Main units:

• Verbal Agreements
• Placement Services
• Pronouns Are Not for Amateurs
• Countererrorist Measures
• The Comma-ist Manifesto
• Punctuational Punctilio
• A Miscellany of Malpractice
  

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It’s easy to forget what a difference a comma can make in a sentence, especially a compound sentence. A compound sentence gets its name from the fact that it’s compounded of at least two independent clauses, which we can think of as miniature sentences—word-groups that could stand on their own as grammatically complete statements. In a compound sentence, the two miniature sentences are often hitched together by a coordinating conjunction, a word like and. And is the consummate coupler—it’s forever tugging two things together. The trouble is that those two things sometimes get a little too close when in fact they don’t belong together at all, and their relationship can start to look unseemly. It’s in everybody’s best interest to pry the two things apart, so that people won’t get the wrong idea. And that’s where the comma comes in.

Look at what and is up to in that sentence. At first, it seems to be joining death and “heroin chic.” But then we read further and realize we’ve been misled. The compound noun “heroin chic” isn’t the second object of the preposition after; that preposition in fact has only one object: death. And “heroin chic,” as it turns out, is the subject of the second independent clause of the sentence. But how were we expected to know that without having been tipped off? The sentence needs a barrier between the two independent clauses so that we immediately know when one has ended and the second one has begun. A comma would be the perfect boundary-marker.

Below are more excerpts in each of which the subject of a second independent clause in a sentence is misreadable as the second object of a preposition in a prepositional phrase at the end of the first independent clause. In each sentence, a comma inserted before the coordinating conjunction and, italicized for our purposes here,would pay the reader a courtesy and spare her any initial bewilderment.

The following three compound sentences each include three independent clauses, and the dividing line between the second and third is initially blurred because the writer failed to tuck in a comma before the italicized and.

A second category of unsuitable attachment flaunts itself in sentences in which the subject of a second independent clause can be misread as an additional complement of a linking verb (also known as an equational verb) in the first independent clause. Unless we insert a comma before the second and in the following sentence, a reader is likely to think, if only for a nanosecond, that Mr. Huckabee’s father was also his mother.

A third kind of unsuitable attachment is that in which the subject of a sentence-ending independent clause can be mistaken for the direct object of a verb at the end of an introductory adverbial dependent clause. That is, a reader can initially misconstrue an intransitive verb (a verb that never has a direct object) as a transitive verb (a verb that always has a direct object). (This problem that afflicts some complex sentences, which by definition consist of one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses, is treated in Chapter 60.) A comma between driving and everyone in the following sentence will resolve the problem.

Another type of unsuitable attachment appears in sentences in which the subject of a second independent clause can be mistaken for a second object of a transitive verb in the first independent clause. A comma before and will set things right in the following sentence.

Unsuitable attachments can take other forms. In the following sentence, the conjunction and appears to be joining the two participial phrases following while at the end of the first independent clause, but the second participial phrase needs to be understood as a lead-in to the second independent clause.

In the next specimen, the conjunction and seems to be uniting two adverbial dependent clauses that follow the first independent clause, but readers immediately need to understand that the second adverbial dependent clause belongs in fact to the second independent clause.

Let’s end this chapter by having a look at a sentence in which the writer has been so miserly with commas that she seems to have gone out of her way to encourage misreading twice in a single sentence.

Without a comma after strollers, a reader can easily regard lawn mowers as a second direct object of pushed rather than recognizing it as the subject of a new independent clause. Once the reader has reoriented herself to the first half of the sentence, she is then likely to regard in one driveway, like on a tire swing, as a second prepositional phrase modifying the verb played rather than as the introductory phrase of the fourth independent clause. Inserting commas after strolled and swing will improve the sentence but will leave some readers confused about why the first independent clause has been segregated from the three following independent clauses, which have been bunched together in a series taking the form a, b, and c:

Why not absorb the first independent clause into the series, which will now take the form a, b, c, and d?

In this sentence, by Gore Vidal, any less than fully alert reader can at first think that Vidal is claiming simply that O’Hara’s work can be taken seriously as an unconscious record of the superstitions and assumptions of his time, and that’s that. Such a reader will be jolted, however, when she comes up against a predicate following what she had regarded as merely a clause-ending string of prepositional phrases. A more forceful break after literature would prevent any initial misreading.

The verb leaves is too easily and confoundingly misread as a noun functioning as the direct object of the infinitive to choose.

  ^^  60 

A mind is a terrible thing to taste. So why mislead your readers into thinking—before the poor dears have reached the end of your sentence—that you’ve been gorging away on gray matter? Spare them. A comma should follow an introductory adverbial dependent clause (such as After I ate)—especially if, as in the title of this chapter, the dependent clause ends with a verb. The subject of the independent clause of the sentence, after all, could initially be misread as the object of that verb.
     Too often, though, writers don’t trouble themselves with the comma—and end up troubling the reader.

In the second sentence of the next excerpt, the independent clause they will tolerate nothing can initially be mistaken for a nounal dependent clause whose opening that is implied rather than explicitly stated.

In the next excerpt, the beginning of the independent clause (we entrust ourselves to) can initially be misread as an adjectival dependent clause with an implicit whom before we.

Even when misreading isn’t likely, separating the introductory adverbial dependent clause from the independent clause can’t hurt.

When an adverbial dependent clause appears not at the beginning of a sentence but instead after an independent clause in a compound-complex sentence, which comprises two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause, the omission of a comma can be especially jarring.

On her first way through the sentence, many a reader cannot help regarding there as an adverb modifying arrived in an adverbial dependent clause (when I arrived there), but when she reaches the next word, the verb was, she realizes that the writer intended for her to read there as an expletive, as the structural prop with which the second independent clause of the sentence begins. So why not do the reader the favor and insert a comma after arrived? (In the book Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, Mary Norris, formerly of The New Yorker, explains the magazine’s policy of punctuating compound-complex sentences taking the form of independent clause + coordinating conjunction + adverbial dependent clause + independent clause. The policy is to insert a comma between the independent clause and the coordinating conjunction but to leave out a comma after the adverbial dependent clause—unless that clause begins with the subordinating conjunction since or although. But that policy is not always in a reader’s best interest. It’s hard to argue that the New Yorker sentence I want to tell him this, but even as I turn back the Corvette peels away would not be more reader-friendly with a comma after back.) 

Even when sentences aren’t practically pleading for misinterpretation, every reader is on principle entitled to a comma after an introductory adverbial dependent clause. The reader is also entitled to punctuational consistency when a sentence split into halves by a semicolon includes two such introductory clauses.

Above all, avoid the vivid punctuational inconsistency of passages like the following.

Punctuating introductory adverbial dependent clauses is easy. When an adverbial dependent clause follows an independent clause, though, things get more complicated (see Chapters 73 and 74).

  ^^  61 

An infinitive or an infinitive phrase that is positioned at the beginning of a sentence as an introductory element should always be followed by a comma. To omit the comma is to invite misreading.
     A couple of definitions are in order. An infinitive consists of the combination of the word to and the stem of a verb; to write is an infinitive. The word to in an infinitive is not a preposition. (Grammarians refer to it variously as the sign of the infinitive, the infinitive marker, and the infinitival particle.) An infinitive phrase consists of an infinitive and any objects and modifiers it has attracted to itself. To write a sentence without errors is an infinitive phrase.
     When an infinitive is set out at the start of a sentence, writers sometimes forget to insert a comma after it.

Walton can be initially misconstrued as the object of to survive instead of being instantly recognized as the subject of the independent clause. The solution? Insert a comma after survive.
     An unpunctuated introductory infinitive phrase can cause trouble as well.

Readers can easily mistake the phrasing she relies heavily on for an adjectival dependent clause (with an implied that at its head) modifying supply. But readers need to know at the outset that she is the subject of the second independent clause in the sentence. The solution? Insert a comma after supply.
     Even when the danger of misreading is slight, it’s good form to position a comma after an introductory infinitive phrase.

Now have another look at the second sentence in the paragraph that starts off this chapter—a sentence that includes two infinitive phrases. Why is there no comma after To omit the comma at the beginning of the sentence? Simple: that infinitive phrase is functioning as the complete subject of the sentence, not as an introductory element. In contrast, consider this sentence: To prevent misreading, a good writer always inserts a comma after an introductory infinitive phrase. There, To prevent misreading is an introductory infinitive phrase.

  ^^  62 

If a short unpunctuated introductory prepositional phrase (or even a pair or trio of such phrases) is unlikely to cause confusion by blurring the boundary between itself and the subject of a sentence, there’s no pressing need for a comma to follow the prepositional phrase (or phrases). But if a reader cannot instantly discern the grammatical status of the word following the introductory prepositional phrase, you are paying her a courtesy by inserting a comma at the end of the phrase.

