Commas and adverbs of degree

[Miss Mae]

And if anyone did say anything, they would come in for years of torment too!
-China Witness: Voices From A Silent Generation

Can you please clarify when commas should be used?

[Joe Carillo]

Let’s take a close look at the sentence you presented:

“And if anyone did say anything, they would come in for years of torment too!”

We can see that a comma is at work in that sentence to set off the introductory element “and if anyone did say anything” from the main clause “they would come in for years of torment too.” That comma is needed there for clarity’s sake; it’s meant to make readers pause a little bit after reading the introductory statement so they can clearly comprehend it as a distinct and separate idea from the idea of the main clause. In the absence of that comma, there’s a clear and present danger of readers getting confused or becoming hesitant on what the sentence is trying to say. We can readily see the problem by reading that sentence, whether silently or aloud, without the comma:

“And if anyone did say anything they would come in for years of torment too!”

For stylistic purposes (particularly in dialogue), some writers would omit that comma to evoke casualness and spontaneity, but they risk getting the statement misunderstood when they do so. My advice then is to eliminate that risk by always using the comma in such situations.

To emphasize the value of the comma, I would even go as far as saying that it’s also desirable to use a comma to set off the adverb “too” from the main clause, as follows:

“And if anyone did say anything, they would come in for years of torment, too!”

With those two commas at work in that sentence, the intended sense becomes much clearer. But then again, the decision to use that second comma is best left to the discretion of the writer, for this time the decision is more stylistic rather than grammatical.

At this point, I must hasten to add that this clarification about the uses of the comma is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. In English, there are actually as many as seven other grammatical situations that need a comma. They are in addition to its three generally known functions of indicating a slight pause in the spoken sentence, setting apart items in a list, and separating a nonrestrictive clause or phrase from a main clause.

We can get a better idea of these multifarious uses from this definition of the comma by Dictionary.com: “the sign (,), a mark of punctuation used for indicating a division in a sentence, as in setting off a word, phrase, or clause, especially when such a division is accompanied by a slight pause or is to be noted in order to give order to the sequential elements of the sentence. It is also used to separate items in a list, to mark off thousands in numerals, to separate types or levels of information in bibliographic and other data, and, in Europe, as a decimal point.”

As to the specifics of these uses, I suggest you check out the “Rules for Comma Usage” in the Guide to Grammar and Writing by the Capital Community College Foundation. The site offers the most detailed and most instructive discussion of the subject I’ve seen anywhere on the web, and I’d say that it’s a must-read for everyone desirous of mastering comma usage.

[Miss Mae]

Thank you, Sir.

This rule is kind of tricky, though (and I quote):

Never use only one comma between a subject and its verb. "Believing completely and positively in oneself is essential for success." [Although readers might pause after the word "oneself," there is no reason to put a comma there too.]

Others might think that putting more than one comma between a subject and a verb would make a sentence acceptable!

[Joe Carillo]

The two-comma rule that you cited doesn't make sense at all. It's possible that the rule might just have been quoted out of context. Even more disturbing, the sentence you presented as an example for that comma usage also doesn't relate to that supposed grammar rule.

I'm afraid that you might have used a dubious grammar source in this particular instance. Can you send me a link to that source so I can check it out for accuracy and reliability?

[Mwita Chacha]

Like you Sir, I myself notice the sentence Miss Mae has given to illustrate the two-comma rule she's explained is totally impertinent. The rule saying never use one comma between a subject and its verb she's mentioned aims at proper puctuation of sentences that incorporate relative clauses and sentences that incorporate paranthetical elements such as interrupting words or phrases. Hence we can't write, say,  ''Barrack Obama, who was born to a Kenyan father has become the first black American president,'' in which using only one comma makes the sentence become noticeably wrongly punctuated.
The same rule also stipulates interrupting words or phrases should be separated from the main clause by two commas, not one. As an illustration, we are not permitted to write ''President Obama, in 2008 became the first black American president,'' in which sentence one-comma placing between the subject and its verb gives rise to a patent punctuation mistake.
So that is what I know regarding the two-comma rule.

[Miss Mae]

Guys, I got that rule from the webpage of the Capital Community College Foundation.

Guide to Grammar and Writing
Rules for Comma Usage
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm

Grammar English's Famous Rule of Punctuation: Never use only one comma between a subject and its verb. "Believing completely and positively in oneself is essential for success." [Although readers might pause after the word "oneself," there is no reason to put a comma there.]

[Joe Carillo]

I did a check and found that indeed, the comma usage rule that confounded Miss Mae appears verbatim as Rule 9 in the “Rules of Comma Usage” webpage of the Capital Community College Foundation.

All by its lonesome, that rule does sound nonsensical because it has been set too far apart from Rule 4 – “Use a comma to set off parenthetical elements,” thus detaching it from its grammatical context. That context is, of course, the need for parenthetical elements such as modifying relative clauses and appositives to be set off by two commas. This was made clear by Mwita Chacha when, in her response to Miss Mae’s posting, she observed that “The rule saying never use one comma between a subject and its verb… aims at proper punctuation of sentences that incorporate relative clauses and (of) sentences that incorporate parenthetical elements such as interrupting words or phrases.”

