The Comma (Part 2 of 2)

The most misused of all brands, the comma, will appear before you in a new way: clear and understandable. The second step is based on mastering its most stylistic uses.

With appositives

Appositives rename nouns:

• The capital of California, Sacramento, It is found in Northern California.
• Jim’s brother John will be here shortly.

Sacrament and John they are appositives because they gave us another name for the nouns capital and brother. What does this have to do with the use of commas? Much.

Did you notice that the first example has commas around its appositive while the second example has no commas around its? Why? Well. . .

Let’s say I have two brothers: Jim and Thomas. I say to you:

• My brother will visit us later tonight.

“What brother?” you say amazed. To be more specific, I add the device Jim:

• My brother (Jim) will visit us later tonight.

Should the commas surround Jim? The answer: no, if the device limits the possible meanings of the noun to which the name changes; and Yes, whether does not limit their possible meanings. Our answer then is – no. Why? Because brother, by itself, has two possible meanings:Jim gold Thomas–adding our appositive–Jim– limits the meaning to only Jim. In contrast, what does this sentence imply?

• My brother, Jim, will visit us later tonight.

Enveloping commas Jim, so that we know that it does not limit the possible meanings of brother; therefore I know that the author of the sentence has only one brother:Jim.

Real-world examples from NYTimes.com:

• “The McCain, Graham, Warner trio really stood up for themselves and stopped the administration from winning their effort to reinterpret Common Article 3,” Jennifer Daskal said., United States Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch.
• Our appositive, in bold type, does not limit the possible meanings of Jennifer daskal– there is only one of those people – so commas are used.

• But Japan is the country that elevated the American quality guru. W. Edwards Deming to virtual sanctity and conquered global markets with its eminently reliable cars, cameras and computers.
• Our appositive, in bold type, limits the possible meanings of the American quality guru– could be any American businessman – narrowing down to one–W. Edwards Deming– so no commas are used.

To expand: we can apply this principle to all additional information: information added to the subject-verb core of a sentence. When the information “limits” or gives important details, do not use commas; And when you don’t “limit” but only provide nonessential details, use commas.

Practice

For clarification, check out this real-world example taken from the essay. My father is a book, written by Janna Malamud Smith and published in the 2004 edition of Best American Essays Serie. Identify only non-essential information marked or enclosed in commas and ignore all other uses of commas:

• When I was about seventeen, I read William Faulkner’s novel As I lay dying, about a poor southern family. As you will recall, the youngest child, Vardamon, caught a large fish the same day his mother dies, and in the density of emotion he becomes confused, merging her with the dead creature that the assembled mourners finally cook and eat. “My mother is a fish,” he observes, and then chants the expression to himself, a crazy mantra that, amid the painful chaos and astonishing adult incompetence, becomes his guide, the strange story he tells himself. .

To verify your work, nonessential information appears in bold, and when two of those bits of information come together, we’ve underlined one to distinguish it from the other:

• When I was about seventeen, I read William Faulkner’s novel As I lay dying, about a poor southern family. As you will remember, the youngest child, Vardamon, he has caught a large fish the same day his mother dies, and in the density of emotion he is confused, fusing it with the dead creature that the assembled mourners eventually cook and eat. “My mother is a fish,” he observes, and then intons the expression to himself., a crazy mantra that, amid the painful chaos and astonishing adult incompetence, becomes your guide, the strange story he tells himself.

Decompose:

• , about a poor southern family.
• non-essential information
• , Vardamon,
• appositive for the boy
• , fusing it with the dead creature that the assembled mourners eventually cook and eat.
• non-essential information
• , a mad matra who, amid the painful chaos and astonishing incompetence of the adults, becomes their guide,
• appositive for expression
• , the strange story he tells himself.
• milestone device

Now, from what’s left, identify the essential information:

• When I was about seventeen, I read William Faulkner’s novel As he lay dying. As you may recall, the youngest child caught a large fish the same day his mother dies, and in the density of emotion he becomes confused. “My mother is a fish,” he observes, and then intons the expression to himself.

Essential information appears in bold:

• When I was about seventeen, I read William Faulkner’s novel As he lay dying. As you may recall, the youngest boy caught a big fish on the same day. his mother dies, and in the density of emotion gets confused. “My mother is a fish,” he observes, and then chants the expression to himself.

Decompose:

• While I agonize
• appositive to the novel
• his mother dies
• essential information
• in the density of emotion
• essential information
• to himself
• essential information

Know that determining whether some pieces of information are essential or not is the responsibility of the writer and not of formal rules, so develop your own style with commas. And for a little comfort when you run into murky waters of a coma, a quote from a great late writer:

• I was working all morning on the proof of one of my poems and I got a comma. In the afternoon I put it back on.
• Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Done. Remember: everything takes time to master, and using commas is no different; But, mastery will reward those who put in the effort with a degree of clarity in writing that will make it all worthwhile.