A certain use of the comma

Which do you think is correct:

1) Thornton Wilder's novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, was read by the class.

2) Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey was read by the class.

1
Option 2 is correct, for the reasons given in messages 5, 6, and 7.

Both

Comma good:
One of Thorton Wilder's novels, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, was read by the class.

Comma unnecessary:
Thorton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey was read by the class.

Or, avoiding the passive voice:

Comma good:
The class read one of Thorton Wilder's novels, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Comma unnecessary:
The class read Thorton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

Many years since I was at school but the rule was never to put a comma before 'and', 'but' or 'because' and if the inclusion between the commas could be removed without upsetting the sentence then it was correct to put them in.

One of Thorton Wilder's novels, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, was read by the class. (correct)

Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey was read by the class. (Also correct but not as easy to read aloud).

The Oxford comma was put in to make sense of a long sentence - also to make it easier to read a passge aloud.

Depends. "Thornton Wilder's book, The Bridge ..." means it's his one and only book; if that's not the case, the comma is incorrect.

Not at all - you can remove the bit between the commas and since we are supposing that it is his only book, the commas are correct.

If you're supposing it's his only book, isn't that exactly what I said?

2) may be just as correct as 1), but it would be possible to choose a book title that made it ambiguous. I feel it's better to foster the habit of using commas, which can add to clarity even when the writer hasn't envisaged misinterpretations.

OK, I wrote a review recently with a sentence that said (approximately): "The word 'ennui' was invented for people like this."

commas or no commas after "word" and "ennui"? I took them out after reading this thread.

Thanks,

k4k

7 -- I think that's true. I recall something like that. One or many.

Try it with something like "My sister Mary" or "My sister, Mary,"

11> No commas unless you're using the commas as whatsit markers. The kind that Austen and co. used to indicate minor pauses in reading.

"The word 'ennui'" is a noun phrase, a single unit so to speak, so you shouldn't break it up by introducing commas.

12> With the sister, I think it's pointing out where the stress lies. Which is the important part - that you're speaking of a sister or of Mary? Either way, you're further specifying which person it is, but in the former, the important information is that it is Mary who happens to be your sister, while in the latter, it's that you have a sister whose name happens to be Mary.

But the worst is when someone only uses one comma, as though they aren't really sure what's happening but the sentence is kind of long so there must be a comma somewhere, right?

I can deal with two commas where I'd prefer none, or no commas where two would be better. It's when someone writes "Jim's book Hollow, was boring." or "Jim's book, Hollow was boring." that I find myself wanting to red-pen the text.

I instinctively preferred option one as it would make the sentence easier to read but , on consideration, believe I would have used option two.

Joining this party a bit late, it occurred to me that this is one of those cases where someone asks a question as though it's about a general rule, but it turns out that the answer depends very strongly on the particular example you choose.

(a) Thornton Wilder's novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey was read by the class.
(b) Jane Austen's novel Pride & Prejudice was read by the class.
(c) Aniceti Kitereza's novel Mr. Myombekere and his wife Bugonoka, their son Ntulanalwo and daughter Bulihwali : the story of an ancient African community was read by the class.

Ostensibly the same question three times. For (a) you get the discussion above with the consensus tending to the view that commas are debatable but probably not required.

For (b), there's no good reason to mention the author's name or the fact that it's a novel. Anyone who could conceivably be interested already knows these things. But then you're left with the sentence "Pride & Prejudice was read by the class." and realise that no normal person would put that in the passive, and you convert it to "The class read Pride & Prejudice."

For (c), there's so much going on in the language of the title that putting commas round it would just be silly. Again, you would have to rewrite the sentence to avoid stack overflow for the reader.

>13 keristars:. With the sister, I think it's pointing out where the stress lies. Which is the important part - that you're speaking of a sister or of Mary? Either way, you're further specifying which person it is, but in the former, the important information is that it is Mary who happens to be your sister, while in the latter, it's that you have a sister whose name happens to be Mary.

You appear not to have noticed that I could be speaking TO Mary about my sister.

>1 barney67: Which do you think is correct:

Did you mean, "Which do you think is correct?" ? This IS Pedant Scorner, you know? :)

17> Well, yeah, but that's not really ambiguous comma usage, is it?

This is Pedants' Corner. There are no right answers.

Of course there are right answers! We just don't agree on them.

Damn right there are right answers! They're mine.

#23 The Mighty Smiter is back!

;-) xx

Oh G*d, hide your Fockers.. .. .. :o)

#25 Kisses! On LT? I even saw that Krazy4Kats posted "Roger that, Novak" in an adjoining topic (Nasa Speak?). I am not sure about all this sex on the net. Make 'em clean up the act, Booksloth.

