Our Blog - Writing Help and Grammar Tips

In my last blog, I wrote about the two main functions of commas. First, they show readers where to pause and take a breath while they are reading. Second, they also indicate the grammar of a sentence. Nowhere do these two functions come into conflict more than with the infamous comma splice.

When I tell people that I devote an entire three-hour class to teaching the comma, they are often incredulous. The comma seems like such a simple little device. But of all the punctuation marks we use in English it can certainly be the most costly. And by “costly” I mean, quite literally, “costing money.”