Every week, I will be posting a nice mini lesson on grammar either in a video, text, or by citing a reputable source.
*******
A great easy to use website that features grammar tutorials AND is brightly colored is:
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
-The owner of the site used to be a technical and magazine writer, so she definitely knows her way around the comma and ellipsis. I like this site best, because it is easy to navigate and it does not overload you with english literary mumbo jumbo. The explanations are easy and the whole site is very visual. Also, she records her lessons so you can hear the correction, rather than just visually applying it.
*********
THE COMMA
If punctuation marks were a corporation, the comma is the grand daddy oil billionaire. By far the most common and commonly misused mark, but the most efficient. The comma was the first introduction to linking two incomplete sentences. Remember in middle school when you learned:
The dog ate the cat.
*subject, verb, and object. Simple and complete sentence.
After:
The dog ate the cat and ate the mouse.
*Ahh and then the writing world got a little more complicated, because you can have the same sentence, but with a comma:
The dog ate the cat, and he ate the mouse.
*SAY WHAT?! IT SAYS THE SAME THING! WHY THE COMMA? Yes, it's all coming back now. So why in the second phrase is there a comma? Here it goes:
In the first phrase there is one subject, two objects (cat; mouse) , and two verbs (ate; ate). Follow me here. But in the second phrase there is one subject, one subject pronoun (he), two verbs, two objects. Yes! Now you see, it is all about balance. Technically the second phrase can be broken down into two sentences: The dog ate the cat. He ate the mouse. Both are complete sentences. When that occurs, a comma MUST be placed before the connector "and."
What are other connector words?
And, but, or, nor, for, so, and yet.
Let's reverse the order and make it tricky:
Two inches of snow and a glazing of ice covered the streets.
*No comma
A glazing of ice covered the streets, and there are two inches of snow.
*Comma
Very simply put, the complete sentence is AFTER the "and" in the first phrase, whereas there are two complete sentences on either side of the "and" in the second phrase. There you go; the quick and dirty comma in a nutshell.
