Digg it

I'm amazed.

I just checked on the fortunes of How to punctuate a sentence and found that it has 412 diggs. Translation: 412 people have tagged the post as an item that interests them. The number jumped from 361 to 412 while I typed this post. (I think that "Yowza!" is all I can say about that.)

The post has also been tagged by 254 people on the social bookmarking site del.icio.us, and it's in the Digg and del.icio.us lists on popurls ("popular urls to the latest web buzz").

It's strangely thrilling to think of punctuation as being part of the latest web buzz. And so it turns out that what I've been telling my students is true after all: punctuation is cool; it's fresh; it's fly. It's what happening -- at least for the next few days. (Does anyone still say "fly"?)

How to punctuate a sentence

Nothing that follows is meant to substitute for the nuanced explanations found in what's usually called a writing handbook, the sort of book that college students purchase in a first-semester writing course. These five rules though have the virtue of being manageable, which is difficult to say of a 1,000-page book. In each paragraph that follows, the sentences illustrate the punctuation rule involved. Note that I'm avoiding almost all grammatical terminology. Instead, I'm emphasizing a small number of sentence patterns.

Rule one
If your sentence begins with an introductory element, put a comma after it. Even if it's a short element, put a comma after it. In time, you'll be putting this comma in without having to think about it.

Rule two
Any element, big or small, that interrupts the movement of a sentence should be set off with commas. This sentence, like the first, also has an element set off with commas. An extra element at the end of the sentence should also be set off with a comma, as I'm showing here.

Rule three
Items in a series should be separated with commas. What do I mean by "items in a series"? Wine, women, and song. Life, love, and laughter. John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

(There's no consensus about using a comma before the final item — the so-called "Oxford comma" or "serial comma." Keeping that comma seems to me the better choice, simplifying, in one small way, the problems of punctuation. If you always put the comma in, you avoid problems with ambiguous or tricky sentences in which the comma's absence might blur the meaning of your words.)

Rule four
Complete sentences that are joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) need a comma before the coordinating conjunction. That might seem obvious, but this comma frequently gets left out. Putting it in makes a sentence more readable, and any reader appreciates that.

Rule five
Complete sentences that are joined without a coordinating conjunction need a semicolon instead of a comma; the semicolon shows the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next. Semicolons are often followed by a connecting word or phrase; however, a connecting word or phrase is not necessary. Sentences joined with only a comma are called comma splices; they're among the most common errors that come up in college writing.

(Note: In the next-to-last sentence in the previous paragraph, there's a comma after however because it's an introductory element in the second sentence. A semicolon followed by however is a familiar device when writers link ideas. A better way to manage however, however, is to place the word within a sentence: "Semicolons are often followed by a connecting word or phrase; a connecting word or phrase, however, is not necessary." In this revised sentence, rule two explains the commas.)

Fixing comma splices requires familiarity with two recurring sentence patterns. The first involves a complete sentence, a semicolon, and another complete sentence:

[complete sentence]; [complete sentence].

Some examples:

Your argument is persuasive; it addresses every objection I had.

His research paper is plagiarized; he is going to fail the class.

The novel is a relatively recent literary form; it's not nearly as old as epic poetry and lyric poetry.

The second pattern to look for involves a complete sentence, a semicolon, a connecting word or phrase, a comma, and another complete sentence:

[complete sentence]; [word or phrase], [complete sentence].

(Again, the comma after the connecting word or phrase is appropriate as that word or phrase is an introductory element in the second sentence.)

Some examples:

I decided not to take the job; instead, I'm going to graduate school.

The proposal is flawed; thus, we're sending it back for revision.

She did well in the class; in fact, she did much better than she had expected.

How can you tell whether you have two complete sentences or one sentence with an additional element at its end? With an additional element (something less than a sentence in itself), the parts of the sentence can be switched and still make sense:

I'll go to work, even though I'm sick.

Even though I'm sick, I'll go to work.

But with a second complete sentence and a word or phrase such as instead, thus, or in fact, the parts cannot be switched and still make sense.

A complication: when you can switch parts, a comma will sometimes be necessary and sometimes not. The best way to judge is to consider whether the element at the end is necessary to the meaning or something extra. Consider these examples:

Why did you bring an umbrella?

I brought an umbrella because I thought it would rain.

*

What did you bring?

I brought an umbrella, because I thought it would rain.

In the first exchange, the words “because I thought it would rain” are crucial to the meaning. In the second exchange, they’re not.

I think of this kind of comma as analogous to seasoning — sometimes you need it; sometimes you don't. (And at this point, very few people are likely to be thinking about the choice in terms of outright error.)

These are the basics of punctuating sentences with commas and semicolons. I know from working with many students that any writer can get better when it comes to punctuation. The key is the ability to recognize a handful of familiar patterns. Look for the patterns in your sentences, and you too can get better. With some practice, you'll be able to see the parts of your sentences falling into place, and punctuating correctly will become, believe it or not, a habit, one that you'll be happy to have acquired.

Colons, by the way, function as arrows or pointers: see what I mean?

Related post
How to punctuate more sentences

Hello, Lifehack readers

If you've arrived here after reading How to punctuate a sentence, you might like reading one or more of the following posts:

And, but, for, nor, or, so, yet Is it okay to begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction? (Of course it is.)

