I know the phrase, "when in doubt, leave it out," but I tend to have a hard time with commas. If there's just the slightest pause of hesitation somewhere in a sentence, I feel like that comma probably shouldn't be left out.
I feel good about my choices until I read published books with similar sentences and no commas in sight for miles. Well, it's a good thing no one's paying me for this. I don't know what I'm doing but I seem to get a kick out of doing it anyway.
Comma.
When I was in college, we had a professor that was notorious amongst the English students for his love of commas. I use as few commas as I can. Meanwhile, Dr. D would add in a ton of commas to everything I wrote, because as he put it, "If you were reading it out loud, you should put in a comma everywhere you stop for breath. Since you're from the South, you talk a lot faster than I do."
ReplyDeleteBasically, aside from a few hard and fast rules, commas are jazz for word nerds.
See, when I taught college, I got SO MAD the day my first comp class told me--seemingly unanimously--that they'd been taught to put a comma in at every verbal pause. It's apples and oranges--you don't write the way you talk.
ReplyDeleteAs a pseudo wannabe writer, my approach is similar to yours, but from the other side--I only use commas where I'm ABSOLUTELY sure they need to be. And I, too, got a sort of intuitive grammar from reading so much--I actually had very few formal grammar classes in undergrad or grad.
Eh, I tend to use a comma when I feel a pause would be warrented (or is it "warranted"??) if reading aloud. But then again, I am the polar opposite of a grammar snob. I personally, LOVE to write the way I talk (sticks tongue out at Holly :P)! So I say, do what you want! Conforming to too many rules makes our writing less unique and less "ours", in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI have to go back and remove comma's also. And think hard about apostrophes. And lowercase my caps when I want to yell, and remove so many italics. I have no idea what I'm doing; my first drafts are a sight. And I've worked in publishing since I was 19.
ReplyDeletei'm like you with not only commas,
ReplyDeletebut also with semi-colons, paren-theses, and all that jazz as you
can tell from my emails to you. i
kinda figure why not, know what i
mean? what Ron said is sorta true.
we've got a cousin from MS who it
takes at least a minute to say one
word (Amanda, Sammy's wife). even
though it takes me a while to talk,
whenever she talks, i feel like
saying "andale" to her (did i even
spell that correctly?)
think you get a lot of grammar and
linguistics from me. love - mom
Hi, my name is Susan and I am a comma whore. Now that I've read Ron's comment though ("jazz for word nerds") I feel much better about myself.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way with commas, but I have a REAL problem with semi-colons; I like to use them in everything! :)
ReplyDeleteJesus, dude...If you have a problem with comas, then by all means see a doctor.
ReplyDelete---Your loving and caring father
Plus - one of my teacher friends had half his small intestine removed...Now there's a man that knows about semi-colons...
ReplyDeleteMike, if you're attracting people that think of themselves as "comma whores", then I think, even at age 62, that clearly it's high time for me to join the blogosphere. What advice can you give your dad, son..?