Before reaching the verb is, a reader can easily misconstrue attending as a participle (and the phrase attending a baseball game as a participial phrase modifying fans). But she needs to know from the outset that attending is a gerund—and the subject of the sentence. The solution? Insert a comma after fans.
      Whenever the omission of a comma after an introductory prepositional phrase might leave a reader uncertain of the interrelationship between words early on in a sentence, the writer should come to the rescue with a comma.

The phrasing they disparaged can initially be misread as an adjectival dependent clause with an implied that at its start: that they disparaged. Readers will then lose their footing when they reach the noun phrase the turn to bling and violence.

A prepositional phrase occasionally begins with what grammarians call a complex preposition—two or more words that together function exactly like a single-word preposition. Among the complex prepositions are according to and instead of. It’s desirable to insert a comma after any introductory prepositional phrase whose preposition is complex. Misreading might otherwise result.

This phrasing doesn’t discourage a reader from initially misconstruing Mr. Guyton still enjoys looking at as an adjectival dependent clause (with an implied that at its outset) modifying essay.

As the previous example illustrates, an introductory prepositional phrase is sometimes preceded by a coordinating conjunction, such as and or but. Such a phrase might also be preceded by an adverb. The adverb ever is positioned before the preposition since in the following misreadable excerpt.

The trouble here is that the object of the preposition (era), combined with the adjective that precedes it (silent), can easily be mistaken as an unhyphenated adjectival compound modifying publicity people. The reader needs to know from the start that the prepositional phrase ends with era.

An introductory prepositional phrase sometimes has an adjectival dependent clause attached to it, and together the two word-groups form what we might call a hybrid introductory element. It is sound punctuational practice to insert a comma after an introductory hybrid—and the comma is crucial when the hybrid ends with a verb.

A reader could easily mistake her poetry and prose as the object of the verb (followed) in the adjectival dependent clause.

Sometimes an introductory hybrid element consists of one or more prepositional phrases followed by parenthesized phrasing, as in the construction coming after the colon in the lengthy and elaborate sentence below.

In such a long sentence, a reader needs all the help she can get. A comma separating the parenthetical element from Mr. LeDuff would be welcome (as would a pair of hyphens in each of the adjectival compounds black and white and stars and stripes [see Chapter 86]).

  ^^  63 

Whenever two or more consecutive adjectives precede a noun, you need to decide whether a comma should separate them. Your intuition usually does the work for you: it’s unlikely that you would insert a comma between same and realistic in They each have the same realistic outlook; and you probably wouldn’t have to think twice about the need for a comma between unshowered and overtalkative in For the return flight, I was stuck next to an unshowered, overtalkative teenager.
      Even professional writers, however, sometimes mishandle the punctuation of consecutive adjectives. The following sentence includes four such pairs. How many commas would you add?

If you added two (one after short and one after fair), you have a sure sense of when a comma is called for. And the foolproof strategy for determining whether or not a comma must separate two adjectives isn’t complicated. All you need to do is ask yourself two questions.
     First, if you were to wedge the coordinating conjunction and between the two adjectives, would the phrasing sound perfectly natural to your ears? If it would, insert a comma. If it wouldn’t, leave the phrasing alone.
     Second, if you reversed the two adjectives, would the phrasing also sound fine? If it would, you need a comma. If it would not, don’t add a comma.
     If we apply those two rules to the sentence above, it’s obvious, for instance, that fair and smooth complexion and smooth, fair complexion sound entirely natural but that big and blue eyes and blue big eyes do not.
     In the first instance, the adjectives fair and smooth are independently describing complexion. Think of them as loner adjectives. (Grammarians call them coordinate adjectives.) Adjectives that like to keep to themselves deserve a comma between them.
     In the second instance, though, the writer means that Peanut’s blue eyes also happen to be big. Big isn’t so much modifying eyes as limiting and refining the meaning of the phrase blue eyes. It’s as if big is leaning on blue in the phrasing; one of the adjectives is dependent on the other, so they shouldn’t be separated punctuationally. (Grammarians call them cumulative adjectives.)
     In the first sentence of the following excerpt, the writer omits the comma that’s needed between intense and bewhiskered, but in the second sentence he correctly inserts a comma between the very same adjectives.

In the following excerpts, the writers have also blurred the distinction between independent and dependent adjectives.

A writer’s failure to separate independent adjectives with a comma can easily give readers the wrong idea.

The writer of that sentence untroubledly tells the reader—who may or may not have been following the recording career of Beyoncé—that the singer has released five albums entitled simply Beyoncé. The problem, however, is that only one of her albums, her fifth, bears that title. The writer needs to make it clear to readers that the album discussed in the sentence is the singer’s fifth album and that it just happens to be self-titled. Each adjective—fifth and self-titled—should be independently modifying the noun album, so a comma must separate the two.
     The same problem afflicts the following sentence, also about Beyoncé, who, at the time the sentence appeared, had just released her sixth album.

The paragraph from which the following sentence is excerpted listed the three main categories of entrepreneurs in the “legal-cannabis industry.”

Without a comma between vast and third, the sentence misinforms readers that there’s a third category that is vast, as well as a third category that isn’t vast. What the writer really means is (1) that the category under discussion is the third and (2) that this category happens to be vast. The sentence, in which independent adjectives are presented as if they were dependent, is weakened by a spurious-restrictive element (see Chapter 75).

A similar problem afflicts each of the two following excerpts.

The first sentence in the following pair appeared in the online version of The New York Times. The second sentence—identical in phrasing but different in punctuation—appeared in the print version of the newspaper. Notice the subtle difference in meaning.

print
version:

In the online version, the emphasis is on a quippy comeback that happens to be perfect. In the print version, the emphasis is on a comeback that happens to be both perfect and quippy. (The second sentence implies that a perfect comeback doesn’t necessarily need to be quippy.) There is no way for us, as readers, to know which of the two meanings the writer intended to express.

  ^^  64 

The omission of what grammarians call the serial comma—the comma preceding the coordinating conjunction and in a series of three or more elements—is standard editorial practice at American newspapers, some magazines, and some book publishers. But the omission is difficult to justify and will not be tolerated here, because it too often results in misreadable sentences—and sometimes perplexing ones as well.
    The source of the trouble is that the coordinating conjunction and, if not preceded by a comma, unites the second-last and final elements in a series into an inseparable couple—even when that is not the writer’s intention.

Without a comma separating granddaughter from and, readers can initially misread teacher as the second object of the preposition with—and therefore conclude that the grandfather is playing piano with both his granddaughter and a teacher.

The lack of a comma after straw at first suggests that the glass not only has been handsomely set before the guest with an elegant straw bobbing in it but also has been festooned with an orchid.
     In each of the following three specimens, the elements in a three-part series are independent clauses, but without a comma before and, the subject of the third independent clause at first appears to be a second object of the preposition in the prepositional phrase at the end of the second independent clause. A comma before and will prevent misreading.

Inconsistency with the serial comma can easily exasperate attentive readers. Have a look at the following sentence, from a biography of Audrey Hepburn. The author is describing Holly Golightly, the character Hepburn portrays in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The biographer, to a reader’s dismay, includes the serial comma in some sentences (“The pessimists said no new feminine ideal could emerge from the war, wrote Cecil Beaton, but the rubble of Holland, an English accent, and an American success would produce a wistful child who embodied the spirit of a new day”) and leaves it out of many others (“They toured autobahns, factories, schools and housing developments, and had the heady honor of meeting Hitler himself at the Nazis’ Brown House headquarters in Munich”; “Arnheim is a typical Gelderland town whose surrounding landscape is a mix of quaint villages, castles, lovely woods and meadows”; “On May 4, 1940, nine months after the outbreak of World War II, the Sadler’s Wells [a ballet company] embarked on a courageous goodwill tour of Holland, Belgium and France”; and “Left behind in their flight were all sets, costumes and music for the ballets ‘Rake’s Progress,’ ‘Checkmate,’ ‘Dante Sonata,’ ‘Façade,’ ‘Les Patineurs’ and ‘Horoscope’—lost forever in a van somewhere between Arnhem and Haarlem, where they were scheduled to perform the night after Audrey saw them”). Early on in the book, in short, a predominant pattern has emerged, and a reader acclimates herself to the frequent omission of the serial comma.
     The excerpt about Holly Golightly, isolated two paragraphs above, then, is anomalous: the sentence includes two series, with the serial comma withheld from the first but ensconced in the second. The second series would not be susceptible to misreading even if the serial comma were exiled. But the first series—her beehive hairdo, Givenchy gown and evening gloves—will induce misery in any alert reader. Is the reader supposed to infer that both the gown and the evening gloves were designed by Hubert de Givenchy? Having waded through so many pages and seen so many lists without a serial comma and then encountering this sentence, with its inconsistent punctuation of the two series, a reader is likely to grow impatient. Some readers will immediately scramble (as I did) for other sources that might clarify whether the gloves were Givenchy’s creation or not. The first alternative source I turned to implied that Givenchy was responsible only for Hepburn’s gowns in the film, but I was neither satisfied that I had resolved the matter nor motivated sufficiently to trawl through more sources. I felt frustrated, though, about having had to make an excursion away from the biography and into other books. The writer, or his editor or copy editor, could have easily anticipated a reader’s confusion and taken a simple step to prevent it. If Givenchy was responsible for the gown but not the gloves, the series needs to be presented as her beehive hairdo, Givenchy gown, and evening gloves. If Givenchy had a hand in both the gloves and the gown, the phrasing might be presented as her gown and evening gloves, both by Givenchy, and her beehive hairdo.

