Day 213

Grammar with commas, adjectives and parentheses

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Never let it be said that I would try to have four commas in a sentence.  Not that I would deliberately expect to see how it would sound.

After all, the comma is the point where the reader takes a breath.  One official definition of the comma is to separate clauses or lists of three or more items.

Someone might want to tell the people who create grammar checkers that, because sometimes their suggested edits are a little perplexing.

Of course, the humble comma is also very useful for making the author’s meaning clearer to the reader, who, it seems, is always trying to misinterpret what he or she is trying to say.

Sadly, just about everything I write can be misinterpreted, especially by those strange grammar checkers.  You see, the programmers who are behind such beasts injected their own interpretation, so no matter what you want to say, they change it into something incomprehensible.

Unless, of course, you take charge and override the changes or simply ignore the suggestions.  The problem is, it won’t let it go, underscoring or highlighting what it thinks is wrong and takes you back, like an errant child, expecting you to conform.

Even selecting ignore only lets you think you have won!

But all the same, there are eight rules for using commas, and it doesn’t hurt to at least read what they are so you can make up your own mind.

The next battle, and believe me, I have drawn the line on the battlefield, a line these mechanical behemoths simply roll right over.

I know what words I was to use.  It doesn’t or shouldn’t after what I use because those ate my words.  The checker can not possibly know what I want to convey.

And yet there it is, saying that I have no idea what I’m talking about.

OK.  I get it.  We don’t want to have too much flowery language.  But just what is flowery language?  Acting dumb, I’d say I don’t use flowers to describe stuff.

Then, there’s a lavender aroma, a rose coloured cheek, as yellow as a daffodil.

Who doesn’t know of a yellow daffodil, a red rose, though these days there are red, yellow, white, and pink roses.

Oops, I just used more than four commas in a sentence. 

But there is a good argument for using words that most people would recognise because the last thing you need is reader frustration.  But, again, you still have to take into consideration the narrator or the character and their characteristics.

Lastly, who hasn’t used an afterthought or an explanation in the middle of a sentence just to make sure the reader knows what is going on

I mean, we shouldn’t have to; it should be readily apparent if we had spelled out beforehand, but that little reminder is so that the reader isn’t left scratching their head, which can sometimes happen.

It’s not ideal, but sometimes necessary.

I use it myself, which, of course, isn’t a validation of its use. It’s just the way I write.

It is just another thing on that ever-growing list of pointers that we accumulated as we advance further into the writing mire.

Nothing is ever simple.