The Comma (Word Usage)

The Comma

I will admit that I was not surprised when I learned that, in many other languages, the comma had a definite and well defined role to play. In German, for example, every time you have a clause, you set it off from the others by adding a comma. In English, however, the rules for comma use are far less definite, and while we do not use them to set every clause off from every other, we often put them in many other places that speakers of other languages would never dream of.

As we are taught in grade school, a period (known appropriately as a "full stop" in the UK), requires us when reading to make a pause before continuing. A comma is similar, but requires a less significant hesitation. This distinction, however, is almost useless when it comes to knowing when to use and when to avoid using a comma, and there is no shortage of children who use commas in their writing whenever they would have to take a breath when speaking as a result of this vague suggestion.

Young children aside, most of us make mistakes with commas by overusing them. In many people's writing, the comma takes the place of the period, colon, semi-colon, and even the spacebar on different occasions. Using it in place of the period results in a fused sentence, which is really two sentences linked by a stubborn comma who won't give up his place to the period, as in this example: "I like the smell of cats in the morning, blue cats smell especially nice." Now, in addition to the obvious problems the author of this sentence has with regard to certain psychiatric difficulties, he or she also has problems with punctuation. There are complete sentences on either side of the comma, as well as an absence of any words (called conjunctions) which could join them together properly. As a result, the comma should be replaced by a period, which sets each sentence in its proper form.

The comma really shines in its function as a divider of listed items, and this is the place where people are most confident in using it. In the following example, we can see the comma used as it was intended: "Yesterday for breakfast we ate apples, oranges, peaches, plums, grapes, barley, and oats." Note the placement of the comma after each item in the list, and the use of "and" only before the final listed item. There is some confusion here as to whether the penultimate (second-last) item, the one that comes just before the "and," should have a comma after it, and there is no standard answer to this problem. I personally prefer to include the comma, as it divides all of the listed items equally, whereas leaving it out seems to unite the last two items more closely, tempting us to consider them as a single item, but this is merely my own opinion. You can go either way with this, but do remember to be consistent.

Although there are a host of other correct and incorrect ways people use commas, this article must end at some point, and so I will finish with a useful tip which will save you some confusion. Whenever a sentence begins with a term like "however," "thus," "therefore," "moreover," "first" (or any ordinal numbers), as well as prepositional phrases like "in the beginning," make sure to place a comma between it and the rest of the sentence. This serves to make your meaning more clear, and show that you know what the comma is designed to do.