The phrase nonsense and satire appears to be functioning as an appositive—that is, as a noun phrase providing information about the kind of short fiction that Lardner wrote. Yet the writer intends the reader to understand that Lardner wrote three kinds of literary productions: short fiction and nonsense and satire.

When a reader is accustomed to seeing the a, b and c pattern for a series, it is easy for her to misread a sentence such as the following, in which the a, b and c phrasing in the predicate is not intended to be read as a series. Instead, b and c form a pair of words elaborating on what is meant by a.

The writer is not intending to say three things about the hamburger—that it was excellent, that it was tender, and that it was juicy. What the writer is intending to say is that the hamburger was excellent because it was tender and juicy. Of course, the sentence could be rephrased so that a reader won’t perceive a series where none was intended: The excellent burger itself—made of brisket, short rib, and sirloin—was tender and juicy, or The burger itself—made of brisket, short rib, and sirloin—was excellent, both tender and juicy.

  ^^  65 

When you’re presenting a date in the standard sequence of month, day, and year, don’t forget to insert a comma after the year.

When you’re presenting a place-name in the form of town or city and state, of town or city and county, or of town or city and country, don’t forget to insert a comma after the name of the state, county, or country.

  ^^  66 

Each comma we insert into a sentence is in fact making a cut, an incision. Knowing when and where to make such cuts—as well as knowing what in a sentence is cuttable—is a hallmark of the skilled writer.
     The most subtle errors in the usage of the comma—errors that ultimately lead to misreading—are often the result of the writer’s failure to preserve the distinction between information that is essential to a sentence and information that is not essential. Such errors are so pervasive that the discussion will consume ten chapters.
     Before we concern ourselves with terminology, though, let’s have a look at two pairs of sentences identical in their phrasing but different in their punctuation—and, more important, different in what they say. Can you discern the differences in meaning?
1a. Mina’s daughter Kelly and her son Jason are attending college.
1b. Mina’s daughter, Kelly, and her son, Jason, are attending college.
2a. Annie Wright’s novel Celestialities was published in 2014.
2b. Annie Wright’s novel, Celestialities, was published in 2014.
     In the first pair, one sentence tells us that Mina has only one daughter and only one son, and the other tells us that Mina has at least two daughters and at least two sons. Can you tell which is which? And can you tell which of the sentences in the second pair declares that Annie Wright has published only one novel?
     If you’ve concluded that sentence 1a is the sentence asserting that Mina has more than one daughter and more than one son, and if you’ve concluded that sentence 2b asserts that Annie Wright has published only one novel, you obviously have a strong grasp of how the presence or absence of commas makes a profound difference in the meaning that a sentence transmits to a reader. And that difference has everything to do with the distinction between essential and nonessential elements.
     An essential element is a must-have. It’s indispensable. It can’t be cut. A sentence cannot accurately communicate its intended meaning unless any must-have element is irremovably in place. What the must-have element does is set limits on the meaning of the word or words directly preceding it. (That’s why such an element is also called a restrictive or defining element.) The must-have element typically specifies a subset of a larger set of people or things. That way, the reader knows that the writer is discussing not the larger set but only a smaller part of it. Must-have elements are never set off with any punctuation. Sentence 1a lacks commas around the names of the two children because the names Kelly and Jason are needed to specify which daughter and which son are attending college. The names restrict or narrow the scope or range of the meaning of the preceding nouns daughter and son. Putting commas around the two names would signal to the reader that the names aren’t needed and can be cut away from the body of the sentence, but those two names are in fact crucial to the sentence’s meaning.
     A nonessential element, in contrast, provides information that a sentence could easily do without—but the information has been included for the reader as a little something extra, a bonus, a present. Consider it a throwaway. The writer has had no obligation or responsibility to provide it, but she has bestowed it upon the reader in a spirit of generosity. The reader can either take it or leave it. Throwaway elements must always be set off with punctuation—most often with commas, though dashes or parentheses can also do the trick. The commas around the names of the two children in sentence 1b and around the title of the novel in sentence 2b signal to the reader that the information presented between commas isn’t vital to the reader’s understanding. Both sentences will accurately convey their meanings even if the information set off with commas has been cut out.
     The nouns Kelly, Jason, and Celestialities in the sample sentences above are classified as appositives. An appositive is a noun or a noun phrase that typically follows, and provides information about, the noun that precedes it. A writer is responsible for determining whether an appositive in a sentence is a must-have or a throwaway—and she must then punctuate the appositive appropriately so that the reader can instantly grasp the intended meaning.
     An alert reader sometimes has no trouble recognizing from the context that an appositive has been mispunctuated.

The article from which the sentence is excerpted makes no previous reference to a daytime television show, so the name of the show is a must-have appositive. The comma before “The View” must disappear. (In its mispunctuated form, the sentence is literally and absurdly declaring that there is only one daytime television show.)

The name of the rap group is a must-have piece of information, because readers need to know which rap group Gates has defended. The commas before and after 2 Live Crew must be deleted.

Since we’ve been told that the writer and Arturo each have one son and one daughter, the appositive Hillary in the phrasing his daughter Hillary needs commas at both ends—because one of Arturo’s daughters is not being distinguished from another daughter of his. And, no, the writer’s daughter isn’t also named Hillary. (The sentence suffers as well from faulty parallelism; see Chapter 41.)
     A reader is at a severe disadvantage when encountering a passage like the following.

The absence of commas around the title of Silva’s book leads a reader to conclude that Silva published more than one book in 2013 and that one of them is being distinguished from at least one other. A reader naturally wants to trust a magazine like The New Yorker, but a quick Internet search turns up Silva’s curriculum vitae, and within seconds a reader learns not only that Silva published just one book in 2013 but also that in her career thus far (as of the moment the book you are now reading is being written, late in December of 2017) she has published no other books. The sentence therefore misinforms readers about Silva’s book-publication history. (The writer has also mispunctuated a place-name; see Chapter 65.)

Adams’s many works include only one opera from 1987. A comma must therefore follow opera.
     Have a look at the first of two consecutive sentences excerpted from an article about a family in the entertainment business.

The commas surrounding the appositive Daniel lead us to the inescapable conclusion that Stephen Baldwin has only one brother. Daniel has been punctuated as a throwaway appositive. But the article continues:

It has now become obvious that the punctuation of the first sentence is incorrect and misleading. If there are four Baldwin brothers, then the appositive Daniel needs to shed its commas—because it is in fact a must-have appositive.

The second sentence in the excerpt would have us believe that one of Dunham’s fathers is being distinguished from another father of hers.

Following are more excerpts in which incorrectly punctuated appositives misinform readers.

By not enclosing the title of the book between commas, the writer is presenting the title as a must-have appositive: the sentence implies that one of Senese’s books published in 2005 is being distinguished from another of his books published in 2005. But Senese published only one book in 2005—and in fact (as of 2017) that is the only book he has ever published. (The sentence is also weakened by a spurious-restrictive element; see Chapter 75.)

A reader unfamiliar with Kopit’s oeuvre would infer that Kopit wrote only one play—but in fact he wrote more than ten plays. The comma following play must be deleted. The title of the play is not a throwaway appositive; it’s a must-have.

George Saunders has written dozens of short stories. The comma following short story must disappear.

Houellebecq is the author of several novels; Platform is thus a must-have appositive and must not be set off with commas.

Talking It Over is the only novel Julian Barnes published in 1991. A comma must be inserted before Talking It Over, because the title is a throwaway appositive.

Rick Moody has thus far written only one book-length memoir. A pair of commas must enclose its title, which is a throwaway appositive.
     Not all mispunctuated appositives will potentially mislead a reader. Some are just silly.
     The following four sentences, all from a single article in one magazine and each concerning a conventional, two-person heterosexual marriage, unintentionally make it sound as if bigamy, or even polygamy, is rampant in the United States.

Each of the names Michelle, Susan, Hank, and Kris is a throwaway appositive, so each needs to be surrounded by commas.
     Time magazine must have tossed the distinction between must-have and throwaway appositives right out the window, though, as the following mispunctuated sentences from other articles attest.

The comma after brother, though, correctly sets off the adjectival dependent clause that ends the sentence as a throwaway dependent clause (see Chapter 72), but the adjective older, preceding brother, is a spurious-restrictive element (see Chapter 75), because Hailee Steinfeld has only one sibling, who happens to be male and is two years older than she is. A possible revision is She lives at home in Los Angeles—her father, Pete, is a personal trainer, and her mother, Cher, an interior designer—and is close to her only sibling, a brother two years her senior, whose college graduation she attended. . . .
    Sometimes a single article or chapter sends conflicting messages to a reader. A newspaper essay includes the following sentence.

