Avoid confusion with commas
Misplaced or absent commas can have dire effects, which can be avoided by careful consideration.
On a T-shirt sold on Amazon:
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.
Commas save lives.
Bad punctuation can be confusing or even dangerous. Commas provide a classic example. Consider this sentence from my blog:
It was mentally refreshing to get out of the city as usual and I can’t wait until next spring when we can go camping again.
You might read this and wonder what the phrase “get out of the city as usual” means. Is this a weekly thing? In the context of my blog it makes more sense, but adding a couple of commas helps clarify:
It was mentally refreshing to get out of the city, as usual, and I can’t wait until next spring when we can go camping again.
Here’s a more confusing sentence that needs commas:
She enjoys knitting her family and her bird.
This leaves you wondering if she is knitting her family and bird.
We sometimes use commas when we should really use a full-stop (period for our US readers), semicolon, or dash.
For example:
Not only did I have to try to keep my son from strangling himself with the IV line, I also had to stop him from going too far from a power outlet as it was electrically powered, then add to that the picture of our son in the playroom of the ward with three other kids who also had drips.
That’s a confusing run-on sentence. It would have been better if I’d used a full-stop after “powered”.
Commas are sometimes a matter of opinion, which can make them tricky. Lists always need commas, as do asides, such as the phrase “as usual” in the first example above.
If you’re not sure, a simple test is to read your sentence aloud and put a comma where you hesitate or pause slightly.
Remember that commas can clarify your meaning and prevent you from sounding like you might eat your grandma!