I received a promotional email to introduce me to a website called “Grammarly.” It included information regarding comma usage. The meat was this:
Misuse of commas is among the top grammar mistakes that writers around the world are making, according to a recent audit of English writers conducted by the Grammarly team. And there are many ways to misuse a comma:
- Not including a comma before a coordinating conjunction (makes up 43 percent of all comma mistakes among Grammarly users)
- Comma misuse in an introductory phrase (8 percent of comma mistakes)
- Comma misuse inside a compound subject (7 percent of comma mistakes)
- Comma misuse around interrupters (6 percent of comma mistakes)
There are 28 different types of comma mistakes that English writers can make. Yet, not including a comma before a coordinating conjunction -- and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet -- is six times more common than any other!
Good information. Grammarly will critique your text for grammatical errors, but it won’t tell you what they are unless you sign up with them. I haven't, and I don't know what the cost is or how good they are. However, I did put them to a test.
My test came from two fascinating articles from “Opinionator,” a blog from the New York Times, on "The Most Comma Mistakes." The first one is here.
In the second Opinionator article, there were good specific examples and instruction. I’ll quote some—and, later, put Grammarly.com to the test with one of the Opinionator’s examples of the wrong stuff. The first example of a common comma problem is . . .
Identification Crisis
I went to see the movie, “Midnight in Paris” with my friend, Jessie.
Comma (not correct) after “movie,” comma after “friend” and, sometimes, comma after “Paris” as well. None are correct — unless “Midnight in Paris” is the only movie in the world and Jessie is the writer’s only friend. Otherwise, the punctuation should be:
I went to see the movie “Midnight in Paris” with my friend Jessie.
If that seems wrong or weird or anything short of clearly right, bear with me a minute and take a look at another correct sentence:
I went to see Woody Allen’s latest movie, “Midnight in Paris,” with my oldest friend, Jessie.
You need a comma after “movie” because this and only this is Mr. Allen’s newest movie in theaters, and before “Jessie” because she and only she is the writer’s oldest friend.
Two other examples (I recommend you read all of the two articles.)
The Case of the Missing Comma
A related issue is the epidemic of missing commas after parenthetical
phrases or appositives — that is, self-enclosed material that’s within a
sentence, but not essential to its meaning. The following sentences all lack a
necessary comma. Can you spot where?
My father, who gave new meaning to the expression “hard working” never took a vacation.
He was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1964.
Philip Roth, author of “Portnoy’s Complaint” and many other books is a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize.
If you said “working,” “Iowa” and “books,” give yourself full marks.
Lastly, this good stuff (BTW, often comma splices are used in dialogue, and, in that case, I think they can be forgivable, especially when they are used to give the rhythm of the speech.)
Splice Girls, and Boys
“Comma splice” is a term used for the linking of two independent clauses — that
is, grammatical units that contain a subject and a verb and could stand alone
as sentences — with a comma. When I started teaching at the University of
Delaware some years ago, I was positively gobsmacked by the multitude of comma
splices that confronted me. They have not abated.
Here’s an example:
He used to be a moderate, now he’s a card-carrying Tea Partier.
It’s easy to fix in any number of ways:
He used to be a moderate. Now he’s a card-carrying Tea Partier.
He used to be a moderate; now he’s a card-carrying Tea Partier.
He used to be a moderate, but now he’s a card-carrying Tea Partier.
He used to be a moderate — now he’s a card-carrying Tea Partier.
How did Grammarly do?
I pasted the first example from Opinionator into Grammarly’s test box:
I went to see the movie, “Midnight in Paris” with my friend, Jessie.
Grammarly gave this writing sample a score of 100 out of 100 for grammatical correctness, with three checkmarks (okays) for “punctuation within a sentence” (where the Opinionator found errors with which I agree). However, Grammarly did tell me of “1 critical writing issue.” It was this: “Unoriginal text detected.” True.
I then posted the corrected version from the Opinionator article:
I went to see Woody Allen’s latest movie, “Midnight in Paris,” with my oldest friend, Jessie.
This time the results were another score of 100, but it also told me:
Grammarly generated 2 word choice corrections for your text and found no writing issues.
It didn't show me the word choice corrections--I'd have to sign up for that. I didn't.
UPDATE: I told the Grammarly people about my test and they sent this response:
Grammarly provides the world’s most accurate software-based English spell and grammar checker. While Grammarly’s algorithms are very powerful and constantly improving, they are not a replacement for a teacher or proofreader. Our users rely on Grammarly as an automated, cost-effective and always-available tool to improve their English writing and skills.
For what it’s worth,
Ray
© 2012 Ray Rhamey
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