Comma splice

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In written English usage, a comma splice or comma fault [1] [2] is the use of a comma to join two independent clauses. For example:

Contents

It is nearly half past five, we cannot reach town before dark. [lower-alpha 1]

The comma splice is sometimes used in literary writing to convey a particular mood of informality. It is usually considered an error in English writing style. Some authorities on English usage consider comma splices appropriate in limited situations, such as informal writing or with short similar phrases. [4] [5]

Description

Comma splices are rare in most published writing, [6] but are common among inexperienced writers of English. [1] [7]

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White advises using a semicolon, not a comma, to join two grammatically complete clauses, or writing the clauses as separate sentences. The Elements of Style notes an exception to the semicolon rule, preferring a comma when the clauses are "very short and alike in form," or when the sentence's tone is "easy and conversational." For example:

The gate swung apart, the bridge fell, the portcullis was drawn up. [8]

Comma splices are similar to run-on sentences, which join two independent clauses without any punctuation or a coordinating conjunction such as and, butfor, etc. Sometimes the two types of sentences are treated differently based on the presence or absence of a comma, but most writers consider the comma splice as a special type of run-on sentence. [7] According to Garner's Modern English Usage :

[M]ost usage authorities accept comma splices when (1) the clauses are short and closely related, (2) there is no danger of a miscue, and (3) the context is informal ... But even when all three criteria are met, some readers are likely to object. [7]

Comma splices often arise when writers use conjunctive adverbs (such as furthermore, however, or moreover) to separate two independent clauses instead of using a coordinating conjunction. [9]

In literature

Comma splices are also occasionally used in fiction, poetry, and other forms of literature to convey a particular mood or informal style. Some authors use commas to separate short clauses only. [1] The comma splice is more commonly found in works from the 18th and 19th century, when written prose mimicked speech more closely. [10]

The New Fowler's Modern English Usage describes the use of the comma splice by the authors Elizabeth Jolley and Iris Murdoch:

We are all accustomed to the ... conjoined sentences that turn up from children or from our less literate friends... Curiously, this habit of writing comma-joined sentences is not uncommon in both older and present-day fiction. Modern examples: I have the bed still, it is in every way suitable for the old house where I live now (E. Jolley); Marcus ... was of course already quite a famous man, Ludens had even heard of him from friends at Cambridge (I. Murdoch). [11]

Journalist Oliver Kamm wrote in 2016 of novelist Jane Austen's use of the comma splice, "Tastes in punctuation are not constant. It makes no sense to accuse Jane Austen of incorrect use of the comma, as no one would have levelled this charge against her at the time. Her conventions of usage were not ours." [10]

The author and journalist Lynne Truss writes in Eats, Shoots & Leaves that "so many highly respected writers observe the splice comma that a rather unfair rule emerges on this one: only do it if you're famous." [12] Citing Samuel Beckett, E. M. Forster, and Somerset Maugham, she says: "Done knowingly by an established writer, the comma splice is effective, poetic, dashing. Done equally knowingly by people who are not published writers, it can look weak or presumptuous. Done ignorantly by ignorant people, it is awful." [12]

Notes

  1. ↑ This example is adapted from the online, public-domain 1918 edition of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. [3]

Related Research Articles

Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of written text should be read and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, consisting of points between the words and horizontal strokes between sections. The alphabet-based writing began with no spaces, no capitalization, no vowels, and with only a few punctuation marks, as it was mostly aimed at recording business transactions. Only with the Greek playwrights did the ends of sentences begin to be marked to help actors know when to make a pause during performances. Punctuation includes space between words and both obsolete and modern signs.

<i>The Elements of Style</i> American English writing style guide

The Elements of Style is a style guide for formal grammar used in American English writing. The first publishing was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage," ten "elementary principles of composition," "a few matters of form," a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused," and a list of 57 "words often misspelled." Writer and editor E. B. White greatly enlarged and revised the book for publication by Macmillan in 1959. That was the first edition of the book, which Time recognized in 2011 as one of the 100 best and most influential non-fiction books written in English since 1923.

<i>A Dictionary of Modern English Usage</i> Style guide by Henry Watson Fowler

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), by Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing. Covering topics such as plurals and literary technique, distinctions among like words, and the use of foreign terms, the dictionary became the standard for other style guides to writing in English. Hence, the 1926 first edition remains in print, along with the 1965 second edition, edited by Ernest Gowers, which was reprinted in 1983 and 1987. The 1996 third edition was re-titled as The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, and revised in 2004, was mostly rewritten by Robert W. Burchfield, as a usage dictionary that incorporated corpus linguistics data; and the 2015 fourth edition, revised and re-titled Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, was edited by Jeremy Butterfield, as a usage dictionary. Informally, readers refer to the style guide and dictionary as Fowler's Modern English Usage, Fowler, and Fowler's.

The comma, is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight, but inclined from the vertical. Other fonts give it the appearance of a miniature filled-in figure 9 on the baseline.

The colon, :, is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots aligned vertically. A colon often precedes an explanation, a list, or a quoted sentence. It is also used between hours and minutes in time, between certain elements in medical journal citations, between chapter and verse in Bible citations, and, in the US, for salutations in business letters and other formal letter writing.

In English writing, quotation marks or inverted commas, also known informally as quotes, talking marks, speech marks, quote marks, quotemarks or speechmarks, are punctuation marks placed on either side of a word or phrase in order to identify it as a quotation, direct speech or a literal title or name. Quotation marks may be used to indicate that the meaning of the word or phrase they surround should be taken to be different from that typically associated with it, and are often used in this way to express irony. They are also sometimes used to emphasise a word or phrase, although this is usually considered incorrect.