But the contributor’s note at the end of the piece correctly states:

On two consecutive pages of a biography of the film critic Pauline Kael, the author first punctuates phrasing about Joan Didion’s husband correctly as a throwaway appositive, then presents his name as if it were a must-have appositive.

Following are more punctuationally troubled sentences, the first from the review of a CD.

Since when can an album have more than one closer—that is, more than one final song? The title of the song identified as the closer is a throwaway appositive; a comma must precede it.

The sentence would have us believe that a rock band can release more than one début album. A comma must be inserted before the album’s title. A similar problem afflicts the following sentence, in which the title The Rachel Papers is a throwaway appositive and needs a comma before it.

As the term best friend is commonly understood, one can have only one such person in one’s life at one time. Commas need to enclose Stacey.

Commas need to surround Lucretia.
     Sometimes a must-have appositive is mistakenly punctuated as if it were a throwaway.

Gertrude Stein wasn’t Hemingway’s only friend, and thus her name is not a throwaway appositive. The comma preceding Gertrude must vanish.

  ^^  67 

Quotations included within a sentence often function as appositives, and therefore they can be either nonessential or essential, throwaways or must-haves. It’s easy to determine whether or not a quotation is essential to a sentence. In the sentence Morrissey’s song “Come Back to Camden” ends with the words “I’ll be good,” the quotation “I’ll be good” is obviously essential—because without the quotation, the sentence would look and sound unfinished. A reader would justifiably (and confusedly) ask, “Which words?” A comma before the quotation would therefore be disastrous; the comma would misleadingly imply that the quotation that follows it is disposable. But in the sentence In 1974, Burger King introduced a new advertising slogan,“Have it your way,” the quotation is nonessential—because the sentence would make perfect sense without it. The quotation “Have it your way” is merely supplementary information, and thus a comma needs to precede it.
     When the article the precedes the noun to which a quotational appositive is annexed, the appositive is almost always a must-have (exceptions are discussed in the side note to this chapter); and whenever it is a must-have, it must not be set off punctuationally.
     When the article a or an precedes the noun, however, the quotational appositive is certain to be a throwaway and must be set off punctuationally.
     Quotations functioning as must-have appositives, unfortunately, are frequently punctuated as if they were throwaways. In each of the following sentences, the comma positioned before the appositive must be deleted.

The comma positioned before the quotation in this sentence is necessary (and a colon or a dash would serve the purpose just as well), because the song identified early in the sentence has in fact only one refrain and also because the sentence would be informationally complete even if the quotation were omitted. The quotation, therefore, is merely a supplementary detail, a throwaway. (It would be more accurate, though, to substitute named in the third line of the refrain for the phrase named in the refrain, because the refrain, or chorus, of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” consists of eight lines.) 

The quotation is a throwaway: all that it does is provide the exact phrasing of what the sentence has already identified as the new slogan (of which there can be only one) for the advertising campaign. Contrast that sentence with the following, in which the comma must be deleted because the phrasing preceding it is informationally incomplete.

There is further trouble in the sentence, though. It is not the intention of the writer to distinguish one new Slim Jim commercial that resembles a 1960s health-class film from another Slim Jim commercial resembling such a film; the only other Slim Jim commercial mentioned in the article from which the sentence has been excerpted is set in a hospital room. The adjectival dependent clause (that resembles a health-class instructional film from the 1960s), which has been presented as if it were a must-have in the sentence, must therefore be refashioned as a throwaway (see Chapter 72).

  ^^  68 

Many of us are itching to cram commas into crannies where they don’t belong. Maybe it’s because a misguided English teacher once insisted that we pop a comma in wherever we would pause if we were reading a sentence aloud. Uncalled-for commas, though, often distort the meaning of a sentence.

Francis Bacon had more than one friend in his long life. The commas following friend and Wirth-Miller must be dispatched into oblivion.

The comma preceding the phrase the painter Nicolas de Stael needs to vanish without a trace—unless we want to leave our readers with the misinformation that Ms. Gilot had only one friend. The details provided in that phrase are essential to the sentence: they specify which particular friend had died. The commas surrounding who threw himself off a terrace in the South of France, however, need to stay—because the adjectival dependent clause they’re enclosing offers merely supplementary details about a person who has already been sufficiently identified (see Chapter 72).

The comma following friend also needs to disappear from the following sentence.

The same goes for the comma after neighbor in the second sentence of the following excerpt.

The next sentence misleadingly informs readers that a business has only one client.

 Sometimes writers get into punctuational trouble when they omit the article the before the first element of a multipart appositive.

To return to the sentence at the head of this chapter, a sentence certain to tempt many a writer to poke commas into its phrasing: Amelia Samson specifies which talk-show host the writer means; the phrase the talk-show host specifies which close friend and colleague the writer means. Every word and phrase in the sentence is essential to our understanding. Using commas to set off any of those phrases would be the equivalent of scissoring the phrases out of the sentence—depriving us readers of information crucial to our knowing exactly which person the writer is bringing to our attention.

  ^^  69 

Why are so many writers quick to stick in a comma after grammarians in a phrase like that, just as they were hell-bent on shoving in the commas that are boldfaced and bracketed in the excerpts below?

The writers of those sentences dreamily expect us to believe that in all of creation and in all of humankind, there has been one and only one key existential text, one and only one dashing old blowhard, one and only one hickory-smoked hunk of masculinity, one and only one great conservative hero, one and only one connoisseur of death and high priest of the delights of apathy, one and only one touchstone of male charm, one and only one epitome of fussy drawing, one and only one bygone pinnacle of androgyny, one and only one perennial Broadway nuisance, one and only one great modern master of the comedic macabre, one and only one masterwork of cultural investigation, one and only one paragon of journalistic integrity, one and only one classic of Bolognese culinary culture, and so on.
     Those erring, bracketed commas need to vaporize a.s.a.p.—because in each case the noun or noun phrase following the initial comma is specifying which one of the many key existential texts or which one of the great many dashing old blowhards the writer happens to have in mind. Those nouns and noun phrases have a limiting and particularizing function: each offers the reader a serving of information without which the full meal of the sentence would be missing an important dish. That noun or noun phrase (discussed in Chapter 66 as a must-have appositive) rounds out the repast and can’t be cut from the menu. But the bracketed commas in those sentences are, in effect, swiping food from our plates.
     How delightful it is, then, to see someone get things right, as Rachel Cusk (or her editor) does in the following sentence—for there is surely more than one sort of silly complicit creature.

Below are two more sentences whose writers understand where commas don’t belong.

Victor Moore, after all, wasn’t the only professional fumferer on earth, and Ronald Reagan wasn’t the only perpetual optimist.
     Each of the following three sentences correctly leaves out the troublemaking comma as well.

It’s possible, though, to write a sentence in which the kind of comma being decried in this chapter can in fact be justified.

If the writer truly does believe that The New Yorker is the one and only exemplar of editing excellence, the comma has every reason to stay put.
    There’s another species of sentence, though, that’s even more disconcerting than the sort that has been discussed first in this chapter. The more a reader thinks about the bracketed and boldfaced commas in the following excerpts, the more brain-crumpling the sentences seem to become.

Granted, at first those commas might look perfectly plausible, perfectly correct. After all, how can there be more than one “most exquisite of drinks,” more than one “most exquisite of French delicacies”? And if there’s only one, then there’s no pressing need to name it; the writer can assume that any informed reader will already know what it is. The noun or noun phrase (the appositive, again, to be technical about things) trailing after the comma thus looks disposable, like any other nonessential or throwaway appositive. But then you suddenly realize that each of those sentences is expressing not a fact but a judgment—an assessment by its very nature subjective, not universal. Who’s to say what the most exquisite of drinks or the most exquisite of French delicacies truly is? All we’re getting from each sentence is the writer’s opinion.
     It turns out that there’s a very easy way to determine that the commas in such sentences deserve the bum’s rush. If the noun or noun phrase after each comma had been subtracted and replaced with a blank before you ever took a gander at the sentence, would you have been able to fill in the blank with the very same noun or noun phrase that the writer had tendered? No? Then the information presented in the noun or noun phrase was obviously central to the meaning of the sentence. It was a must-have appositive. It thus cannot be set off with a comma.
     The comma-smitten writer Henry James, for instance, knew better than to insert a comma after that most exquisite of all good causes when he composed this very elaborate sentence:

Using a colon or a dash to set off the two types of sentence-ending phrasing discussed in this chapter is permissible. Unlike the comma, which by its very nature is a scythe, cutting away what follows it (see Chapters 66-68 and 70-75), the colon serves as a gateway to clarifying phrasing (see Chapter 82), and a dash, like a writer’s index finger, helpfully points the reader toward what she needs.

