"Common sense alone can teach you when to use a comma."

[ElizaG]

This is a line from an English textbook.

 

Do you agree or disagree with the author(s)?

[Laura Corin]

I disagree, despite having taught minimal grammar/punctuation to my children.  In their case, it was not common sense but immersion in good literature that taught them punctuation.  For example, they each came to an understanding of how to use colons before I had even touched on them - they had seen enough that they knew what they were for.

 

 

[ElizaG]

I disagree, despite having taught minimal grammar/punctuation to my children.  In their case, it was not common sense but immersion in good literature that taught them punctuation.  For example, they each came to an understanding of how to use colons before I had even touched on them - they had seen enough that they knew what they were for.

Good point.  I wonder if this sort of intuitive learning and application is what the author means by "common sense?" 

[regentrude]

I disagree. Sure, some comma rules agree with common sense: you often put a comma when you would pause while speaking, for example with appositions.

Other rules, however, are arbitrary conventions, which becomes quite clear when you compare languages with a similar structure, but different comma rules:

• using a comma to separate independent clauses that are joined with "and" or "but" (no comma in German )
• using NO comma before "that" in a construction like "I know that he has to go" (in German, mandatory comma before "that")
• the Oxford comma or not
• putting a comma after dependent clause if it starts the sentence, but not before the dependent clause if it ends the sentence. ("If you want, call" vs "call if you want")

ETA: The rules not being "common sense" does not mean that one could not glean the majority of the rules from extensive reading and set the commas "by instinct". But "instinct" is not the same as "common sense".

[SparklyUnicorn]

Commas make me want to cry.  I understand several of the comma rules, but there are a few that I have a tough time with.

 

I hate not having a better grasp on comma rules. 

 

And to complicate matters not everyone agrees on the rules!!

 

 

[Critterfixer]

No. The nasty little monsters bite me all the time. 

One of my favorite punctuation books devotes 37 pages to comma use. I would do well to commit every example to memory.

[El...]

Ha!  No.  That's probably from Strunk and White, or another well-revered author, but no. 

[shawthorne44]

My mother has worked as an editor of legal documents, and I asked her about commas once.  Her advice was When in doubt, add a comma.  

[Syllieann]

My mother has worked as an editor of legal documents, and I asked her about commas once. Her advice was When in doubt, add a comma.

Lol, unless said comma is the only one between a subject and its verb.

[Ellie]

I believe that statement is true.

 

However, I also believe that if sense were common, more people would have it. Hence the need for grammar nazis.

[Hyacinth]

My rule when teaching Buiness English to college students was always "When in doubt, leave it out."

[kirstenhill]

No, I don't think they are all common sense...I have a degree in English and do some paid editing work, and my co-editor (who is much better at the technical side of grammar than I am) is often fixing my commas.  She says I use too many commas to indicate pauses that are not actually necessary. 

[Farrar]

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:

 

Yeah right.

[jewellsmommy]

No, I don't think they are all common sense...I have a degree in English and do some paid editing work, and my co-editor (who is much better at the technical side of grammar than I am) is often fixing my commas.  She says I use too many commas to indicate pauses that are not actually necessary. 

 

I always felt that I was a liberal comma user, but then I helped my brother with a paper. Good gracious! He just sprinkles them in a paper like my kids use sprinkles on ice cream. :lol:

[SparklyUnicorn]

My rule when teaching Buiness English to college students was always "When in doubt, leave it out."

 

My husband says the opposite.  He thinks people don't use enough commas!

[HelenNotOfTroy]

I think that commas are difficult for some people. I used to edit other students' papers in college.

[SilverMoon]

I disagree. Vehemently. :p

[Bree]

I'm terrible with where to put my commas :( I took a class to be a medical transcriptionist so I could work at home and when I tested the commas are what did me in. I passed, but my scores were low. You would think that someone with a college education should have less problems with this.

[KrissiK]

There are a lot more places to use commas than just pauses in sentences. Besides, there's a lot of people without common sense.

[Renai]

I believe that statement is true.

 

However, I also believe that if sense were common, more people would have it. Hence the need for grammar nazis.

 

Have you been stalking the Ignore thread? There's a couple of pages dedicated to comma usage there.

 

I came on this thread just to see what Ellie would say.

