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A Word, Please: Some commas can give an editor pause

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A lot of people are taught that a comma goes anywhere you want to indicate a pause. On the surface, that system appears to work out fine. Commas often do just that. But not always.

Following this oversimplified rule can lead to errors, which can lead to editors like me cutting out a lot of commas. Here are some types of commas that end up on my cutting-room floor.

Comma between noncoordinate adjectives. Take a sentence like “The new resort features a stunning, 10,000-square-foot casino.” That first comma — the one before 10,000. It’s a goner. Commas go between what are called coordinate adjectives, but not between noncoordinate adjectives. What’s a coordinate adjective? It’s one that could logically be replaced with the coordinating conjunction “and.”

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Insert “and” in our example sentence and you’ll get “a stunning and 10,000-square-foot casino.” It’s not a 10,000-square-foot casino that is stunning. It’s a casino that’s stunning and 10,000 square feet. Obviously, personal judgment comes into play here. But my judgment says that “a stunning and 10,000-square-foot” isn’t as natural as just “a stunning 10,000-square-foot casino.”

Another way to understand this is that coordinate adjectives modify the same noun independently. Compare “He was a sweet, kind, generous guy” with “He wore a bright yellow collared shirt.” See how, in the first example, the adjectives are all independent of the noun? And see how, in the second example, the adjectives seem to have a cumulative effect? The shirt wasn’t bright and yellow. It was bright yellow. That’s the difference. That’s why no comma goes between these adjectives.

Coordinate adjectives can often switch places without affecting the sentence’s meaning: “He was a generous, sweet, kind guy.” Noncoordinate adjectives cannot: “He wore a yellow collared bright shirt.”

Clauses connected with a conjunction: “This fun family activity will keep all the kids entertained for hours, but won’t eat up your vacation budget” seems fine with as is. But it contains another type of comma I delete. Yet if this sentence had just one more word inserted, the word “it” in front of “won’t,” the comma would stay. Why? Because there’s a rule that says you should, in most cases, use a comma to separate complete clauses connect by a conjunction. A complete clause needs a subject and a verb. In our example, there is no subject after “but.” There’s only a verb (won’t) that’s sharing a subject with the previous verb (won’t). So the rule here is no comma.

Oxford commas: In “red, white, and blue,” it’s my job to delete the comma before “and.” But this isn’t a matter of right or wrong. It’s just a matter of style. Book and magazine publishing tend to prefer this comma, called an Oxford or serial comma, while news and business style guides don’t use it.

So whenever you have three or more items in a list and the last one is preceded by a conjunction like “and,” put a comma before the “and” if you want to emulate books and magazines. But if, like me, you’re following news style, that comma’s got to go.

A lot of people have strong opinions about the Oxford comma. It’s very popular among people who pay attention to such things. A common argument is the Oxford comma is needed to make sense of a sentence like “I’d like to thank my parents, God and Betty.” Without a second comma, it appears as though God and Betty are the speaker’s parents.

But this pro-Oxford-comma example misses one little point: If the first item in the list were singular, an Oxford comma would hurt, not help: “I’d like to thank my father, God, and Betty.”

JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.

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