The Ten Commandments: Comma or Coma? (Part Three)
Yea, 'tho I walk through the Valley of Punctuation,
I will fear no comma,
For Thou art with me.
Thy clause and Thy phrase they comfort me,
For writing's sake.
V. Use a comma to separate coordinate adjectives. Thou couldest think of this as "That tall, hairy, good looking prophet" rule (as opposed to "the big Jewish guy"). If thou canst put an and or a but between the adjectives, a comma will probably belong there.
Thou mayest write "Moses is a tall and hairy prophet" or "He wandered in a very hot and desolate wilderness." So thou would write, "Moses is a tall, hairy prophet" and "He wandered in a very hot, desolate wilderness." But you would probably not say, "He is a big and Jewish guy," so commas would not appear between big and Jewish.
***
I will return, my children. Yes, it will be a Fourth Coming. The Lord's work takes time. I maketh this covenant: it shall not take a 1000 years.
I will fear no comma,
For Thou art with me.
Thy clause and Thy phrase they comfort me,
For writing's sake.
V. Use a comma to separate coordinate adjectives. Thou couldest think of this as "That tall, hairy, good looking prophet" rule (as opposed to "the big Jewish guy"). If thou canst put an and or a but between the adjectives, a comma will probably belong there.
Thou mayest write "Moses is a tall and hairy prophet" or "He wandered in a very hot and desolate wilderness." So thou would write, "Moses is a tall, hairy prophet" and "He wandered in a very hot, desolate wilderness." But you would probably not say, "He is a big and Jewish guy," so commas would not appear between big and Jewish.
***
I will return, my children. Yes, it will be a Fourth Coming. The Lord's work takes time. I maketh this covenant: it shall not take a 1000 years.
I always thought Charlton Heston looked kind of caroonish . . . when he wasn't shooting guns. This is a great place to visit, Tom - I'll blogroll it on my blog, and favorite it on my favorites, and all that!
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Yeah. There was never any expression; only his mouth moved. Thanks for blogrolling me.
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Thanks for the Commandments. I usually don't have too much trouble with punctuation and grammar, but a review is always useful. My problem is I overuse the comma at times. Hey, thanks for the feedback on my short story.
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That's the Eleventh Commandment: thou shalt not overuse the comma. It's a common problem, mainly because the comma has so many rules for its use and most of us don't know all of them.
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