Commas and colons, chickens and caulk The ancient Greek origins of commas, colons, and periods

On handwriting and typing W.H. Auden's observations

Slow down and think Children's thoughts on writing with fountain pens

Writing and index cards Tools of the trade

Raymond Carver's index cards One writer's index cards, taped to the wall by his desk

William Labov

I had the great opportunity last night to hear a talk by the sociolinguist William Labov, "The Growing Divergence of English Dialects in North America." Labov's thesis is that North American English is becoming more not less heterogeneous, that regional dialects are becoming increasingly different from each other. The "action," as he called it, is almost all in the vowels. He offered numerous examples (with audio clips) of chain shifts (vowel sounds trading places: for instance, busses pronounced bosses) and mergers (different vowel sounds pronounced in the same way: for instance, Dawn pronounced Don). Both trends lead to greater possibilities of misunderstanding in speech. One sample exchange:

"I started sneezing in Greek Meter -- that's a class. Dawn's dog must have heard it."

"Don's dog?"

I loved the fleeting thought of someone sneezing in, say, dactylic hexameter. Epic sneezes! Kchaou!

Here's a observation Labov made on language and its relation to matters of communication and truthfulness:

A parrot can say "I will meet you downtown at 8:00" -- but he won't be there.

Labov's words reminded me of the motto of the London Stock Exchange, "Dictum meum pactum," "My word is my bond." I know nothing of the London Stock Exchange, but the philosopher J.L. Austin and the poet Geoffrey Hill both make use of this motto in their work (misquoted, it would seem, as "Our word is our bond").

A few links if you'd like to know more about William Labov:

William Labov's homepage (University of Pennsylvania)

How I got into linguistics, and what I got out of it Essay by William Labov

A Linguist's Journey (PBS) The above essay and other materials

American Accent Undergoing Great Vowel Shift (NPR)

Talking the Tawk (New Yorker) On Labov and Brooklynese

The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Sound Change (Mouton de Gruyter) Demo of the online resource

The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Sound Change (Amazon) The print version ($749)

(Thanks, Elaine and Rachel!)

Multitaskers, take note

Elaine pointed me to this photograph at Dark Roasted Blend. The sign isn't real signage: it appears only on this poster, from Peterborough, England, made for display in businesses and workplaces.

Think! Switch it off when you drive (Peterborough City Council)

Related post
The bottleneck in the brain

(Thanks, Elaine!)

The oldest song

The oldest known song, "The Prayer of an Infertile Woman," received its North American premiere last week:

Inscribed in cuneiform symbols on a clay tablet, this tune is, in fact, 1,200 years older than Jesus.

The singer was Dr. Theo J. H. Krispijn, an accomplished vocalist who has appeared on Dutch television. He also is a professor in Assyriology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and, in that role, brought back -- after 3,200 years of silence -- the plaintive cry of the infertile woman beseeching the moon goddess, Nikkal, for a solution to her problem.

The performance took place at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute. A film clip accompanies the article.

New voice for the oldest song ever (Chicago Tribune)

Another Mesopotamian post: Gilgamesh travesty

(Thanks, Stefan!)

Alabama changes the value of pi

Wikipedia has a fine list of April Fools' Day hoaxes:

April Fools' Day

Soy milk, New York Times, and Wikipedia

The New York Times ran an article earlier this week on beverages and health. It turns out to have contained wildly inaccurate statements about soy milk, as volunteers at the Wikipedia Reference Desks have established. Did the Times acknowledge its errors? No. Instead, the article was silently amended.

Before:

"Fortified soy milk is a good alternative for individuals who prefer not to consume cow milk,” the panel said, but cautioned that soy milk cannot be legally fortified with vitamin D and provides only 75 percent of the calcium the body obtains from cow’s milk.

After:

"Fortified soy milk is a good alternative for individuals who prefer not to consume cow milk," the panel said.

I remember reading the original sentence and thinking "That can't be right." Sure enough: the soy milk and "cow milk" in my fridge, as I just discovered, have the same amount of calcium, and the soy milk has more vitamin D. (And who, aside from "the panel," calls it "cow milk"?)

It's difficult to disagree with Wikipedia contributor Jfarber, who brought these errors to the attention of the Times (and has received no acknowledgement from the paper): "for all the bad press about Wikipedia, there are some ways in which it works very well indeed."

Soy milk + Vitamin D? (Wikipedia Reference Desk)
NYT changes, back-dates article (Boing Boing)
You Are Also What You Drink (New York Times)

Related posts

I've spotted two significant errors in the Times, both about recording technology:

Correction
VINYL GAFFE, LEDDY CHARGES

Barfs

When my wife Elaine added the URL of her latest blog post to Google, here's what she was asked to type:



Elaine doesn't think this item is appropriate for her blog (the relation to music is at best tenuous), so she gave it to me. Thanks, Elaine!

Related posts
Beret
Doped
Fermi
Oveness

The SAT is broken

Les Perelman, director of MIT's director of the Writing Across the Curriculum program, continues to call attention to the absurd premises that underlie the recently-added essay section of the College Board's SAT. The high scores of a student who prepared for the test with Professor Perelman's guidance suggest what the College Board values in writing: big words ("myriad" and "plethora" are said to be favorites), weighty examples (whether or not they're relevant or accurately stated), and the magical five-paragraph formula.

Which is to say: the standards for the SAT essay run counter to everything a competent college teacher tries to make clear to students: that big words are not the key to good writing, that details and examples need to carefully chosen and relevant and grounded in fact, and that the number of paragraphs in an essay must be dictated by the writer's ideas and purpose. (There is no magic number.)

Here's an excerpt from the essay that Perelman's student wrote to test the test. I'm assuming that all the errors are intentional:

American president Franklin Delenor Roosevelt advocated for civil unity despite the communist threat of success by quoting 'the only thing we need to fear is itself,' which desdained competition as an alternative to cooperation for success. In the end, the American economy pulled out of the depression and succeeded communism.

Two College Board scorers gave the essay a 5, the second highest score possible.

Fooling the College Board (Inside Higher Ed)
Essay by Perelman's student (Download, 26 KB .doc file)
Words, words, words (Previous blog post on Professor Perelman's criticism of the College Board)