 

I use commas, whenever. I haven't been docked points for my graduate papers for usage, but it may be because they don't know any better than I do. For example, in the first sentence of this paragraph I probably should have used ellipses instead of a comma.

[leeannpal]

Lol, unless said comma is the only one between a subject and its verb.

 

I'm a high school English teacher, and I teach my student to leave a comma out if you are in doubt of its need. It is far too easy to create comma splices when commas are sprinkled liberally through a paragraph or essay.

[lots of little ducklings]

{Howdy, Ellie!   :seeya: Alright, it's time for me to be serious….}

 

I'd disagree with that statement.  I've encountered far too many people (college students, primarily) who are well-read and highly intelligent, but are simply lost navigating the world of commas.  

 

In my own case, I've just developed a feel for them (having never been taught "comma rules"). Languages are my strength, though; my brain is wired to pick up on such patterns fairly effortlessly.  I certainly wouldn't want to equate that with "common sense" any more than I would want someone to suggest that, say, statistical analysis or probability or abstract art is common sense. They certainly aren't to me.  And though the rules of grammar are undoubtedly a huge step in the right direction when it comes to comma-usage,  I have a hunch that rules alone wouldn't necessarily help the most comma-challenged minds among us. There is something of an art to using them, too.  

 

{Now, enough of being serious.  I'm heading back over to the mindless drivel at the Bizarro-World-Ignore-This-Thread thread.}

 

 

 

 

[Aiden]

No way is it common sense!

 

I will be forever grateful to my 10th grade English teacher, known throughout the school as the Comma Queen. I thought I understood commas before that year, but I was wrong. I had as much understanding of commas as common sense and extensive reading can get you, keeping in mind that not all authors use commas correctly, so you can't always intuit correct rules just from reading. After that year, however, I knew my comma rules backward and forward. (I can't still tell you all the rules and the correct names for different kinds of clauses and such, but I still use commas correctly, and I'm almost always right when I look one up.)

 

When I was in college, my English Composition professor put two sentences on the board the first day of class. He asked us to tell him what the two sentences told us about Mary's family and how the sentences conveyed that information:

 

Mary and her brother John went to the store.*

Mary and her brother, John, went to the store.*

 

Most people said something along the lines of "Mary has a brother named John." ... "No, we don't know if she has any other brothers; the sentences don't say one way or the other." Many tried to say that one sentence or the other was incorrect.

 

I was the only one in a composition class at a small, private, selective, liberal arts college who could tell the professor that Mary in the first sentence has more than one brother, and Mary in the second sentence has only one.** My classmates were flabbergasted by how I knew that.

 

It takes instruction to learn comma rules, especially the ones that seem arbitrary unless you know either the rule or the context.

 

 

*I don't recall the exact sentences, but they were illustrations of this comma rule.

 

**For those who've said they aren't great with comma rules: The commas around the name "John" in the second sentence indicate that you can understand the sentence just fine without the name--if you're talking about Mary's brother, you're talking about John; she only has one, so there's no need to indicate which one. The name "John" is extra, unnecessary information and should be set off by commas. The absence of commas in the first sentence means that the word "John" is crucial to understanding the sentence--Mary has more than one brother, and you don't know to whom the sentence is referring if you leave out his name.

[Harriet Vane]

As a writing tutor, I have found that most students are perplexed by commas. In fact, I would say that incorrect comma usage is the number one mistake students make.

[Mbelle]

I said no and am educated in the US.  DH was educated in another English speaking country and taught the common sense way and now he is frustrated by it.  He admits the education system at the time he went to school taught almost no grammar.  DD is taking an online composition class and this is such a huge stress.  We have Strunk and White and Analytical Grammar and sometimes we just can not figure out whether or not to use a comma.  It's so frustrating.  We have a 4 page essay to pour over today with said grammar books open in an attempt to get it right.

[shawthorne44]

I suspect that it was common sense for the person that wrote that.  Of course, the author is writing an English textbook, so we can assume their mind worked in a way that clicked with grammar.  

 

Anyone else find themselves noticing every comma?   Since my grammar instruction ended with "This is an adverb", I assume mine are wrong.  In fact, learning it myself seems to be a bonus of homeschooling.  