And thus we arrive at that most eagerly awaited of revelations: the fact that there’s no such thing as an inspissated plentitive.

  ^^  70 

Some writers and editors are criticized for punctuational overkill—especially for using commas to set off certain prepositional phrases. The New Yorker, for instance, would insert the commas that are boldfaced and bracketed in the sentences below—commas that didn’t appear in the periodicals and books from which the sentences are excerpted.

1. Another piece of classic Old New York will disappear tomorrow when the venerable hamburger paradise Prime Burger[,] at 5 E. 51st St.[,] will fire up the grill for the last time. (New York Post) [A comma is also needed after tomorrow; see Chapter 73.]
2. Nancy’s second marriage[,] to the writer and Hellenophile Kevin Andrews[,] was, like her first, troubled. (Wall Street Journal)
3. Since getting divorced[,] in 2007, [Larry] David has lived a comfortable but not overly lavish or complicated existence in a house a few minutes’ drive from his ex, who calls him “my best friend, again.” (New York)
4. He played Hamlet in one of his final roles as a student, in a production that traveled to the Baryshnikov Arts Center[,] in New York. (New York)
5. [Joseph] Mitchell’s output slowed after The New Yorker published the final installment of the Mr. Flood profile[,] in August 1945. (New Republic)
6. Pointing at [Robert] Sherwood, who had recently won a second Pulitzer Prize[,] for his drama Idiot’s Delight, he [Robert Benchley] cringed in horror and cried out, “Those eyes—I can’t stand those eyes looking at me. . . .” (Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? [Penguin], by Marion Meade)
7. In 2013, during a rare appearance at the Center for Fiction[,] in New York, Renata Adler squinted to address a packed house. (New Republic)

The need for the added commas becomes apparent when you start thinking about the implications of those sentences. If the bracketed commas were evicted from the first sentence, the prepositional phrase at 5 E. 51st St. would be forced, misleadingly, into a restrictive capacity—distinguishing one Prime Burger restaurant from one or more other Prime Burger restaurants situated elsewhere in the city or beyond. But Prime Burger was not part of a chain. The East Fifty-first Street Prime Burger was the one and only Prime Burger in existence. The details about its location were thus not essential to the sentence; they were merely value added. Like any other throwaway element (discussed in Chapters 66-69 and 71-75), therefore, the prepositional phrase needs to be set off with punctuation. And in this instance, the insertion of the two commas will ensure the accuracy of the sentence: an attentive reader will instantly know that Prime Burger had no sister restaurants.
      So have another look at the other numbered sentences at the start of this chapter. (2) Without the added commas, the sentence about Nancy (the poet E. E. Cummings’s only child) implies that she married the same man twice—but her first marriage was in fact to someone else (one of Theodore Roosevelt’s grandsons). The prepositional phrase to the writer and Hellenophile Kevin Andrews is therefore a throwaway. (3) The writer and actor Larry David has been divorced only once, so the information about the year in which the divorce was granted is throwaway information. Omitting the comma before in 2007 will misinform any alert reader about David’s history of divorce. (4) It so happens that on this planet there is one and only one Baryshnikov Arts Center. The fact that it happens to be in New York is a nonessential detail. (5) The New Yorker published the final installment of Joseph Mitchell’s series about Old Mr. Flood only once. A reader doesn’t absolutely need to know in which year the piece was published. (6) A writer can be awarded a second Pulitzer Prize only once. The prepositional phrase specifying the title of the play for which Sherwood was honored with the second prize is a throwaway. (7) At the time the sentence about the Center for Fiction was published, there was only one venue bearing that name, and it was situated in Manhattan. By the time this book is published, there will still be only one venue named the Center for Fiction, but it will be situated in Brooklyn. The prepositional phrase in New York is a throwaway.
     In each example with corrected punctuation, a prepositional phrase that is not intended to distinguish one thing or person from another is no longer being forced into seeming to do so. Unpunctuated prepositional phrases that provide merely nonessential information can distract, puzzle, or mislead a reader.  

Without a comma before the throwaway prepositional phrase with nearly 52 million followers, the sentence is nonsensically contrasting Perry’s account with some other, nonexistent number-one Twitter account that has the same number of followers.

The unpunctuated phrasing the No. 2 paper[-]card maker after Hallmark implies, misleadingly, that first comes Hallmark, then comes some other, unnamed greeting-card publisher, and then, finally, comes American Greetings.
     In the next sentence, a reader is likely to waste time wondering whether she is intended to regard a particular shopping complex as being one of the largest in the country or as one of the largest in the country with 13 million visitors a year. In other words, in which of two subcategories of shopping complexes is the reader expected to position the shopping complex being described? Upon reflection, she can conclude with some measure of certainty that the writer wants her to come away with the understanding that the complex is one of the largest in the country, period—so the writer could have made the reader’s life easier by inserting a comma before with 13 million visitors a year.

As written, the sentence is distinguishing one A&E hit with fourteen million viewers from another A&E hit with fourteen million viewers, but in fact there was only one A&E hit with an audience of fourteen million at the time the sentence was published. The prepositional phrase with an audience of 14 million viewers is a throwaway and requires a comma at its start.
      Incorrectly punctuated prepositional phrases can seriously misinform a reader.

The sentence implies that although Quentin Anderson taught only one American-literature course, other American-literature courses might well have been taught by other professors at the college. The writer wants readers to understand, however, that the college offered only one such course and that Anderson was the only professor who taught it. A comma is thus needed before the final prepositional phrase in the sentence. (A comma is also needed before the prepositional phrase in the 1940s, because it was only in that decade that the writer studied at the college.)

A reader of that sentence cannot be faulted for inferring that although there was only a single copy available at Yale, there most likely were copies at other libraries. But according to the Worldcat.org Web site, the copy at Yale is in fact the only copy available in any library. A comma is therefore necessary before at Yale, and it would be a good idea to insert the modifier only after found (as well as a comma after the parenthesized phrasing that follows the introductory adverbial dependent clause; see Chapter 60).

The couple “first became parents” only once; the date of their having done so is presented in a prepositional phrase that needs to be punctuated as a throwaway. Insert a comma after the second parents.

A band can release only one “début album”; the prepositional phrase divulging in which year the début album was released is a throwaway and needs commas at both ends.

A television network can début only once. A comma must precede in October 1996.

The first, game-changing, even revolutionary version of the iPhone was introduced only once. A comma must precede the prepositional phrase in 2007.

The painter died only once. The sentence is not intended to distinguish one of his deaths from another. The prepositional phrase at age 37 needs commas at both ends. For a similar reason, the following sentence needs a comma after death.

A traveler can make only one “first trip” to any destination. The prepositional phrase in 1969 must be set off with commas.

The critic in question—Pauline Kael—quit her job at KPFA-FM only once. The prepositional phrase in 1963 is a throwaway and must be preceded by a comma.
      Commas that are needed to set off throwaway prepositional phrases have been inserted within boldfaced brackets in the following two excerpts.

There is only one starting line and only one finish line for the marathon, so the locations of the starting line and the finish line are nonessential pieces of information. The starting line is in Staten Island. That the starting line also happens to be at the foot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is yet another nonessential piece of information.

William Shawn was obliged to step down as editor only once, so in 1987 is a throwaway prepositional phrase requiring commas at both ends.
      Below is the topic sentence of a paragraph that followed two paragraphs in which the writer presented the opinion of the first dermatologist, Kenneth Beer, whom he had consulted about his difficulty with growing facial hair.

Without commas around the prepositional phrase from Dr. Joel M. Gelfand, the sentence misleadingly implies that the writer had sought both a first and a second opinion from Dr. Gelfand. The prepositional phrase is a throwaway and must be punctuated as such.
      Sometimes, within a single paragraph, a newspaper neglects to punctuate a throwaway prepositional phrase in one sentence but correctly punctuates such a phrase in another. In the second sentence of the following paragraph, a comma needs to follow in 1909, but in the third sentence, in 1929 has been correctly set off at both ends.

Commas that are needed to set off throwaway prepositional phrases have been inserted within boldfaced brackets in the following excerpts.

Here, the reader, already entertaining doubts about the writer’s (and editor’s) ability to manage the distinction between must-have and throwaway elements because of the absence of a comma before in 1962, has reason to wonder whether there is at least one other matter to be punctuationally resolved to ensure the clarity and accuracy of the sentence—namely, whether the Tate Gallery was in fact the site of Bacon’s very first retrospective, because he might have had an earlier retrospective elsewhere. If the Tate retrospective was indeed his very first, a comma is needed before at the Tate Gallery. And then there’s the matter of whether a “great” first Bacon retrospective at the Tate Gallery is being distinguished from another first Bacon retrospective at the Tate Gallery that wasn’t quite great. This maddening matter—involving spurious restrictive elements—is discussed in Chapter 75.

