Comma splices?
Kim Ballard
Hi Folks,
This is my first posting to this group, and it may involve a FAQ. I'm
wondering if someone can help me understand the difference/s in
British English comma rules and American English comma rules. A
particular concern of mine is that what American grammar handbooks
would call a comma splice seems to be acceptable in published British
writing. I know an example would be useful here, but I can't be sure
that my example will be considered acceptable in British English,
although I know it would be wrong in Standard American English. With
that confession, let me offer the following example of what would be
considered a comma splice in Standard American English: "Mary was
extremely nervous about the meeting, she knew that her whole future
depended on its outcome."
I'm particularly interested in this issue because I recently discussed
it with a university instructor of technical writing. She was
complaining that one of her students, an exchange student from
England, keeps getting his worked graded down because he uses British
spellings such as "grey" and "catalogue." She thought such grading
unfair, especially given that the student was a good writer except for
his constant use of comma splices. I told her that I knew the British
comma system is different from the American, and that the British
system seems to allow more "comma splices," but I couldn't give her
any more information than that. And you may want to know that my
information comes from a time a few years ago when I rated essays for
a graduate school writing competency exam. I happened to never rate
any British-educated writer's essay, but I heard my fellow staff
members discuss that there are differences.
Can any of you help me?
Kim Ballard
ball...@mace.cc.purdue.edu
dla...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
>
>
> Hi Folks,
> This is my first posting to this group, and it may involve a FAQ. I'm
> wondering if someone can help me understand the difference/s in
> British English comma rules and American English comma rules. A
> particular concern of mine is that what American grammar handbooks
> would call a comma splice seems to be acceptable in published British
> writing. I know an example would be useful here, but I can't be sure
> that my example will be considered acceptable in British English,
> although I know it would be wrong in Standard American English. With
> that confession, let me offer the following example of what would be
> considered a comma splice in Standard American English: "Mary was
> extremely nervous about the meeting, she knew that her whole future
> depended on its outcome."
I don't believe such a sentence would be any more acceptable over here
than it is over there; if two sentences each complete in itself are
run together without any conjunction, a stronger mark than a comma
is needed. That's why we have semicolons !
Rob
Brian Kelk
>
>Hi Folks,
>This is my first posting to this group, and it may involve a FAQ. I'm
>wondering if someone can help me understand the difference/s in
>British English comma rules and American English comma rules. A
>particular concern of mine is that what American grammar handbooks
>would call a comma splice seems to be acceptable in published British
>writing. I know an example would be useful here, but I can't be sure
>that my example will be considered acceptable in British English,
>although I know it would be wrong in Standard American English. With
>that confession, let me offer the following example of what would be
>considered a comma splice in Standard American English: "Mary was
>extremely nervous about the meeting, she knew that her whole future
>depended on its outcome."
>Kim Ballard
>ball...@mace.cc.purdue.edu
I don't know about any British/American differences, but when I consulted
a (British) reference it gave an example like the following
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
where there is a juxtaposition of contrasting statements. It indicated
that this was a construction to be used sparingly, the general rule being
that you *don't* have multiple main clauses linked with commas.
The construct you call a 'comma splice' I see quite often here in the UK
in informal writing, and occasionally in more formal use. I don't like it
myself and hope it doesn't catch on. :-(
I'd be interested to know what happens in other languages.
Brian Kelk
Cambridge
England
Graham Toal gtoal@vangogh.cs.berkeley.edu
>any British-educated writer's essay, but I heard my fellow staff
>members discuss that there are differences.
>
>Can any of you help me?
''The ministers serving the edict, knowing the badness of their
cause, and the evil part they were acting, thought not fit to do
it until they got a troop of Dragoons to be a guard to them, and
accordingly on 17th November 1717, being approaching the town, they
caused beat their drums, and draw their swords, and in this position
came riding through the town, guarding the ministers into the
church, riding and striking with their naked swords, at the women
and others standing by the wayside, which was a melancholy Sabbath
in Bathgate, the Sabbath day being much profaned.''
Is that the sort of comma use you mean? We don't go quite as
overboard nowadays, but your British-educated student is completely
in the right. (Scottish, by any chance?) The lecturer who has
been marking this down should try not to be so parochial.