[Tanaqui]

Were that true they'd call it comma sense, not common sense.

[ElizaG]

The line is from A First Book of Literary Reading and Composition (Blackie & Son Ltd., 1923), which was meant for 11 year olds.  The author is Lewis Marsh, M.A., a graduate of Cambridge (IIRC) who was the headmaster of a publicly funded grammar school in London.  His books must have been quite well received, as they were still in print during WWII. 

 

The series is set up similarly to some other books I've seen from the UK, with very light formal grammar, and lessons built around literary excerpts.  The idea seems to be to guide the students toward the sort of understanding that Laura described.   I don't know if this would be effective for all children, though; it might require a great deal more reading than can be done during school hours. 

 

Then again, I don't know if explicit teaching of rules really solves the problem, either.  Is there evidence either way?

 

(And for the person who asked -- no, I didn't notice the comma discussion in the "Ignore" thread.  The time I looked at it, y'all were talking about... well, I can't remember.  But it wasn't commas. :D  )

[displace]

I was taught to just put one where I might pause while speaking. As a result I use a billion commas all over the place and I love them! But it's overkill. :)

[lots of little ducklings]

The line is from A First Book of Literary Reading and Composition (Blackie & Son Ltd., 1923), which was meant for 11 year olds.  The author is Lewis Marsh, M.A., a graduate of Cambridge (IIRC) who was the headmaster of a publicly funded grammar school in London.  His books must have been quite well received, as they were still in print during WWII. 

 

The series is set up similarly to some other books I've seen from the UK, with very light formal grammar, and lessons built around literary excerpts.  The idea seems to be to guide the students toward the sort of understanding that Laura described.   I don't know if this would be effective for all children, though; it might require a great deal more reading than can be done during school hours. 

 

Then again, I don't know if explicit teaching of rules really solves the problem, either.  Is there evidence either way?

 

(And for the person who asked -- no, I didn't notice the comma discussion in the "Ignore" thread.  The time I looked at it, y'all were talking about... well, I can't remember.  But it wasn't commas. :D  )

 

You mean you didn't take the time to read all 28 pages?  It's a goldmine of classical brilliance.  You really must read it if you want your children to succeed in the world.   :D

[lots of little ducklings]

No way is it common sense!

 

I will be forever grateful to my 10th grade English teacher, known throughout the school as the Comma Queen. I thought I understood commas before that year, but I was wrong. I had as much understanding of commas as common sense and extensive reading can get you, keeping in mind that not all authors use commas correctly, so you can't always intuit correct rules just from reading. After that year, however, I knew my comma rules backward and forward. (I can't still tell you all the rules and the correct names for different kinds of clauses and such, but I still use commas correctly, and I'm almost always right when I look one up.)

 

When I was in college, my English Composition professor put two sentences on the board the first day of class. He asked us to tell him what the two sentences told us about Mary's family and how the sentences conveyed that information:

 

Mary and her brother John went to the store.*

Mary and her brother, John, went to the store.*

 

Most people said something along the lines of "Mary has a brother named John." ... "No, we don't know if she has any other brothers; the sentences don't say one way or the other." Many tried to say that one sentence or the other was incorrect.

 

I was the only one in a composition class at a small, private, selective, liberal arts college who could tell the professor that Mary in the first sentence has more than one brother, and Mary in the second sentence has only one.** My classmates were flabbergasted by how I knew that.

 

It takes instruction to learn comma rules, especially the ones that seem arbitrary unless you know either the rule or the context.

 

 

*I don't recall the exact sentences, but they were illustrations of this comma rule.

 

**For those who've said they aren't great with comma rules: The commas around the name "John" in the second sentence indicate that you can understand the sentence just fine without the name--if you're talking about Mary's brother, you're talking about John; she only has one, so there's no need to indicate which one. The name "John" is extra, unnecessary information and should be set off by commas. The absence of commas in the first sentence means that the word "John" is crucial to understanding the sentence--Mary has more than one brother, and you don't know to whom the sentence is referring if you leave out his name.

 

I love this!  You see, I never knew any of this (as I had no formal grammar instruction until studying ancient languages in college), which demonstrates that intuition and "comma sense" can only take you so far.  

