{"id":7035,"date":"2025-05-04T05:57:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T05:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/?p=7035"},"modified":"2025-05-04T05:57:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T05:57:26","slug":"the-case-of-the-missing-commas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/uncategorized\/the-case-of-the-missing-commas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case of the Missing Commas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n

One of my dear students, Aneta, recently returned from a relaxing holiday in Croatia. Over a cup of tea in my kitchen during our lesson, she showed me an English guidebook she had bought\u2014a great idea to improve her language skills while learning about a new country. However, she found some of it difficult to understand. When I took a look, I quickly discovered that the book was suffering from a serious case of comma deficiency. I had to reread some of the sentences several times just to make sense of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reminded me of one of my favourite books on the topic: Eats, Shoots and Leaves<\/em> by Lynne Truss. She shares the now-classic example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA panda eats, shoots and leaves.\u201d
Very different from:
\u201cA panda eats shoots and leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first, the panda grabs a snack, fires a gun, and strolls out like a gangster. In the second, he\u2019s simply enjoying a peaceful vegetarian lunch. All thanks to a comma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, where do commas go? Here are four golden rules:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Use commas after connecting words<\/strong> (like however, unfortunately, on the other hand):
    \u201cHowever, this is not always the case.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Use commas in lists:<\/strong>
    \u201cI packed a swimsuit, towel, flip-flops, and a book.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Use commas around non-defining relative clauses:<\/strong>
    (These clauses give extra information but aren’t essential to the meaning of the sentence):
    \u201cMy sister, who is a doctor, lives in Berlin.\u201d<\/em>
    (You only have one sister\u2014\u201cwho is a doctor\u201d is extra information.)
    Without commas:
    \u201cMy sister who is a doctor lives in Berlin.\u201d<\/em>
    (This suggests you have more than one sister and are specifying which one.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    \ud83d\udc49 Important!<\/strong> In English, don\u2019t use a comma before defining relative clauses with “which,” “who,” or “that” which you do in German!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Use commas wherever it makes sense\u2014and keep your sentences short!<\/strong>
      If you’re reading a sentence and feel like you’re running a marathon, add a comma.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Aneta left the lesson with an exercise to turn a letter into either a love or hate letter by adding commas. And I thought\u2014if my little granddaughter ever writes \u201cLet\u2019s eat, Grandma,\u201d I shall politely remind her of the grammar rule!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["de","en"],"languages":{"de":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7035"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7038,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035\/revisions\/7038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}