To put things in their full context, let’s take a closer look at grammar.ccc.commnet.edu’s explanation for Rule 4:

4 - Use a comma to set off parenthetical elements, as in “The Founders Bridge, which spans the Connecticut River, is falling down.” By “parenthetical element,” we mean a part of a sentence that can be removed without changing the essential meaning of that sentence. The parenthetical element is sometimes called “added information.” This is the most difficult rule in punctuation because it is sometimes unclear what is “added” or “parenthetical” and what is essential to the meaning of a sentence.

Appositives are almost always treated as parenthetical elements.

“Calhoun’s ambition, to become a goalie in professional soccer, is within his reach.”
“Eleanor, his wife of thirty years, suddenly decided to open her own business.”

Sometimes the appositive and the word it identifies are so closely related that the comma can be omitted, as in “His wife Eleanor suddenly decided to open her own business.” We could argue that the name “Eleanor” is not essential to the meaning of the sentence (assuming he has only one wife), and that would suggest that we can put commas both before and after the name (and that would, indeed, be correct). But “his wife” and “Eleanor” are so close that we can regard the entire phrase as one unit and leave out the commas. With the phrase turned around, however, we have a more definite parenthetical element and the commas are necessary: “Eleanor, his wife, suddenly decided to open her own business.” Consider, also, the difference between “College President Ira Rubenzahl voted to rescind the withdrawal policy” (in which we need the name “Ira Rubenzahl” or the sentence doesn’t make sense) and “Ira Rubenzahl, the college president, voted to rescind the withdrawal policy” (in which the sentence makes sense without his title, the appositive, and we treat the appositive as a parenthetical element, with a pair of commas).

What beclouded the sense of Rule 9 is that Rules 5, 6, 7, and 8 got in the way of its semantic and logical connection to Rule 4, making Rule 9 below stick out like a sore thumb and so confusing when read solely by itself:

Rule 9 - Never use only one comma between a subject and its verb. “Believing completely and positively in oneself is essential for success.” [Although readers might pause after the word “oneself,” there is no reason to put a comma there too.]

It should be perfectly understandable now why Miss Mae had made the following remark—and right on the mark at that!—about this state of affairs: “This rule is kind of tricky, though… Others might think that putting more than one comma between a subject and a verb would make a sentence acceptable!

Even with this rather long clarification, however, I still think that Rule 9 can stand improvement in the way it’s phrased so as to preclude any further misunderstanding of that rule. I suggest the following rewrite:

Rule 9 - Grammar English’s Famous Rule of Punctuation: When the parenthetical element is positioned between a subject and its verb, never use just one comma to set off the parenthetical element from them. Use two commas—one right before the parenthetical element and another at the end of the parenthetical element, right before the verb. Example: “The Founders Bridge, which spans the Connecticut River, is falling down.” Never write that sentence without the first comma in this way, “The Founders Bridge which spans the Connecticut River, is falling down,” nor write it without the second comma in this way, “The Founders Bridge, which spans the Connecticut River is falling down.”

Also, when a noun phrase as subject of a sentence ends in a noun, never use a comma between that subject and the verb in this way: “Believing completely and positively in oneself, is essential for success.” Although readers might be expected to pause after the word “oneself,” always write that sentence without that comma: “Believing completely and positively in oneself is essential for success.”

After this, I’m thinking of bringing this discussion and suggested correction to the attention of the grammarians of grammar.ccc.commnet.edu so they can fine-tune their otherwise very instructive and interesting prescriptions for comma usage. I’ll keep Forum members posted on what happens next.

[Miss Mae]

Thank you, Sir.

[Mwita Chacha]

Sir, the explanations you've offered regarding two-comma rule particularly make much sense and are far easily understood than those vague ones quoted from a website by Miss Mae.
May I take this time to bring to your attention the common punctuation gaffe mostly committed by the print media--at least the Tanzanian media--when constructing for their stories sentences introduced by appositives. Not one time have I seen in newspapers and news sites sentences constructively similar to ''The South African President and Chairman of ANC political party, Jacob Zuma, has arrived in Egypt for a three-day official visit.'' My conclusion is that such sentences are thoroughly wrongly punctuated because they erroneously task appositives--which are literally reduced relative clauses hence serving to describe or limit nouns--with acting as subjects of sentences. Since the genuine office of appositives is merely to rename nouns and, in so doing, describing or limiting their applications, assigning them to act as subjects of sentences is indeed tantamount to charge them with doing the job beyond their scope. This is exactly what happens in the sentence I've given, which wrongly separates its legitimate subject, proper noun Jacob Zuma, from its action verb 'has been; and it instead attempt to constrain the appositive 'The South African president...' to imperfectly act as the subject of the sentence.

[jpri]

I've heard this before also, "Never use only one comma between a subject and its verb." I was taught early on when I asked my English tutor about this rule and he told me to pretend that I never read about it. LOL