  ^^  71 

A participial phrase is a parcel of verbal matter that begins with a participle and behaves exactly like a single-word adjective. A participle is often defined as an adjective derived from a verb. There are two types of participles: the present participle, which always ends in ing, such as exciting; and the past participle, which usually ends in ed or d, such as delighted and excited, but sometimes has an irregular ending, as in broken.
     A participial phrase comprises a present or past participle and other words attached to it. Examples are walking to work and excited about the new job. Such phrases might appear at the beginning of a sentence, at the end, or anywhere in between.
     An introductory participial phrase must always be followed by a comma.

Whether a participial phrase positioned in the middle of a sentence is set off with a pair of commas (or a pair of dashes or parentheses) depends on whether it is essential or nonessential. A nonessential, or throwaway, participial phrase requires punctuation—and the phrase must be set off at both ends. Such phrasing is not crucial to the meaning of the sentence. If, however, the participial phrase is a must-have (that is, if the meaning of the sentence would change if the participial phrase were removed), it must never be set off punctuationally.

MacDonald wrote only one New Yorker magazine profile of Dorothy Day, so the participial phrase presenting its title is a throwaway and needs a comma at each end. Without that pair of commas, the sentence will seem to be distinguishing one of MacDonald’s profiles of Day from another profile he wrote with Day as the subject.

Although the independent clause tells a reader that only two plans are under consideration, the first phrase following the colon leads the attentive reader to the counterfactual conclusion that there are at least two Reid plans—only one of which has been endorsed by the president. The past-participial phrase endorsed by President Obama, in other words, is distinguishing one of Reid’s plans from another; it’s functioning as an essential modifier. But the writer has intended to make no such distinction; the writer wants the reader to understand that the two and only two plans under consideration are the Reid plan and the Boehner plan. A comma is therefore needed after Reid plan, so that a reader instantly knows that endorsed by President Obama is merely supplementary information, a throwaway—much as the adjectival dependent clause, beginning with which, at the end of the sentence is offering only supplementary information and is therefore set off with a comma.
     A newspaper article about an innovative trend in television commercials begins with the following sentence.

The sentence’s participial phrase (featuring Charmin Freshmates) is correctly left unpunctuated, because the phrase is essential: its purpose is to distinguish this particular new commercial from all other new commercials.
     The next three paragraphs continue discussing that Charmin commercial. The fifth paragraph, however, consists entirely of the following sentence.

Here, the absence of a comma before the participial phrase featuring Bounce dryer bars is incorrect and misleading, because the article has not moved on to discussing a second commercial for Bounce dryer bars; the commercial previously discussed had nothing to do with Bounce. What the writer means is that the article is now moving on to discussing another commercial, period. The participial phrase featuring Bounce dryer bars is thus a throwaway and needs a comma before it.

Often, the information divulged in a midsentence participial phrase is disposable, and such a participial phrase needs to be set off punctuationally—not just at its front end but also at its rear. Writers sometimes forget to insert the rear-end comma. The result is asymmetrical punctuation (see Chapter 80).

Finally, a participial phrase positioned at the end of a sentence is not preceded by a comma if it provides essential information. A sentence-ending participial phrase offering nonessential information, however, such as the phrase done in his last years in the following sentence, must have a comma before it.

The sentence-ending participial phrase (leaving him to muddle along on his own) has attached itself to the noun project, but it is she (Ruth Goodman) who has left him to muddle along on his own.

Ms. Bartsch, not the crowd, was the gooser and tweaker.

The swallowed magnets, and not the intestines, can cause serious injury or death.

The participial phrase named Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) is a throwaway and needs a comma before it.

It is not the cell that is slurping noodles; it’s the character who is doing so.
     Thus, a rule of thumb: if one or more participial phrases appear at the end of a sentence, insert a comma before the first of them if the first phrase is preceded by a noun that the one or more participial phrases are not intended to modify.

Another option is to recast the sentence.

Mischief can also arise when two or more participial phrases are positioned one after the other with no conjunctions or no punctuation between the phrases.

The sentence begins with a long introductory element consisting of two consecutive participial phrases followed by an adverbial phrase that hosts a third participial phrase, all intended to modify women, the subject of the independent clause. The trouble is that the second participial phrase (wielding fancy parasols) appears to be modifying the noun grass, the final word in the first participial phase. (Some readers and editors will regard the sentence-ending prepositional phrase in several paintings as a misplaced modifier; see Chapter 22.)

The sentence ends with two consecutive participial phrases (sitting in cozy armchairs and ad-libbing about a film’s strengths and weaknesses) that are intended to modify the noun men. But the second participial phrase appears to be modifying the noun armchairs, which immediately precedes it.

  ^^  72 

An adjectival dependent clause is a dependent clause that works the same way an everyday adjective does: it describes somebody or something (see Chapter 9). In the sentence The weary girl kept yawning, a lone word, the adjective weary, is all it takes to describe the girl; but in the sentence The girl who was weary kept yawning, the girl is described by an adjectival dependent clause: who was weary. An adjectival dependent clause usually begins with who, whom, whose, that, or which—but may begin with when, where, or why.
     Why bother with the terminology? Because a writer needs to know whether an adjectival dependent clause is indispensable to the sentence in which she has inserted it or whether it does nothing more than add a bit of supplementary information that the sentence can just as well do without. In the former case, the meaning of the sentence will change if the clause is removed, and therefore the clause must not be set off punctuationally. In the latter case, the meaning of the sentence will remain the same if the clause is discarded, so the clause must be set off with punctuation. Such a clause is a throwaway, a freebie. As with any other variety of throwaway phrasing (discussed in Chapters 66-71 and 73-75), a reader can either take it or leave it.
     In the sentence Jayne married the woman whom she had lived with for three years in Park Slope, the adjectival dependent clause is a must-have and therefore is not preceded by a comma: the reader needs to know who the woman is, and the adjectival dependent clause whom she had lived with for three years in Park Slope delivers the necessary details. (If stripped of its dependent clause, the sentence, coming out of the blue as Jayne married the woman, would strike readers as grammatically complete—it has a subject, a transitive verb, and a direct object—but informationally incomplete.) In the sentence Jayne married Skylie Marr, who turned out to be a somniloquist, however, the information in the adjectival dependent clause who turned out to be a somniloquist isn’t vital to the reader’s understanding of who it was that Jayne married. The dependent clause offers merely some bonus information (Jayne married Skylie Marr could stand alone as a sentence both grammatically and informationally complete), so the dependent clause must be preceded by a comma.
     Writers sometimes forget to punctuate a throwaway adjectival dependent clause, and the result is a sentence that doesn’t transmit the intended meaning.

In that sentence, Gore Vidal, criticizing a short story by John O’Hara, is inadvertently informing the reader that the man designated by the pronoun he has more than one sleeping wife. The sleeping wife that the man happens to be looking at is the one who wakes up and wants to know if something is wrong. Nothing even in the undercurrents of the story, however, suggests that the man is a bigamist. The adjectival dependent clause who wakes up and wants to know if something is wrong is therefore disposable—it’s a throwaway. A comma must precede it.

Without a comma before who has been trying to turn the company around since 2005, the sentence is misinforming the reader that the company had more than one chief executive at the time the newspaper article was published.

It was not the writer’s intention to distinguish one President Obama from another, but by not slipping in a comma before who does not parade his religious beliefs on a signboard, the writer has forced the adjectival dependent clause to make such a distinction.

It was not the writer’s purpose to differentiate one Graham Chapman, who succumbed to throat cancer, in 1989, from some other Graham Chapman. A comma must be inserted between Chapman and who. (Another comma must precede the throwaway prepositional phrase in 1989, and still another must be inserted between ago and in; see Chapter 70.)
     A comma should precede who in each of the following two sentences as well, because the adjectival dependent clauses are throwaways.

A comma should follow double-deck Airbus A380 in the next example, because the adjectival dependent clause following that phrasing offers only throwaway information.

In the backstory of the movie (You Will Be My Son) under consideration in the review from which the sentence above has been excerpted, there was not enough room for more than one adoptive father who died from a fall into a vat of wine. The adjectival dependent clause who died from a fall into a vat of wine is therefore a throwaway and must be punctuated as such—with a comma at its start.

The filmmaker and his wife were out to dinner with just one other couple. The fact that both members of that other couple happened to be physicians is a throwaway. The writer needs to pop in a comma after couple.
     Writers occasionally neglect to punctuate a throwaway adjectival dependent clause that begins with where or when. In the following excerpt, the writer first seems to be distinguishing one movie-industry California from another and then one Pacific Palisades from another. There is in fact only one such California and only one Pacific Palisades in that California. A comma should precede where in both sentences.

A comma also needs to be inserted before where in each of the following seven excerpts.

Throwaway adjectival dependent clauses beginning with when must also be set off with commas.

Only one year has ever been designated as 1991 (A.D., that is). The writer has not intended to differentiate one 1991 (in which there were almost 200,000 gas stations in the United States) from some other 1991.

Many adjectival dependent clauses begin with that or which; and although most editors urge writers to use which at the start of throwaway clauses and that at the start of must-have clauses, many writers, unfortunately, use the words interchangeably.