#27 They were very chaste kisses.

Don't get upset Booksloth, we were only playing ... There, their, they're. :-)

27: Did I inadvertently make a sexual comment on Nasa Speak or was it the comma? :-D

31>

31> Well I just looked up Roger in the dictionary and I was shocked, shocked (!) to see a sexual definition. Never would I have imagined, after watching all the Gemini and Apollo flights, that they were talking about that. Humph.

Well I know it's the first thing I would try out in zero-G

>33 krazy4katz: At an introductory meeting for new staff at an English school in Brazil (mid 1990s) the headmaster warned that it was forbidden to roger the sixth form girls. My wife had never heard the expression. PS: I suspect that was closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.

32>Love the Comma Sutra!

35> So, do you think this originates from "across the pond"? Really and truly I have never heard this expression in the US.

k4k

>36 krazy4katz:
Roger (noun) is 17th century slang for what Francis Grose elegantly calls "a man's yard" - Grose says it comes from Roger being a name commonly given to bulls, but the OED talks about geese. The verb seems to be 18th century cant - people who used words like that in 18th century London were perhaps more likely to end up in Sydney than in Philadelphia.

Yep. An impressive piece of research as always thorold. Well known 18th century Oz comic book, Roger the Kangaroo.....

#38 Well, Novak, the outback is a pretty lonely place.

#37: Yes, the Oxford Historical Thesaurus has "roger" (as a verb) in 1711 saying it is slang. A bit oddly its date for "rogering" is 1884.

While we are on bestiality, There is a Canadian children's book called Shag the Caribou - no copy on LT, alas. (is that comma OK?)

I am also reminded of an urban myth that went the rounds about the cast list of the Captain Pugwash stories by John Ryan. The pirate's crew allegedly included Roger the Cabin Boy, Master Bates and Seaman Staines. Rubbish, of course!

I ain't sayin' nothin' nohow no more. No way. k4k

>42 krazy4katz:: Roger that, K4K.. .. .. :)

Hah!! (oops…)

To go back to the question: the difference surely lies in the italicisation (or quotation marking) of the book title, in which case the second example would be correct; otherwise, if a comma is lacking, 'novel' reads as an adjective, not a noun.
How we would speak the sentence is another matter~ but I think we might well pause briefly where the comma is (or is not).

Ah, but you often have to ignore formatting such as italics. Purely visual formatting like italics or bold doesn't always come through, so things like commas or quotation marks are used to ensure clarity.

Or so I was taught back in the dark ages before everyone had access to word processors to write their book reports and papers.

There seems to be some confusion here between print and handwriting. In the case of the latter, you would of course employ quotation marks (or underlining, if you wanted to be dashing).

It is interesting, by the way, to note how many media texts, such as newspapers, now use no markers at all to designate titles, so it is not always clear which words belong to the title and which to the surrounding text, what was presumably intended to aid clarity and speed of reading sometimes causing obfuscation and delay.

So, back to post #1 in the discussion!

Hmmm, one could have a little bit of fun here, WRT the question of whether commas are really necessary, if you introduce the past perfect tense as follows ...

barney67 in post #1 provided two example sentences. When later asked by Rule42 about how many example sentences in that post, Novak replied that barney67 had two sentences, while thorold replied that barney67 had had two sentences. Rule42 much preferred thorold's answer. Why?

Because thorold, while Novak had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a much stronger appeal to Rule42's perverse sensibilities.

Of course, those of you preferring barney67's second example in post #1 will no doubt prefer that I had just written:

Because thorold while Novak had had had had had had had had had had had a much stronger appeal to Rule42's perverse sensibilities.

I know which version I prefer. The latter one makes my head fall apart like a chocolate orange.

>50 BoMag: "if you wanted to be pedantic ..."

I'm not too sure that anybody posting on this thread actually wants to be pedantic. Unfortunately, we just are pedantic, and I guess we'll all just have to live with it.

>50 BoMag: "So long as that doesn't upset your perverse sensibilities :)"

Well, BoMag, to be quite honest, your changing the real name (of one of the two participants in the conversation snippet quoted in my post #49) to something a bit surreal has had somewhat of a disconcerting effect on me. Why? Because there is no such human name as "Had" (you just made that up). Consequently, your name change has now turned my own example of a sentence that could quite feasibly occur in casual conversation into something that, to my own perverse sensibilities, sounds totally contrived!