 

That's a huge reason I'm homeschooling… I get to learn all the good stuff I missed out on the first time through.   :D

[Laura Corin]

 

I was the only one in a composition class at a small, private, selective, liberal arts college who could tell the professor that Mary in the first sentence has more than one brother, and Mary in the second sentence has only one.** My classmates were flabbergasted by how I knew that.

 

 

Forgive me if I say something radical: if you were the only person in the class who derived that meaning from the sentences, did they actually mean that any more?  Perhaps that particular comma rule is obsolete, in that no-one else in the class understood the nuance.

 

Whilst learning the basic rules of writing is essential for good communication, if those rules become too esoterically prescriptive then perhaps we have stepped away from the reason for having those rules in the first place.

 

I'm reminded of some passages in Jane Austen where people are offended by social slights and failures of politesse that are largely incomprehensible to us today.  If we insisted on living by those rules in the 21st century, our social communication would not be enhanced.

[maize]

Thank you Laura for writing what I was thinking!

 

We write to communicate, rules are helpful to the extent that they help us communicate effectively but it seems to me that a nuance prescribed by rule is not helpful in the real world if only a tiny minority of people educated in that rule catch the nuance.

[SparklyUnicorn]

No. The nasty little monsters bite me all the time. 

One of my favorite punctuation books devotes 37 pages to comma use. I would do well to commit every example to memory.

 

And this is when having some grammar knowledge would be very helpful.  How do people grasp some of the rules for commas without knowing much about grammar? 

[Critterfixer]

 

And this is when having some grammar knowledge would be very helpful.  How do people grasp some of the rules for commas without knowing much about grammar? 

 

I grasp just enough to be dangerous. :D

Someone ought to invent a grammar mousetrap that can be fitted like a pencil grip. Program it with comma rules, and then when misuse or abuse occurs-SNAP! 

I'd buy one.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I grasp just enough to be dangerous. :D

Someone ought to invent a grammar mousetrap that can be fitted like a pencil grip. Program it with comma rules, and then when misuse or abuse occurs-SNAP! 

I'd buy one.

 

You and me both!  Haha... I've learned a lot working with my kids on it, but commas continue to stump me sometimes.

[Critterfixer]

It could have three settings:

Beginner: Emits a gentle buzzing sound like a rattlesnake.

Advanced: Buzzes and then snaps if one doesn't erase fast enough.

Learn-to-write-you-bonehead: No buzz and you deserve what you got!

[luuknam]

English is a living language, which means that grammar (and spelling) rules continue to be subject to change. Having some rules makes communication easier. Some of the other rules though are not really helping anyone. I really don't care if my commas are correct. People understand me the vast majority of the time, and when they don't, their lack of understanding doesn't tend to be caused by excessive, misplaced, or missing commas.

 

For the record, I'm not sure how the question in the poll is supposed to be read. Is it: "Only common sense (and nothing else) can teach you when to use a comma" or "At least for some people, common sense is sufficient for learning when to use a comma, although there might be other methods for learning when to use a comma as well, such as studying grammar guides"? I'm inclined to think the second example is what was meant, though I'm not sure. And there weren't even any commas to get confused about!

 

I think common sense (as in "the instinct after a lot of exposure to good literature"), is sufficient to teach some/most people when to use a comma in the vast majority of their writing, though likely not to grammar nazi perfection.

[regentrude]

I think common sense (as in "the instinct after a lot of exposure to good literature"), is sufficient to teach some/most people when to use a comma in the vast majority of their writing, though likely not to grammar nazi perfection.

I do not think "common sense" and "instinct after exposure" are the same thing.

Common sense should rely on logic and language structure. The fact that identical sentences with identical grammatical constructions in two closely related languages have different comma rules seems to indicate that this is an arbitrary convention - because "common sense" would require the same comma in both sentences.

[luuknam]

I do not think "common sense" and "instinct after exposure" are the same thing.

Common sense should rely on logic and language structure. The fact that identical sentences with identical grammatical constructions in two closely related languages have different comma rules seems to indicate that this is an arbitrary convention - because "common sense" would require the same comma in both sentences.

 

I think that's a pretty literal interpretation of "common sense". However, I have no idea how the OP meant it. That's why I added my interpretation of it. If we're talking about your interpretation, then it's pretty obvious common sense alone can't teach you when to use a comma. IME, common sense tends to include some sort of real world experience though, and not just logic. Not sure about the language structure. How would you learn about language structure if not by exposure or by learning the rules (which would be in a grammar book)?