Storyboard has only one set of eyes, but the adjectival dependent clause (with an adverbial dependent clause tucked inside it) that he sometimes frames within thick-rimmed glasses or, if the mood strikes him, plastic 3-D shades pilfered from a movie theatre, which is affixed to eyes without a comma, tells the reader that one of Storyboard’s sets of eyes is being distinguished from at least one other set of his eyes. The adjectival dependent clause, then, is presented as if it were a must-have, but it needs to be punctuated as a throwaway.

In the second sentence of the following excerpt, another writer has foisted a throwaway adjectival dependent clause upon readers as if it were a must-have: the writer not only has failed to insert a comma before the clause but also has situated the restrictive or limiting word that at the start of the clause.

By positioning the relative pronoun that at the start of the first adjectival dependent clause, the writer confusingly asserts that one new book entitled 30 Lessons for Living is being differentiated from one or more other books bearing the same title. Readers need a punctuational clue, however, that the second sentence could end right after the parenthesized name of the publisher, because everything that follows is merely disposable information. (Fortunately, the writer correctly recognizes that the adjectival dependent clause who were interviewed as part of the ongoing Cornell Legacy Project provides essential information and therefore has not set it off with a comma.)

Without a comma before which, the adjectival dependent clause which sold 5.82 million copies ends up drawing a ludicrous distinction between one Adele album entitled 21 and one or more other Adele albums entitled 21. The adjectival dependent clause is a throwaway.
     In the second sentence of the following excerpt, the second and third thats correctly mark the start of must-have adjectival dependent clauses, but the first that needs to be replaced by which.

  ^^  73 

Sentences that begin with an independent clause (a word-group that can stand on its own as a complete sentence) and end with an adverbial dependent clause present a punctuational challenge. An adverbial dependent clause is a clause that begins with a subordinating conjunction—such as because, although, even though, though, if, unless, where, after, as, before, while, when, whenever, since, and until—and cannot stand on its own as a sentence. Small wonder, then, that such a clause is called dependent: it needs an independent clause to lean on. Although (as in this very sentence) an introductory adverbial dependent clause must be followed by a comma (see Chapter 60), a sentence-ending adverbial dependent clause sometimes must have a comma before it, and sometimes it must not.
     How to determine whether a comma is needed? Consider the following two sentences—each of which ends with an underlined adverbial dependent clause beginning with even though.

The information provided by the adverbial dependent clause in the first sentence is not essential to the sentence and therefore is preceded by a comma. The fact that the woman majored in physics is disposable, take-it-or-leave-it information. The dependent clause is a throwaway.
     In the second sentence, though, the reader needs the contents of the adverbial dependent clause to achieve a full understanding of the sentence’s meaning. There is nothing remarkable about the decision of a woman wearing a sleeveless dress to go out for a walk. What’s remarkable is that she is wearing nothing more during a snowstorm. The adverbial dependent clause, then, is providing must-have information—details that the reader can’t do without. Such a clause must never be cut off from the independent clause with a comma. The sentence will not be informationally complete unless the independent clause and the dependent clause are presented unseparated by punctuation (as in the sentence you are right now reading).
     In deciding whether to insert a comma before a sentence-ending adverbial dependent clause, then, think about the contents of that clause. If the information it includes is setting limits on the meaning of what’s expressed in the independent clause, do not insert a comma. But if the adverbial dependent clause provides merely supplementary information, punctuate it as a throwaway: insert a comma before it.
     Whether or not to include a comma before an adverbial dependent clause is often a no-brainer.

This sentence implies, nonsensically, that if you’re not thirsty, there isn’t any soda in the refrigerator. The adverbial dependent clause if you’re thirsty is a throwaway and needs to be punctuated as such, with a comma before it. The soda is in the refrigerator whether you are thirsty or not.
     In the following specimen, the underlined adverbial dependent clause is also a throwaway and must be preceded by a comma.

In each of the following four excerpts, the underlined sentence-ending adverbial dependent clause is a must-have. No comma should separate it from the independent clause.

As in the previous example, the comma is lopping off a clausal limb vital to the meaning of the sentence. The sentence cannot do without the dependent clause, which revises the claim asserted by the independent clause.

The sentence is informationally incomplete without the contents of the adverbial dependent clause.

The comma before the adverbial dependent clause severs the clause from the body of the sentence, where it’s needed to set a restriction on the meaning of the independent clause. The reader needs to understand that the office depicted in the sitcom would in fact not be a fine place to work.

Sentences ending with adverbial dependent clauses that begin with because are especially vexatious. Chapter 74 discusses how to punctuate such sentences if the independent clause is phrased in the negative. Here, let’s look at sentences in which the independent clause is phrased in the affirmative.
     Should the sentence I decided to ask Joyelle instead of Jack because I needed an answer right away include a comma before because? The answer is no if I want to emphasize the reason why I decided to ask one person instead of another. The answer is yes if I want to emphasize the decision itself and not the reason for it.
     A writer, in short, must determine what she wants her sentence to emphasize, then punctuate the sentence accordingly. In some sentences, though, a writer has no choice.

Readers need to know why the dogs are presumably so excited. The adverbial dependent clause is therefore a must-have, and the comma preceding it must vanish.

  ^^  74 

Sentences that (1) begin with an independent clause including the adverb not in either full or contracted form and (2) end with an adverbial dependent clause starting with because (or with since or as used as a synonym for because) mean one thing if a comma separates the two clauses, and they mean something entirely different if there’s no comma between the two clauses. Careful writers live with this fact the way they live with life’s other complexities.
    Consider this pair of sentences:
A: I don’t want to go out tonight, because I feel hopeless.
B: I don’t want to go out tonight because I feel hopeless.
     The point of sentence A is I don’t want to go out tonight.
     Sentence B, however, means I want to go out tonight—but for a reason other than the fact that I feel hopeless.
     Sentence A could end with the word tonight, and the meaning of the sentence would not change. All we would lose is the reason why I don’t want to venture out tonight. That information, though, isn’t essential to the sentence—and that’s why the dependent clause in which it appears has been set off with a comma. The comma tells the reader that even though what comes next is something she doesn’t really need, it is being given to her anyway. It’s a throwaway.
     But in sentence B, the information in the adverbial dependent clause is critical to the meaning of the sentence. The sentence can’t do without it. It’s setting a restriction on the meaning of the independent clause. So we can’t cut the dependent clause loose with a comma. The dependent clause is a must-have.
     Writers sometimes fail to recognize when a sentence-ending adverbial dependent clause beginning with because is a throwaway and thus fail to insert a comma before it. The result is a misinformative sentence.

The campaign operative who wrote that sentence wasn’t doing any favors for a senator running for president. The sentence literally means that McCain can be bought by special-interest groups—but for a reason other than the fact that he is guided by character, principle, and a cause greater than himself. The sentence needs a comma after interests.

That sentence is misleading the reader about the measures airlines take to ensure the safety of their passengers. The writer blithely declares that air cargo is comprehensively screened—but for a reason other than the fact that the screening is expensive. What the writer means, though, is Air cargo is not comprehensively screened, because the airlines don’t want to take on the expense of doing it.

The second sentence is informing us that Russians do indeed have high medical bills—but for a reason other than the fact that their health-care system is largely socialized. What the writer means is Nor do Russians have high medical bills, because the health-care system, if flawed, is largely socialized.

The first sentence confidently asserts that the models are in fact getting paid for their participation—but for a reason other than the fact that they are under contract to a modeling agency. The writer has meant to say The models aren’t getting paid for the Saturday-night event, because they already have contracts with Ford.

The third sentence literally means that he did drive—but for a reason other than the fact that his legs were short. What the writer means is He didn’t drive, because his legs wouldn’t reach a car’s pedals.

The third sentence is insisting, contrary to the writer’s intention, that world-class, innovative industries will in fact add a ton of jobs—but for a reason other than the fact that such industries must stay lean to compete. What the writer means is They won’t add a ton of jobs, precisely because they must stay lean to compete.

Madonna’s intention is not to say that in fact she does like to use the word lover—but for a reason other than the fact that “it sounds like they just come over and have sex with you.” What she means is that she doesn’t necessarily like to use the word at all. The adverbial dependent clause at the end of the sentence explains why.

Below are more sentences in which a comma must precede because. In each excerpt, the adverbial dependent clause beginning with because is providing a supplementary, not essential, explanation of why something isn’t the case or why something does not or did not happen. In each excerpt, the writer includes the explanation as a gesture of kindness toward the reader.

  ^^  75 

A spurious restrictive is a word, a phrase, or a dependent clause forced against its will into distinguishing one thing or one person from another when the writer has intended to make no such distinction.

In the excerpt above, the writers wanted to cram as many details as possible into the fewest possible words. The writers’ ambition to be hyperconcise is admirable, but the unhappy result is phrasing that, at the very least, puzzles or frustrates the reader and, at worst, misinforms her.
     What did the writers intend to express?