To put it another way, your hadding an hadditional Had to all the other had hads in my had had had had had had had had had had had sentence had had such a bad effect on me after I had read it that that hadditional hadded Had has now caused me to completely reconsider why I even had had the idea in the first place that that had had had had had had had had had had had sentence I had posted might well have had any sort of favorable reception amongst the kind of comma usage pedants that that had had had had had had had had had had had sentence had had the original intention of impressing.

I do sincerely hope that that explanation has made my feelings on this matter crystal clear.

But what about 2 Samuel, 19.24: "...Had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace."
If that isn't describing our old friend Novak and his recent trip to Africa....

>52 thorold: "If that isn't describing our old friend Novak and his recent trip to Africa...."

My dear thorold, you appear to be confusing this thread with an entirely different one. My most recent post on this thread only concerned itself with the diehard use of had had and that that. Had had had and that that also occurred on that other thread you mentioned I think I would have recalled that that had happened had it done so, but as it had not, why link them? Please don't answer that, that was rhetorical! Had that other thread and this had had and that that thread both been about a related topic then you might still have been dead right to link that other thread with this had had and that that one had you done so, but that other one had had only sick Hasidic clerics and slick Semitic lyrics and had had no had had nor that that dyad whatsits doodads to justify having had that done.

Of course, that other thread may well have contained a few odd cases of had or that, just not had had and that that. On that basis we could have possibly called it the other had and that thread, just not the other had had and that that thread, since it had had no had had nor that that dyad doodads in it. OTOH, if we had had indeed referred to that other thread as the other had and that thread then that would conversely have made this thread the other had had and that that thread. That would be quite kosher just so long as you had got it straight that that other other had and that thread was not the same as this other had had and that that thread with all the dyhads - otherwise had you not got that that might had have been too confusing!

>55 white-van-man: "I think I agree with you."

You don't sound too certain. Maybe somewhere in my previous post I should have created some sort of labeling that would have allowed me to more clearly distinguish between that other had and that thread and this particular thread? One obvious starting point would have been to call that other one the "HAD AND THAT" thread and this one the "HAD HAD AND THAT THAT" thread. But if I were to make such labels printable I would have to make very certain that there were no multiple spacings or tabs accidentally included between any of the label words, otherwise the labels might not fit onto a single line. That is, I would have to ensure that I kept the spacing between each of the words in both labels to an absolute minimum, especially between the words HAD and AND and AND and THAT.

And yes, before anyone even mentions it, I do fully realize that that same word spacing also needs to be applied to all the same words in this post too; just in case anyone might wish to print out this whole thread. For instance, in the case of that last "contiguous use of multiple ands" joke, I will need to specifically ensure there is just a single space between the "HAD" and "and" and "and" and "AND" and "AND" and "and" and "and" and "AND" and "AND" and "and" and "and" and "THAT" in the previous label reference.

OK, so that's 1 --> 5 --> 21 valid contiguous 'ands' in a grammatically correct English sentence. Any of you English majors out there have any ideas how to further validly extend that sequence? Or do any math(s) majors reading this want to hazard a guess what the next number will be in that sequence progression? (Eat your heart out Mr. Fibonacci!)

Oops, gotta go ... I just received a PM from someone wanting to discuss buffaloes and badgers with me!

>53 BoMag: "Val Doonican didn't speak to us."

Oh my gosh, did you really spend your school days with VD? Reading your posts I would never have guessed that you were a day over 40.

Whatever happened to old Val (he must be pushing 90 by now)? Does he still live in Barnsley? Last I heard he was being prosecuted for having done some rather naughty things with Eamonn Andrews, Delaney's donkey and Paddy McGinty's goat in the back of O'Rafferty's motor car. If I remember correctly it was the semen stains on his cardigan that ultimately caused his demise. Unlike Monica Lewinsky he was no intern ... in his case, just interned. I guess it was all part of the aftermath of the big brouhaha over the likes of Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall. To hear Val talk about it, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. But the way I heard it, butterflies were never quite as elusive as he always claimed they were. As for the accusations flying about regarding small furry creatures ... well, they were a whole other kettle of cod!

>57 Rule42: 87 to be precise: http://www.valdoonican.com/

Does your Rule42 username relate to the Gaelic Athletic Association's Rule 42, modified in 2005, or is it some other reference?

I have been curious about this since I first saw your username.

I'm surprised by the voting in the poll because most of the relevant posts suggest 'no'. Wilder wrote more novels than that one; commas imply he wrote only that one. You can think of the commas in a sentence like that as parentheses, as other posters have pointed out: Wilder's novel (The Bridge of Saint Luis Rey) was read by the class.