[Shellydon]

Nope.  Read any high school or college papers lately? 

[SparklyUnicorn]

I do not think "common sense" and "instinct after exposure" are the same thing.

Common sense should rely on logic and language structure. The fact that identical sentences with identical grammatical constructions in two closely related languages have different comma rules seems to indicate that this is an arbitrary convention - because "common sense" would require the same comma in both sentences.

 

And that is what I hate about commas.

My experience is that common sense is surprisingly uncommon.

[JennyD]

 

I don't know about 'common sense alone,' but my experience has been that asking a native English speaker to read his or her paper (in English) aloud is an extremely effective way to repair a lot of problems, including comma placement.  

 

 

[HS Mom in NC]

No.  I grew up in the US.

 

Some of the rules are common sense and some aren't.  Even recently there's been debate about the Oxford (or Cambridge or whatever) comma and if it should still be the rule.  Languages do change over time whether we like it or not. 

 

The other guideline about teaching children to place commas where they naturally pause when speaking is silly.  Speech patterns vary enough that not everyone only pauses where a comma would be appropriate. I suspect people who taught this had limited experience with varied speech patterns.

[Tanaqui]

I don't know about 'common sense alone,' but my experience has been that asking a native English speaker to read his or her paper (in English) aloud is an extremely effective way to repair a lot of problems, including comma placement.  

 

Only if they grasp that punctuation has a meaning and isn't just decoration. I truly think this is the root of a lot of people's problems, they never are taught not... too... read... everything... in... a... halting... mon...o...tone, and so never have a chance to learn what to do with a comma or a period.

 

[Bluegoat]

I think a lot is being assumed in "common sense".  For example, for someone who has never read anything or learned what a comma is supposed to actually do, it clearly is not going to have it appear in the brain all of a sudden, even in a very sensible person. 

 

So I would say that they must be thinking of someone who already knows the most basic rules (say, a comma is often at a place where there is a pause in speech) and has actually read books and seen them used.  And they must be assuming someone who speaks or can speak standard English as well. 

 

I think that most people who speak standard English reasonably well, and who read books, and who have common sense, will be able to use commas without serious errors most of the time.

 

I should say I am not a grammar absolutist - I generally see what is acceptable in formal writing contexts as falling within a range, it is fine with me if some people are a more liberal with commas than others.  Perhaps they just have generous personalities, or it reflects the way their thinking is structured in their minds. 

 

I would say though that in my experience, one of the common reasons for writing that is unclear, including through misuse of commas, is that the thought process that produced the writing is unclear. 

[Ohdanigirl]

Definitely not! I was told to just put a comma where ever I would take a natural breadth. Well, I used to talk a mile a minute and rarely came up for air. Any ideas how that worked out? To this day I am a comma abuser. It has gotten better since doing R&S with my dc, but I still find myself doubting and running over to check the text book at times.

 

I really think most peopke need to i ternalize comma rules.

[IsabelC]

Depends on the person. Some people seem to have a natural grasp of language and writing, and will punctuate appropriately without ever being formally taught about punctuation. A few people have a natural talent for speaking, and can be instructed to punctuate to match how they would say a sentence (although for many people, that would result in sentences being primarily punctuated with um, er, like, etc!). However, there are other people who will avoid, overuse or otherwise abuse commas (and other punctuation marks) unless they are offered some explicit rules on accepted usage. 

[ElizaG]

 A few people have a natural talent for speaking, and can be instructed to punctuate to match how they would say a sentence (although for many people, that would result in sentences being primarily punctuated with um, er, like, etc!).

It might also be relevant to note that before about 1920, school readers in the United States (not sure about elsewhere) were meant to be read orally, even at the higher levels.  With this approach, the children didn't just see examples of correct comma usage; they heard and spoke them at the same time.   In the upper grades, they'd be reading quite long and complex sentences -- see, for instance, the excerpts from Robinson Crusoe in McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader, which would have been used in about the seventh and eighth grades.

 

I wonder if this multi-sensory practice helped to develop their "comma sense," along with their habits of speech?