Comma’s the splice of life

JUNE CASAGRANDE

It’s a tiny mark, a doodle easily missed by the human eye. At first

glance it seems perfectly innocuous but upon closer inspection proves

absolutely terrifying. Is it the Ebola virus? Nope. Even scarier.

It’s the comma.

Most frightening to me about this little mark is that I, a person

who tries to educate herself on punctuation, had no idea how

terrifying it could be. When a friend recently asked me about some

rules governing commas, I cavalierly flipped open my Chicago Manual

of Style expecting to find only things I already knew. I mean, it’s a

comma, right? It just represents a brief pause. How much more can

there be to it?

I quickly found out: 11 pages. That’s how much more. And here’s

the first passage that caught my eye:

“A word, abbreviation, phrase, or clause that is in apposition to

a noun is set off by commas if it is nonrestrictive -- that is,

omittable, containing supplementary rather than essential

information.”

Death by some exotic lethal microbe isn’t sounding as bad in

comparison, now is it?

For those of you still reading, let me say this: I had no idea

what an appositive was. But because I get paid to do this, I figured

I should probably look it up. Turns out, it’s not so scary after all,

and it touches directly on a question many people have with commas.

Appositives are basically two words or phrases next to each other

that mean the same thing. “The actor Kevin Spacey played an Ebola

victim.” In that sentence, “the actor” and “Kevin Spacey” are

appositives because they both refer to the same thing. Not so bad,

huh? But how to use commas with them?

Well, that brain-numbing blurb from the book holds the answer,

which I’ll simplify here: Use commas if when the appositive is just

there to give an extra bit of information. Don’t use them when the

appositive is essential to the meaning of the sentence. “My

boyfriend, Ted, teases me for having seen the movie ‘Outbreak’ more

than once.” Because I only have one boyfriend (sorry, Mr. Spacey),

adding Ted’s name only serves to add a little extra information. It

does not clarify which boyfriend I’m talking about. But the first

example is different because there are many actors. Spacey’s name is

essential to understanding which actor is being discussed.

Another comma gray area has to do with quotation marks, as in the

following sentence: Ted said, “Get away from my girlfriend, Mr.

Spacey!”

When introducing a short quotation like this, precede it with a

comma. Why? It’s just a rule. Unlike when you’re paraphrasing, in

which case you don’t use a comma: Ted said he wants to have a word

with Kevin Spacey. Another example: Ted said to get away from his

girlfriend.

There are two exceptions to the rule of using commas before

quotations. Before longer quotations, use a colon. And, before

quotations set up by a little word like “that” or “whether,” a comma

is unnecessary. For example: My therapist said that “it’s delusional

to believe a big movie star you’ve never met is in love with you.”

The “that” precludes a comma.

Most of the Chicago Style guide’s 11 pages on comma use contain a

common refrain: A comma usually denotes a pause, and often the

question of whether to use one comes down to a judgment call. For

example, “Oh mighty king,” and “Oh, what a beautiful morning,” are

both correct. The latter has a comma after “oh” because someone

saying it out loud would be more likely to pause after “oh” than

someone saying the former -- or at least that’s what the writer could

argue. If you got these two backward, some people might disagree with

you, but no jury could convict you of getting it “wrong.” The worst

that could happen is you could be declared certifiably delusional and

sent to rest in a nice, Ebola-free facility.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer. She can be reached at

[email protected].