That revision—which adds two words and three commas to the phrasing—makes it immediately clear to the reader that Blue Cheer released only one début album, that it happened to be called Vincebus Eruptum, and that it happened to be released in 1968. The album’s title, Vincebus Eruptum, has been set off with commas because it is a throwaway appositive (see Chapter 66), providing information merely supplementary, not crucial, to the meaning of the sentence. The participial phrase released in 1968 has also been set off with commas for the same reason: the sentence could easily do without the phrase (see Chapter 71).
     Any dutifully alert reader who attempted to decompress the information jammed into the subject slot of the introductory adverbial dependent clause of the phrasing in its original form, though, might have easily (and exasperatingly) been led to as many as three conflicting conclusions carrying her far from what the writers meant to say:
1. Blue Cheer’s début album that was released in 1968 is being differentiated from at least one other début album that the band released in some other year. 1968 is functioning as a restrictive, must-have adjective—one that sets limits on the scope or range of meaning of the noun (début) that follows it.
2. Vincebus Eruptum is being differentiated from at least one other début album, with a different title, that Blue Cheer released in 1968. Vincebus Eruptum functions as a restrictive or must-have appositive (see Chapter 66), specifying one of Blue Cheer’s débuts in particular.
     Thus far, both the adjective preceding début and the appositive following début can readily be mistaken for restrictive elements. But there’s still another possible misreading of the sentence.
3. The début version of Vincebus Eruptum is being distinguished from another, later version of the same album, also recorded and released (under the same title) by Blue Cheer. In this interpretation, the noun début is playing the role of a restrictive, must-have adjective.
     The revision, then, with its responsibly positioned commas, spares the reader from any of these hairsplitting agonies.

A filmmaker can make only one début film, but the sentence is unintentionally distinguishing one of Varda’s débuts from another.

The positioning of 2006 before biography empowers 2006 as a restrictor distinguishing one of Cannadine’s biographies of Mellon from at least one other biography of Mellon that Cannadine has written. But the sentence misleads readers; although Cannadine has published a goodish number of books, only one of them is about Mellon.

From this sentence, a reader infers that in 1965, Viertel wrote only one memoir, and she happened to give it the title The Kindness of Strangers. But in the phrase her 1965 memoir, the number specifying the year is positioned before the noun as a restrictive adjective, and thus the sentence implies that Viertel’s memoir written in 1965 (and published in 1969, according to the “Selected Bibliography” in The Girls) is being distinguished from at least one other memoir that she wrote in another year. Yet she in fact appears to have never written any other memoir.

Spurious restrictives do the reader no favors. After having a look at the following sentence, about Glen Bell, ask yourself whether more than one biography of Bell has been published.

If you concluded that there’s more than one biography of Bell, you most likely based your conclusion on the restrictive function of 1999 in the phrase a 1999 biography of Mr. Bell. As of this writing, however, Bell has been memorialized in only one biography, whose full title is Taco Titan: The Glen Bell Story. The sentence cited above, therefore, misrepresents the facts.

There has been only one film adaptation of The Basketball Diaries.

But there has been only one fourth edition.

Presley, of course, died only once.

A couple of commas and some minor rephrasing would do wonders for the following sentence.

Although there has been only one film version of the musical Flower Drum Song, the positioning of 1961 before film version implies that the 1961 film version is being differentiated from one or more other film versions. What makes the sentence even more misleading is the fact that as a staged musical, Flower Drum Song has been revived—on Broadway, that is—only once. 2002 is therefore another spurious restrictive.

Because the second sentence informs readers that Newman is mourning his British wife (instead of, say, his Pennsylvania Dutch wife), anyone who recognizes the restrictive functioning of the adjective British can be forgiven for making the unintended inference that (1) the fellow must have been married at least twice or (2) the fellow might have been married to two or more women at the same time—inferences that conflict with Newman’s history in the novel. The sentence can be rephrased to prevent such misreading.

A similar problem afflicts the following two excerpts.

Positioning a job-title noun in front of a noun such as wife or husband is also likely to produce a spurious restrictive.

The former congresswoman has had only one husband.

When you’re presenting information about a person’s parent, never insert a job title before the word mother, mom, father, or dad—unless you intend to imply that the person has had more than one mother or father.

The following sentences are similarly bollixed up by spurious restrictives.

Similarly, never insert any modifying phrasing before mother, mom, father, or dad that would imply, misleadingly, that one mother, for instance, is being differentiated from another mother of the same person.

  ^^  76 

Some writers feel an irresistible urge to insert a comma in front of every direct quotation. But there are only two kinds of sentences in which a comma before a quotation is correct. The first is a sentence in which a comma follows a verb of attribution: Anna said, “I’m not sure I understand you.” The second is a sentence that includes a quotation serving as a throwaway appositive: Her favorite expression, “No worries,” got on her roommate’s nerves. That sort of sentence will require a pair of commas to set off the quotation, but if the quotational appositive is positioned at the end of the sentence, there will be only one comma (a colon or a dash would work as well): She stopped using her favorite expression,“No worries.” (Quotations serving as appositives are discussed in Chapter 67.)
Direct quotations, however, also function the way ordinary single-word nouns function—as objects of prepositions, as direct objects of transitive verbs, as complements of linking (or equational) verbs, and as object complements. And much as a writer would not insert a comma between a preposition and its object (nobody in her right mind would write Anna loves bands like, Grizzly Bear), a writer should not insert a comma between a preposition and a direct quotation serving as its object. The commas after the preposition like in the following three sentences need to vanish.

The commas preceding the direct quotations in the following two sentences also need to take a powder. In each sentence, the quotation is functioning as the object of the preposition with.

In the next example, the quotation is the object of including, which is functioning prepositionally. The comma after including must be deleted.

In the next sentence, the quotation is functioning as the direct object of the transitive verb utter. The comma preceding the quotation must be deleted. The comma following the quotation, though, is needed to set off the sentence-ending participial phrase, a throwaway (see Chapter 71).

In the next sentence, the quotation is functioning as the complement of the linking (or equational) verb is. The sentence must lose its comma.

The second sentence of the following excerpt, in which the quotation is also functioning as a complement, needs to lose the comma after the linking-verb infinitive to be.

In the next example, the quotation is functioning as an object complement—like the noun bum in She called me a bum. The comma after poems must disappear.

An exception, of course, is a sentence in which a transitional or parenthetical word, phrase, or dependent clause is wedged between (1) the quotation that functions as the subject and (2) the verb of the clause. A sentence of that sort requires a comma before and after the interruptive word or words: “My bad,” on the other hand, is too casual a phrase to use as an expression of apology.

  ^^  77 

Handbooks on grammar and punctuation routinely caution writers against inserting a comma before a coordinating conjunction (such as and or but) when it joins two halves of a compound predicate—that is, two verbs or verb phrases attached to a single subject, as in the sentence She moved from Boston to rural Kansas and started a blog about her new life. But a strict adherence to that rule is not always in a reader’s best interest.

In this complex sentence (a sentence consisting of one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses), it may take a millisecond or two for the reader to conclude with certainty that the subject of the verb phrase enrolled in a community-college art course is intended to be he (the subject of the independent clause), and not they (the subject of the adverbial dependent clause after they moved to Phoenix), despite the proximity of the pronoun they to the verb enrolled. But shouldn’t a writer foresee a reader’s potential trouble and take pains to prevent it? The sentence about Fischl is one in which a comma splitting the compound predicate is advisable to spare the reader any confusion.

The comma after Phoenix forcibly divides the compound predicate into two halves; an alert reader is unlikely to attach enrolled to they.
    Another option, of course, is to refashion the sentence as a compound-complex sentence (a sentence consisting of two independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses).

A reader can initially think that the word to (the stem of an infinitive) is implied before pay and then stumble when reaching the end of the sentence.

A reader might initially think she is being asked to believe that waitresses can feature a slogan.

Who or what would cement their reputation as world-class thwarters? Certainly not he, the pronoun whose antecedent is president, though readers have been invited to misconstrue the sentence suchwise.

The verb phrase keep an eye out for unwanted activities too readily attaches itself to who as a subject.

It’s often to the reader’s advantage for a comma to be inserted before the second half of a compound predicate that begins with and if and has already appeared in the first half of the compound predicate. The comma before the and that marks the line dividing the two halves of the compound predicate ensures that the sentence has a more reader-friendly design.

A comma before the second and would not be out of place even in a sentence as short as The dark weather made the city sad and dingy and depressed her (Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? [Penguin], by Marion Meade).
     A comma preceding the and that joins the two halves of a compound predicate is especially helpful if there are two or more ands in the first half.

A superstition persists, of course, that a sentence should never include more than one and. That dreamy nonsense is no doubt drilled into the skulls of schoolchildren along with claptrap such as that no infinitive should ever be split and no sentence should ever end with a preposition. The truth is that a sentence often legitimately calls for multiple ands. In the following twenty-nine-word sentence, the conjunction appears five times.

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