Kimberly Lang

Battling the Grammar Gremlins

Commas, part 2

Kimberly Lang

Welcome back to Kimberly’s Fun With Commas. You’ve had several weeks to practice the first five rules, so we’ll finish with commas today.

Let’s start with a couple of easy rules. (Again, I’m using Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference as my source.)

Rule: Use commas with dates, addresses, titles, and numbers.

Dates: Set off the year from the rest of the sentence with commas:

On May 1, 2000, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

You don’t need commas, though, if the date is inverted (The new financial plan went into effect on 1 January 2004.) or if only the month and year are given (September 2005 was a bad month for hurricanes.)

Addresses: Elements of an address or place name are followed by commas. The zip code is not preceded by a comma.

The sights to see in Paris, France, are endless. Or She is from Chicago, Illinois.

Please send all bills to Molly Major at 111 Main Street, Anywhere, Alabama 35008.

Titles: If the title follows a name, separate it with a pair of commas:

Benjamin Spock, M.D., was an expert on child care.

Numbers: In numbers more than four digits long, use commas to separate the numbers into groups of three. In numbers four digits long, the comma is optional. Do not use commas in street numbers, zip codes, years, or telephone numbers.

1 000 (or 1000); 750,000; 1, 288,415

CAUTION: In fiction writing, numbers are written out, so this rule rarely applies. (1,000 would be one thousand or a thousand in your manuscript).

Rule: Use commas to set of direct quotations.

This is your dialogue tag rule. (Not IF you should use them, just how to punctuate them if you do.)

Norma said, “Let’s get some ice cream.”

“Let’s get some ice cream,” Norma said.

“Phil,” Norma said, “go get some ice cream.”

Notice that the final punctuation goes inside the quotation marks.

All right, enough easy stuff. Let’s go on to the more complicated rules.

Rule: Use commas to set of nonrestrictive elements.

Word groups describing nouns or pronouns (adjective clauses, adjective phrases, and appositives) can be either restrictive or nonrestrictive. A restrictive element defines or limits the meaning of the word it modifies and is essential to the meaning of the sentence. A nonrestrictive element describes a noun or pronoun whose meaning has already been clearly defined. Since it contains non-essential information, nonrestrictive elements are set off by commas.

Restrictive: I needed clothes for work that were professional-looking.

The phrase “that were professional-looking” is restrictive. Of course I have to wear clothes to work; the phrase limits the kind of clothing I needed and is restrictive.

Non-restrictive: I needed professional-looking clothes for work, which require dry cleaning.

The phrase “which require dry cleaning” does not restrict the meaning. Remove it, and the sentence still retains its meaning. Sure, a little something is lost, but the defining characteristics (professional-looking) of the thing described (clothes) remain the same.

Context makes a difference and can affect meaning!

The dessert made with fresh raspberries was delicious. Without commas, the phrase “made with fresh raspberries” is restrictive and implies there was more than one dessert offered at dinner. The phrase clarifies which dessert was delicious.

The dessert, made with fresh raspberries, was delicious. With the commas, you know the phrase is nonrestrictive. There was only one dessert offered at dinner, and it just happened to be made with fresh raspberries. A nice detail, but not necessary for comprehension.

Your common types of restrictive and nonrestrictive elements are:

Adjective clauses: These are the phrases starting with a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, which, that) or a relative adverb (where, when).

The lady who lives next door was angry. The adjective clause is restrictive; take it out, and we don’t know which lady you are talking about.

Mrs. Johnson, who lives next door, was angry. Now the clause is nonrestrictive because Mrs. Johnson is already defined. The fact she lives next door isn’t important.

Phrases functioning as adjectives: These can be prepositional phrases (beginning with a preposition like in, with, against, under, etc), or verbal phrases (beginning with an –ing verb or –en, -t, -ed verb).

My grandmother has an album of photographs taken at the 1901 World’s Fair. Our verbal phrase, “taken at the 1901 World’s Fair,” restricts the meaning of “photographs” and is essential. No comma.

The elephant, with its huge trunk, was a big draw at the circus. The prepositional phrase “with its huge trunk” doesn’t define “elephant.” Nonrestrictive and nonessential, so set it off with commas. *Bonus: Notice how in the explanatory sentence I did not set of “with his huge trunk” in commas like I did the verbal phrase above. That’s because there were two prepositional phrases in the example sentence and I needed to restrict which phrase I was talking about.

Appositives: This is a noun or noun phrase that renames a nearby noun.

Julie Garwood’s book Ransom is one of my favorites. “Ransom” is an appositive renaming “Julie Garwood’s book.” It is essential because Julie Garwood has written a ton of books and we need to know which one we’re talking about. It’s restrictive and doesn’t get commas.

My husband, John, is a photographer. Unless you have more than one husband at the moment, the appositive John is nonrestrictive. “My husband” is very specific and does not need to be clarified.

Take a deep breath and we’ll move on. We’re almost done.

Rule: Use commas to set of transitional and parenthetical expressions, absolute phrases, and contrasted elements.

Another excellent rule, if you know what a “contrasted element” is. Let’s define.

Transitional expression: These serve as bridges between sentences or parts of sentences. They include conjunctive adverbs like however, therefore, and moreover and transitional phrases like on the other hand, in other words, or back at the ranch.

If a transitional expression appears between two independent clauses in a compound sentence, it is preceded by a semicolon and usually followed by a comma.

Comma usage is governed by nine basic rules; for example, commas connect all items in a series.

If a transitional expression appears at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle of an independent clause, it is usually set off by commas.

On the other hand, not all grammar rules are easy to remember.

Sarah, though, learned all nine comma rules in one day.

Exception (and you knew there was one, didn’t you?): If the expression blends smoothly into the sentence, causing little or no pause in reading, it does not need to be set off with commas.

We are out of milk; therefore you need to go to the store.

We are out of milk; you will therefore need to go to the store.

Parenthetical expressions: Expressions providing supplemental comments or information interrupting the flow of the sentence and appearing as afterthoughts should be set off in commas.

Sara, as far as I know, won’t be coming to the meeting.

I’ll be there at six, give or take a few minutes.

Absolute phrases: This type of phrase modifies the whole sentence. It usually consists of a noun flowed by a participle or participial phrase and should always be set off by commas.

Her karma finally being right, Claire sold a book.

Do not insert a comma between the noun and the participle of the construction (in other words, see what would happen to your sentence if you put a comma between “karma” and “finally” in the sentence above. It doesn’t make sense.)

Contrasted elements: Sharp contrasts within a sentence are set off by commas.

Unlike me, Nora Roberts has sold millions of books.

I want tangible, not intangible, results.

We’re on the home stretch—only one more rule.

Rule: Use a comma to prevent confusion.

This is the tricky one…

If a writer has omitted a word or phrase, you may need a comma to signal the omission:

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

If you have words echoing each other, you may need a comma:

Everyone who could leave, left.

Sometimes you need the comma to prevent readers from grouping words together in a way you didn’t intend:

Those who can, do, but those who can do more, teach

Voila! You now know all nine rules governing comma usage. You did it. Good job. I won’t even give you a quiz on the material.

Now that we know where the commas go, we’ll discuss unnecessary commas and our friend the semicolon next time.