The semicolon; is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link two independent clauses that are closely related in thought, such as when restating the preceding idea with a different expression. When a semicolon joins two or more ideas in one sentence, those ideas are then given equal rank. Semicolons can also be used in place of commas to separate items in a list, particularly when the elements of the list themselves have embedded commas.

In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses, which are called its conjuncts. That description is vague enough to overlap with those of other parts of speech because what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each language. In English, a given word may have several senses and in some contexts be a preposition but a conjunction in others, depending on the syntax. For example, after is a preposition in "he left after the fight" but a conjunction in "he left after they fought".

In writing, a space is a blank area that separates words, sentences, syllables and other written or printed glyphs (characters). Conventions for spacing vary among languages, and in some languages the spacing rules are complex. Inter-word spaces ease the reader's task of identifying words, and avoid outright ambiguities such as "now here" vs. "nowhere". They also provide convenient guides for where a human or program may start new lines.

In English-language punctuation, the serial comma, also referred to as the series comma, Oxford comma, or Harvard comma, is a comma placed immediately after the penultimate term and before the coordinating conjunction in a series of three or more terms. For instance, a list of three countries might be punctuated without the serial comma as "France, Italy and Spain" or with the serial comma as "France, Italy, and Spain". The serial comma can serve to avoid ambiguity in specific contexts, though its employment may also generate ambiguity under certain circumstances.

In traditional grammar, an independent clause is a clause that can stand by itself as a simple sentence. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself.

Relative clauses in the English language are formed principally by means of relative words. The basic relative pronouns are who, which, and that; who also has the derived forms whom and whose. Various grammatical rules and style guides determine which relative pronouns may be suitable in various situations, especially for formal settings. In some cases the relative pronoun may be omitted and merely implied.

A loose sentence is a type of sentence in which the main idea is elaborated by the successive addition of modifying clauses or phrases.

Writing systems that use Chinese characters also include various punctuation marks, derived from both Chinese and Western sources. Historically, jùdú annotations were often used to indicate the boundaries of sentences and clauses in text. The use of punctuation in written Chinese only became mandatory during the 20th century, due to Western influence. Unlike modern punctuation, judu marks were added by scholars for pedagogical purposes and were not viewed as integral to the text. Texts were therefore generally transmitted without judu. In most cases, this practice did not interfere with the interpretation of a text, although it occasionally resulted in ambiguity.

The full stop, period, or full point. is a punctuation mark used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence.

Sentence spacing guidance is provided in many language and style guides. The majority of style guides that use a Latin-derived alphabet as a language base now prescribe or recommend the use of a single space after the concluding punctuation of a sentence.

Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than just the letters of the alphabet. English punctuation has two complementary aspects: phonological punctuation, linked to how the sentence can be read aloud, particularly to pausing; and grammatical punctuation, linked to the structure of the sentence. In popular discussion of language, incorrect punctuation is often seen as an indication of lack of education and of a decline of standards.

In grammar, sentence and clause structure, commonly known as sentence composition, is the classification of sentences based on the number and kind of clauses in their syntactic structure. Such division is an element of traditional grammar.

The compound point is an obsolete typographical construction. Keith Houston reported that this form of punctuation doubling, which involved the comma dash (,—), the semicolon dash (;—), the colon dash, or "dog's bollocks" (:—), and less often the stop-dash (.—) arose in the seventeenth century, citing examples from as early as 1622. More traditionally, these paired forms of punctuation seem most often to have been called (generically) compound points and (specifically) semicolon dash, comma dash, colon dash, and point dash.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wilson, Kenneth (2005). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Columbia University Press. p. 102. ISBN   9780585041483.
  2. ↑ Follett, Wilson; Wensberg, Erik (1998). Modern American Usage: A Guide. Macmillan. p. 269. ISBN   9780809001392.
  3. ↑ Strunk, William (1918). The Elements of Style. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company – via Project Gutenberg.
  4. ↑ "To Splice or Not to Splice?". The MLA Style Center. 2017-03-28. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  5. ↑ "Comma Splice—Learn How to Avoid It". Grammarly . 2016-09-26. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  6. ↑ By "published writing," this article is referring to professionally published writing, such as commercially published works, where someone other than the author has proofread the work before it is published. Self-published works, if carefully examined and corrected by someone with language skills, can qualify as professionally done.
  7. 1 2 3 Garner, Bryan A. (2016). Garner's Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. p. 803. ISBN   9780190491482.
  8. ↑ Strunk, William; White, E. B. (2000) [First edition 1918]. "Elementary Rules of Usage". The Elements of Style (fourth ed.). Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon. pp. 5–7. ISBN   0-205-30902-X.
  9. ↑ Buckley, Joanne (2003). Checkmate : a writing reference for Canadians. Scarborough, Ont.: Thomson Nelson. ISBN   0-176-22440-8.
  10. 1 2 Kamm, Oliver (2016). Accidence Will Happen: A Recovering Pedant's Guide to English Language and Style. Pegasus Books. p. 152. ISBN   9781681771892.
  11. ↑ Burchfield, R. W., ed. (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.  163. ISBN   0-19-869126-2.
  12. 1 2 Truss, Lynne (2003). "That'll do, comma". Eats, Shoots & Leaves. London: Profile Books. p.  88. ISBN   1-86197-612-7.

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