To The Comma

You are, by far, the most misunderstood and abusedof all the punctuation marks. Though young writers are baffled by the semi-colon, your distant cousin, they could, in fact, live their whole lives without one and though it would make their writing more dull, at least it would be grammatically correct.

Periods are easy. Colons are simple, even if what comes after them isn’t. Hyphens get used for dashes, but we all know they meant a dash, so no harm done. Despite the rule that each writer gets three exclamation points, everyone borrows more. Sadly, we don’t savor them like truffles or aged brandy or that silence when the house is finally empty, the dogs sleeping. We should, but we don’t.

Surprisingly, the question mark troubles some writers. Is it because sometimes the question asked isn’t really a question, the author knowing the answer all along and the reader knows the author knows, or is it because the end of the sentence is so far away from the beginning the writer has forgotten this is, in fact, a question? Hard to say.

But all the other punctuation marks seem to have one purpose. Ending a sentence? Period. Have a speaker? Quotation marks. Embedding information that could be lifted seamlessly out of the sentence? Grab your parentheses.

Comma, you, however, have to do all the dirty work that the other marks can’t. You are the duct tape of writing tools, plastered here and there, sometimes effectively and stunningly well-placed, but then other times, recklessly so that you ruin not only the meaning but the very aesthetics of the sentence. It’s not your fault.

And I don’t blame the teachers. I’ve yet to find a way to fully explain the nuances of the comma, indeed of all grammar, to students. Many are told to put a comma wherever there’s a pause, but then, I say, all grammar is pauses, some longer than others. And sometimes we pause and don’t have any punctuation so what then? 

I’m going to have to say “dependent clause” and I have to explain that a clause is not a phrase. I’m going to have to say “coordinating conjunctions,” “coordinate adjectives,” and “appositives.” Sadly, this is the language needed to know how to use you. 

I don’t blame them. Like any form of critical thinking, this will take years to master and I can see they really want to get it. And then suddenly, one day, when they are writing to their beloved or to argue their tax bill or when they plead with their senator to pass a bill, you make sense. Your exact placement will matter like never before. They will hang, with confidence, their entire meaning on you, tiny hook. And it will be right.