Commas for joining sentence elements

Sounds a scintillating subject, doesn't it? But it gives me the opportunity to discuss another pet peeve, second only to the misuse of the apostrophe in the it's/its confusion I treated in an earlier post.

A comma is necessary when two complete sentences are joined with a conjunction such as for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so and while.

An easy way to remember these conjunctions is by using the acronym FANBOYS (and add  the straggling W).

For example:
I wanted to feed my azaleas, but the fertilizer bin was empty.
Florence tried to give her hero admirable qualities, so her readers would fall in love with him.
My dog circled my desk incessantly, yet I was too busy typing to notice.
Children can't wait to grow up, while all parents want to do is prolong their childhood.

Now this is all pretty straightforward, and most writers don't have a problem sticking a comma into their sentence before the FANBOYSW conjunction. But sometimes a writer decides to omit the conjunction and use only the lone comma to join the two halves of his sentence. Then we have--wait for it--Pet Peeve #2: The Comma Splice.

I wanted to feed my azaleas, the fertilizer bin was empty. 

Now this sentence makes sense, but it's still grammatically incorrect. The writer (that's me) has joined two complete sentences with a comma. A no-no. A semi-colon can be used in place of the comma, but that's another story, and will have to wait for another day.

 I could have broken my comma splice into two complete sentences. That would work.

But I cannot, ever, join two complete sentences with only a comma. I need one of the FANBOYSW to help.

And, odd as it may sound, comma splices are as common as dirt in my part of the world. I'd go as far as saying that the comma splice is probably the single biggest grammar error I see when I grade student papers. And it doesn't matter whether the student writer is 18 or 80--comma splices litter their work, distracting and often confusing the reader.

Using Commas with Adverbs

In my last post I stated that commas are required to separate multiple adjectives if the word and could be substituted for the comma in question.

The rain fell heavily, steadily and noisily.
(The rain fell heavily and steadily and noisily. None of these adverbs is any more important than the others: they each modify the verb fell in equal measure.

Today, I'll show how the same rule applies for commas used to separate adverbs. Adverbs can be tricky, so I'll define them first.

An adverb is a word that modifies, explains or limits a verb, adjective or another adverb.

The dog barked softly. (Softly modifies the verb barked).

The dog barked softly, repetitively and ceaselessly. (Here, I've separated the first two adverbs with a comma. A comma after the word ceaselessly is optional).

And note that the comma in the last example could be replaced by the word and.

Now look at an example that does not require a comma to separate two adverbs:
Her eye shadow was really too blue for her complexion.
(The adverb really modifies the adverb too--which modifies the adjective blue).

In this example, you couldn't use the word and between the words really and too. Therefore, a comma isn't required.

I'll take this up a notch in future postings when I discuss how adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses are usually separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma.

I'm looking forward to the weekend here in beautiful British Columbia. We're hosting an 80th birthday party for my mother, and she wanted a traditional Danish smorgasbord. So I'm busy roasting meats and making meatballs for the hundreds of open-faced sandwiches we'll need for the feast. Luckily I have three sisters to help!
Serena
serenajanes.com