SomeGuy's Workshop, Session Six

By special request...

A First Crack At Commas:

Commas are one of the most, if not the most, used piece of punctuation in many, many languages. It does a dozen different things and has a dozen different uses, but because of that it also leads to a lot of confusion about when to really use them. Now I already know that there's no way I can cover all forms of comma use in just one post, so I'm going to try to boil down the gist of the comma to the most useful points... try to, anyway.

The gist of the comma is that it breaks things up. Obvious statement, I know. So when do you break them up?

Gravy Around The Meat:

One of the more straight-forward ways to use commas is to use them for parenthetical phrases (which are exactly what they sound like). When you have phrases that either have nothing to do with the main point of a sentence or when you have a phrase that only describes your main point, then you can use commas to break them up:

I hate you, Sally.
Harry, angsting with his unbridled teenage angst, shouted at his friends again.
Snake groaned again, thinking about how the years had been unkind to him.

If it helps, imagine these parenthetical phrases as being within actual parentheses:

Harry (angsting with his unbridled teenage angst) shouted at his friends again.

If those bits were taken out of the sentence, you still wouldn't lose the point of the sentence. You'd still know that Harry shouted at his friends, that Snake groaned again, and that I hate you (well, if you were Sally, anyway). So if your writing involves a lot of extra side-description in your sentences, it's very possible you're working with parenthetical phrases; if you are, you now know how to frame them.

Just one last mention before wrapping this section up: introductory phrases. Not exactly the same as parenthetical phrases, but introductory things that also serve only to describe the main sentence point also get comma'd off:

Once upon a time, there was a plumber in red overalls.
Just then, a message from a princess appeared.
As though on cue, the plumber suddenly found two angry mushroom monsters walking towards him.

Same idea, pretty much. That cool?

The Joys of Dependency:

I need to apologize again, for I am about to drop some more grammar-type words on you. I've mentioned independent clauses before, which are a group of words that make up a full sentence as they are. Well, if there's such thing as an independent clause, it's likely there are also dependent clauses.

Dependent clauses are similar to normal, independent ones in that they have both subject and predicate (or noun and verb phrase). However, due to either certain words or what have you, they can't stand alone as their own sentences:
After he punched that baby in the face, we stopped hanging out with Dave.
As the noise grew closer, we all peed ourselves.
Since he was being foolish, Adam did not charge his cell phone before heading out yesterday.

All the clauses in bold are dependent clauses, connected to the independent ones by a comma. Again, they're mostly just there to better describe the main point of the independent clause since words like after, as and since basically make them subordinate to the other (I'm pretty sure "subordinate" works here, anyway). Seeing words like those at the start of a clause will usually be the big tip-off.

Now the funny thing about dependent clauses, though, is that they don't always use this comma break. Dependent clauses only use the comma if the clause comes before the independent clause. Consider the following:

We stopped hanging out with Dave after he punched that baby in the face.
We all peed ourselves as the noise grew closer.
Adam did not charge his cell phone before heading out yesterday since he was being foolish.

It's quirky, but it's not impossible to work with. Still, painful, isn't it?

Breaking Up Descriptions:

The last form of comma usage I'll cover today is for adjectives.

I have an old and brown wallet. I also have a younger brother who's far more successful than I am financially. Kon, in contrast, is small and is yellow. Now consider:

I have an old, brown wallet.
I have a young, financially successful brother.
The small, yellow Kon is small.

If you have two adjectives, both of equal value to the noun they describe (co-ordinate adjectives), then you need to have a comma to separate them. Basically, if you can put the word "and" between the two adjectives and it makes sense, then you can use a comma.

There's definitely more do this one than that, but for the most part that's the basics of it. I'm going to leave today at that so you can all digest this for the week.

Final Words:

I often tell people that a great way to try to figure out where to place commas is to read your work out loud to yourself. Commas serve as breaks not just in written words, but in speech as well. "Read the punctuation" as you read your work: long pauses for periods, short pauses for commas. Oftentimes this can give you a fair "feel" for where you should put your breaks. If you think you need a little more help with that one, maybe even just try picking up a book and reading it out loud with the punctuation breaks in mind. It's something to consider.

I'm gonna wrap up this segment on commas for now, though I'm sure it's likely that we'll be coming back to these bad-boys in the future. For now, I'll just leave you with this following punctuation exercise.

I'll put periods where they need to go, but I want those of you who wanna give it a shot to stick the commas in where they should go based on the above-mentioned uses - type out your answers in the comments below if you'd like (but use spoiler-tags if you can to not cheat others who'll give it a shot). I know, this is the first time I've openly asked you guys to try things - so yeah, give it a shot if you'd like:

Even though several weeks have passed I finally got around to posting my pictures from the convention. I thank you all especially the ones in the back for being so patient with this old foolhardy fellow. After all there was once a time even if it was many years ago that I was once a young foolish lad.

So yes, give that a shot if you'd like. And as always, ask questions if you have 'em!

End