before the appropriate coordinating conjunction to join two related sentences. (The coordinating conjunctions are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. Remember the acronym FANBOYS.) By the way, you very seldom need a comma after a coordinating conjunction.
- Trite as it sounds, when you are in doubt about whether to use a comma, leave it out. Believe it or not, most comma problems arise from misuse of commas, not their omission.
To see definitions of terms, examples of those rules, and for a grammar refresher and a whole lot more that you’ll actually understand and enjoy, get Punctuation for Writers for only $6 for a limited time, today through July 31.
At checkout, enter coupon code 8U7SKYPXIX. (I recommend you copy/paste.)
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
10 Most Important Comma Usage Rules (from Writer’s Digest)
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 630
Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty
Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Fiction for July..………………………. 5840
Fiction for 2025………………………. 526647
Nonfiction for July…………………….. 12630
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 164260
2025 consumable words…………….. 683293
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
Short story collections……………………. 29