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.