Have you ever been awakened by a text message on a Sunday morning (you know, the morning that you can actually sleep in!!!)? Picture it...the phone rings, you jump up out of bed (and out of your dream with FH John Cusask!), grab your phone, and before you read the text, pray that nothing serious has happened to someone you love (yes, I have a therapist!). Well, that’s how I woke up today! Okay, it was 8:21am so yes, my butt should have already been out of bed and shovelling the 10+ centimetres of snow that had fallen on my driveway overnight but the point is that I was still sleeping (and dreaming!)!!! Oh yeah, so you’re probably wondering about that important and very urgent text message I received (wouldn’t you expect it to be important and urgent if you were awakened by it?). Well here is the text message from my BFF:
1. Good morning. :) we need to discuss commas :p
Let’s just get this out of the way...yes, we number our text messages...gotta problem with that? I have an iPhone and she has a Blackberry. We're still not sure if that's relevant but some of our text messages go missing so we decided to start numbering our texts (the counter starts at 1 every morning). No, it’s not a perfect system but it works for us...most of the time :)
Now having typed that paragraph, I can’t help but wonder how many additional commas I’ve added or what opportunities to “comma-tize” have been missed. Congratulations BFF...you're in my head!!!
Back to the text message...so once I read her text, I decided to protest said text with silence and tried to go back to sleep. Well, at 8:23am, I receive the following text:
2. When I link your blog to my Facebook, your photo shows up. Is that ok?
So a) I’m honoured that my BFF reads my blog, b) I’m thrilled that she wants to share the link with her “friends” and c) I’m lucky to have such an amazing and considerate BFF who would ask my permission before posting a photo of me on Facebook. (Again, I can’t help but wonder, should I change the photo of me on my blog?)
So all I could think about was “I wonder if I can fall back asleep” but no such luck so at 8:33am the protest ended and I responded with the following texts:
3. I think I found a topic for an upcoming blog post: The Awakening. It will describe how I was awakened on sunday morning by a text message criticizing my use of commas. But yes, let's please discuss. P.S. I refuse to discuss my use of exclamation marks!!!
4. I think there's a spot to unclick thumbnail in facebook when you post a link. Thanks for sharing it!
Yes, I know what you’re thinking...my text messages are almost as long-winded as my blog posts! Or maybe you were thinking...I hope she gives us a quick lesson on punctuation! Well, today is your lucky day...this blog post will be both long-winded and educational!
As a side note, this week I have been privy to four different conversations about punctuation (please note that one conversation was with myself!):
1. My daughter informed me that I lost the war on brackets in a recent blog post (see
2. I struggled with whether or not I should underline, italicize or bold or bold/underline or bold/italicize or underline/italicize my references to books, movies, songs, quotes and poems in my blog posts. I still haven’t answered my own question but maybe I can make sense of it all in this blog post.
3. During a therapy session, I mentioned that I wanted to let loose and stop being such a prude. Okay, that’s probably too much information but the point is that I don’t swear much and am not always comfortable with people swearing around me (again, probably way too much information about my inner psyche!). Anyways, my therapist insinuated (at least that's what I understood!) that the word “Fuck” can be used as a punctuation mark which probably means that my
4. My BFF informed me that she has “issues” with my use of commas. The follow-up conversation hasn’t been had yet but just knowing there’s an issue with my commas is considered a conversation in my mind!!! Yes, that’s exactly what I mean (!!!) :)
So where do I start...
Well,
My apologies but I mistakenly googled the word "coma" so I just spent 15 minutes reading medical documents! Once I realized that I was off on a tangent, I re-googled "comma" and found the following:
According to Wikipedia, this is how you properly use commas:
In general, the comma is used where ambiguity might otherwise arise, to indicate an interpretation of the text such that the words immediately before and after the comma are less closely or exclusively linked in the associated grammatical structure that they might be otherwise.
In lists: Commas are used to separate items in lists, as in They own a cat, a dog, two rabbits and six mice. In English, a comma may or may not be used before the final conjunction (and, or, nor) in a list of more than two elements.
Separation of clauses: Commas are often used to separate clauses. In English, a comma is generally used to separate a dependent clause from the independent clause if the dependent clause comes first: After I brushed the cat, I lint-rollered my clothes. (Compare I lint-rollered my clothes after I brushed the cat.) A relative clause takes commas if it is non-restrictive, as in I cut down all the trees, which were over six feet tall. (Without the comma, this would imply that only some of the trees – those over six feet tall – were cut down. Some consider the word "that" to be preferable when such a meaning is desired: "I cut down all the trees that were over six feet tall."). Two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or having a complementary relationship may or may not be separated by commas, depending on preferred style, or sometimes a desire to overcome ambiguity. The joining of two independent sentences with a comma and no conjunction (as in "It is nearly half past five, we cannot reach town before dark.") is known as a comma splice and is often considered an error in English. A comma splice should not be confused, though, with asyndeton, a literary device used for a specific effect in which coordinating conjunctions are purposely omitted.
Certain adverbs: Commas are always used to set off certain adverbs: however, in fact, therefore, nevertheless, moreover, furthermore, still, instead, too (meaning 'also').
Parenthetical phrases: Commas are often used to enclose parenthetical words and phrases within a sentence (i.e. information that is not essential to the meaning of the sentence). Such phrases are both preceded and followed by a comma, unless that would result in a doubling of punctuation marks, or the parenthetical is at the start or end of the sentence.
Between adjectives: A comma is used to separate coordinate adjectives; that is, adjectives that directly and equally modify the following noun. Adjectives are considered coordinate if the meaning would be the same if their order were reversed or if and were placed between them.
Before quotes: A comma is used to set off quoted material that is the grammatical object of an active verb of speaking or writing, as in Mr. Kershner says, "You should know how to use a comma." Quotations that follow and support an assertion should be set off by a colon rather than a comma.
Elision: ommas may be used to indicate that a word has been omitted, as in The cat was white; the dog, brown. (Here the comma replaces was.)
Vocative: Commas are placed before, after, or around a noun or pronoun used independently in speaking to some person, place or thing: I hope, John, that you will read this.
There’s also a section on the use of commas in dates, geographical names, numbers and names but I didn’t really think it was needed (isn’t that enough already?). How
Now that I’ve learned absolutely nothing about commas, the other question I had was regarding citing. No, not a John Cusack sighting (is that all you people think about?!). How do I cite a book or a quote or a song or a movie in my blog posts? There seem to be lots of inconsistencies on the web so I will try to consistently do the following in my blog (unless I’m told differently by BFF in an early morning text!):
Book, movie, television program, “quote”, “poem”
Here’s my reasoning...I have chosen to italicize and underline because I italicize so many of my thoughts (I know, I know...too many thoughts!), therefore, I think it’s the only way (okay, obviously not the "only" way!) to differentiate between a book and my thoughts.
P.S. The lesson on commas was all for nothing because I just got off of the phone with BFF who explained my comma issue. The phone conversation went something like this:
“Overall, you use commas very well (does that mean I get an A rather than an A+?) but you seem to
So there you have it, an educational phone conversation with my BFF!!! :)
Great post. However, you are missing a few commas. :P Shall we start the lesson on semicolons?
ReplyDelete(Valley Girl Accent)....like what's your poooiiint?!?! :P
ReplyDelete