(I just couldn't resist sticking my oar into a zombie thread mentioning the GAA and the implications of italics, never mind one having a couple of sub-music hall jokes and reminding me of Troy McClure's rather unusual proclivity.)

>58 pgmcc: "87 to be precise"

Oh my, my, when I read your post the first time, I thought your '87' was your precisely calculated answer to the, "do any math(s) majors reading this want to hazard a guess what the next number will be in that sequence progression?" question that I'd posed at the end of my penultimate post, and that you had then also provided the link to the VD web page as a sort of helpful response to my more rhetorical comment, "Whatever happened to old Val (he must be pushing 90 by now)?" in my previous post. So the punctuation pedant in me was about to ream your sorry whatsit for using a colon to separate those two independent pieces of information rather than a semi-colon or period - or possibly even a comma. But the reaming wouldn't have stopped there, because (according to my initial reading) you had also "precisely" calculated the next number in the sequence incorrectly! It was close, but no cigar ... had it indeed been your suggested sequence number!

It was only when I started to compose my response that it then hit me that '87' was VD's age (I didn't actually read that linked web page; I just followed the link to see where it took me and then returned back to your post once I knew what it was about). At which point, of course, I realized the use of the colon as a separator that presages further related information follows was exactly correct. So consequently no ream ... sometimes it's not much fun being a pedant! :(

>58 pgmcc: "Does your Rule42 username relate to the Gaelic Athletic Association's Rule 42 ... ?"

As for the origins of my LT handle, I'm afraid it has nothing whatsoever to do with the GAA, an august body of whose existence I was completely unaware until you just mentioned it. The only hurling I've ever done was after eating too many shrimp while on a trip to India ...

On the road to Mandalay
I eat shrimp Chinese take-away,
An' the prawns come up like chunder as I vomit where I lay!

Wow, I had never realized that rounders was considered to be a competitive sport played by adults. I guess you live and learn. For instance, I had always thought camogie was just hurling played by trannies. Or that it possibly referred to one of the main protagonists in the Star Wars movies ... "May the Fourth November the Fifth be with you," said Obiwan Camogie. Didn't Croke Park used to be the home ground of Sunderland?

Anyway, the origins of my moniker are actually quite literary and, fortytuitously for you, some clews to its derivation are provided here.

>60 spartan: "You will note NASA are now on expedition 42, I think he's the one in the center of the pic."

10-4 and Roger that, spartan. God darn it! You've just gone and blown my duvet cover. Now people will know that I'm really a senior government official working on project ASAP, and since the moon landing hoax in '69, the cunning linguist (I can speak three languages fluently - Monday, Wednesday, Friday - plus I have a smattering in more than half-a-dozen others, such as Esperanto, Desperado, Mandarin, Tangerine, Gujarati, Swahili and Parcheesi) in charge of NASA's Press Office and Pubic Relations departments.

49-56

I had the distinct impression in this sequence that I was being had ...

>62 CliffordDorset:

Had you really? Why hadn't you mentioned that that was how you had really felt a little earlier? Maybe we could had done summat about that?

>62 CliffordDorset: Had I mentioned that that had had that effect on me too?

>64 Novak:

Oh wow, Novak, I have to hadmit that I had originally thought that that that that had had had hadequately hadvanced all that it had had to do. Then it had dawned on me that you had been able to hadeptly hadd in an hadditional that and had to that that that had had. That hadjoining that and had had hadvoided my initial hadjudication while that that that had had had not. Once I had inhadvertently twigged that hadditional that and had haddendum hadjacent to that that that had had that had first caught my eye I had had to hadjust my hadmiration. Had you not had done that hadvantageous hadaptation I would still have hadequately hadmired that that that had had that I had noticed without much hado, but that hadded hadjunct had and that is hadmitedly hadorable and worthy of true hadulation!

>66 BoMag:

Really? I was "hadmitedly" more worried that folk might consider "hado" not to be a pwoper word. I wasn't sure whether the word I really meant to use there should not have been "hairdo" instead. As in a recent remark by one of my friends when I asked him what he thought of LFC's Kop flop, Mario Balotelli. "Much Hairdo About Nothing" was the silly Bardsta's considered reply.

ok now everybody, post your syntax trees : http://ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree/?

>68 binders: Yeah. You're right, Rule 42 does go on a bit.

Lovely to see your pint again, s'bin some time.

We don't grow syntax trees in UK. Could you send me some seeds to try out. :o)

>66 BoMag: said we "will have none of THAT."

Can I point out that that THAT that that Bomag used was in bold type?