The Grammar Guide

 

Comma Do's and Don't's:
A Short Story of Air Travel

 

 

Rule 1 Put commas between the day and year in dates with the order month, day, year. Do not put commas in dates with the order day, month, year. Do not put commas between a month and year or season and year.

It was, depending on how you wanted to look at it, April 1, 1995, or 1 April 1997, or April 1997, or spring 1997.

Rule 2 Put a comma before (not after!) a coordinating conjunction (and, for, but, yet, so, nor, or) connecting independent clauses.
 

I was standing before a junction (a coordinating conjunction, that is), and I saw an impressive sight. The sky turned black, for a tornado was rapidly approaching.

Rule 3 Put commas between words, phrases, and clauses in a series.

A series of various fast-food wrappers from the trainyard dumpster flew by: McDonald's, Burger King, and Zesto's were equally represented. Then the wind picked up, shook the trees, and rattled the windows of the delapidated train station. The thunder rolled ominously, the sky frowned down upon me, and I began to get nervous.

Rule 4 Put commas between adjectives modifying the same noun.

I wondered just what in the world I was doing in this lonely, out-of the way junction.

Rule 5 Put commas between long introductory clauses or phrases and the rest of the sentence.

But before I had time to ponder my dilemma, I felt myself being swept up by the wind. Despite my precarious situation (and the fact that I wasn't in Kansas), I could not help drawing a parallel between myself and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Rule 6 Put commas around brief asides or parenthetical comments.

Was the same fate, I wondered, about to befall me? What, if he knew, would L. Frank Baum say to my predicament?

Rule 7 Put commas between nonrestrictive modifiers and the words they modify (nonrestrictive modifiers are ones that, if removed, do not alter the sentence's meaning). They can include words in apposition, adverbial phrases and clauses, and clauses starting with who, whom, whose, and which.

But instead of being transported to Oz, that famed land of Munchkins and Wicked Witches, I travelled to Atlanta, that well-known city of Coca-Cola and Jane Fonda. I landed on top of the Peachtree Plaza.

Rule 8 Put commas around alternative or contrasting phrases.

An amazed, even frazzled, waiter approached me, this strange bird who had just fallen from the sky. He informed me, however, that it was not here that I belonged.

Rule 9 Don't put commas between subjects and verbs or between verbs and objects.

He reported to his boss [no comma] what had happened, and that benevolent man with a drooping mustache and a large belly [no comma] called a taxi that took me right to Emory.

Rule 10 Don't put commas between parts of compound subjects, objects, or verbs.

I woke up in my classroom [no comma] and discovered I had been there all along.

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Have you ever wondered when not to use a comma ?