G
--
Bengt G{llmo
> The construct you call a 'comma splice' I see quite often here in the UK
> in informal writing, and occasionally in more formal use. I don't like it
> myself and hope it doesn't catch on. :-(
>
> I'd be interested to know what happens in other languages.
I cannot recall any discussion of this "problem" in Swedish. Comma splices
are used sometimes for some sort of poetic effect (come to think of it,
they are common in poetry!). If they are frowned upon, it is because they
tend to give long sentences, which is considered bad in non-fiction.
By the way, the semicolon, which is an alternative to the comma in English,
is almost extinct in Swedish, I seem to be one of the few who uses it.
(Ooops, that last sentence contains a comma splice, which I wrote quite
spontaneously! That comma could be replaced with a semicolon, also in
Swedish. One of the few possible uses of a semicolon in Swedish is to
separate two parts of a sentence that mean essentially the same thing.
But, most writers would use a comma or a full stop.)
Bengt
--
Bengt Gallmo e-mail: lme...@eds.ericsson.se
Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson phone: +46 8 719 1940
S-126 25 STOCKHOLM fax: +46 8 719 3988
SWEDEN
The bad thing about good things is that they usually come to an end.
The good thing about bad things is that they, also, usually come to an end.
Richard Brooksby
> I don't know about any British/American differences, but when I
> consulted a (British) reference it gave an example like the
> following
>
> It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
This is a `gnomic contrast' for which I would use a colon. I can't
remember whence this rule comes, I'm afraid. Here are two examples.
It was the best of times : it was the worst of times.
God creates : man destroys.
In the following case I would definitely use a colon. The second
sentence qualifies the first.
Mary was extremely nervous about the meeting: she knew that her
whole future depended on its outcome.
There are few hard and fast rules for punctuation.
--
ric...@harlqn.co.uk (Internet)
RP...@UK.AC.CAMBRIDGE.PHOENIX (JANET)
Peter Moylan
> In article <RICHARD.92...@bilbo.harlqn.co.uk> ric...@harlqn.co.uk (Richard Brooksby) writes:
> In the following case I would definitely use a colon. The second
> sentence qualifies the first.
>
> whole future depended on its outcome.
>
> It is just such cases for which the SEMIcolon is ideally suited.
> The only thing is, every time I think I've got a case where the
> semicolon is appropriate I end up changing it to a period on the
> next revision. In other words, they seem to fit with the pace of
> composition, but they distract when reading. Making two sentences
> out of one compound sentence is rarely wrong.
The essential point - which these two contributors illustrate
quite nicely - is that there is a major difference between British
tradition and American tradition concerning the use of punctuation.
As I understand it, the American tradition is that rules of
punctuation are, in effect, part of the rules of grammar; and that
these rules give a fairly limited role to all marks except the
command and period. The British tradition is more along the lines
that punctuation is an art form; that careful and sometimes creative
punctuation is part of what distinguishes a good writer from
a competent but boring writer; and that the rules are not nearly as
rigid as in the American tradition.
One consequence is that punctuation according to the British tradition
looks somewhat baroque to most American readers, to a point where
semicolons and colons can indeed "distract when reading". Conversely,
American punctuation looks much too bland to someone used to the
British tradition. I've reached the point where I can forgive
American editors for changing the spelling in what I write, but I
still get upset when all the subtleties in the punctuation are
removed, thereby losing some of the nuances which I wished to convey.
All IMAO, of course.
Peter.
Ken Tough
> In the following case I would definitely use a colon. The second
> sentence qualifies the first.
>
> Mary was extremely nervous about the meeting: she knew that her
> whole future depended on its outcome.
>
>The only thing is, every time I think I've got a case where the
>semicolon is appropriate I end up changing it to a period on the
>Making two sentences out of one compound sentence is rarely wrong.
I agree in general, yet I think semicolons are more suited when one
clause is much shorter. I feel the reading is then more fluent (and
interesting) than it would be if two sentences were used:
Mary was extremely nervous about the meeting; her future depended
on its outcome.
Ken.