Pen to Paper: Comma Rules

By the time I finished collecting diplomas for completing high school, my bachelor’s degree, and my master’s degree and spending 15 years editing daily newspapers, I thought I understood the comma pretty well.

When I started editing non-fiction book manuscripts, I realized that I didn’t know much of anything about the comma. The people I was working for did know all about the comma, and I had to improve my game quickly.

I was on my way to a bad case of tennis elbow by constantly reaching for the heavy Chicago Manual of Style to look up comma rules. It was also tedious and time-consuming. So I made a cheat sheet, condensing most of Chicago’s picky comma rules onto a single sheet of paper, which I posted in plain sight. (It was not the only cheat sheet I made to save myself time and heavy lifting. Why there should be different styles for endnotes and bibliography remains a mystery.)

Below is my aide-mémoire for exacting comma use, offered for your use. Again, this is taken from the Chicago Manual of Style, 5th ed. If you’re writing or editing for a publication or company, you’ll need to use whatever stylebook you’re told to. Such books are often at odds with each other. Don’t take any of it personally; just do the job the way the people writing the checks want it done and be happy.

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Comma rules

* Use commas to separate words, phrases, or clauses in a series.

The flag was red, white, and blue. I came, I saw, I conquered. They walked, ran, and rode to their destinations.

* Use commas to list adjectives in a series if they are of equal importance.

(If you could say the word “and” between each adjective, use a comma. If not, don’t.)

They live in a large, modern two-story home.

* Use commas before coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, yet, for, so) to join two independent clauses.

(This means having two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction to create a compound sentence.)

He had no proper breeding, and he lacked spirit.

* Use commas to set off introductory elements.

Adverb: First, I need to go to the bank.

Prepositional phrase: After dinner, let’s watch a movie.

Appositive (a noun cluster that specifies another noun in the sentence): A lazy dog, Norman had no interest in chasing cars.

Participial phrase (a verb form that modifies a noun or pronoun): Unmoved by his coworkers’ pleas, the boss’ son decided to rat them out.

Infinitive phrase (to followed by a verb): To be honest, I can’t stand the sight of him.

Dependent clause: If you’re going to town, I am going with you.

* Use commas to set off strong pauses in the middle or at the end of a sentence.

Appositive: Janet, the mother of six, changed lots of diapers.

Conjunctive adverb (an adverb that modifies the whole sentence): The robber, nevertheless, took the things of sentimental value.

Prepositional phrase: That barber is, without a doubt, the handiest with a razor.

Participial phrase: The dog, hidden by the trees, watched the duck.

Direct address: When you go, Fred, take that with you.

Parenthetical clause: I prefer red, of course, but blue will be fine.

Nonrestrictive clause (a clause not necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence): The cat, which had never before seen a mouse, leaped to the hunt.

* Use commas to set off complete quotations.

* Use a comma whenever doing so will prevent confusion.

Pen to Paper: Breaking the Rules of Haiku

Two weeks ago, we examined whether personification and other literary devices common to Western poetry were acceptable in haiku.

Now I have discovered (a mere eleven years after publication) an article that takes us far beyond that initial discussion of what might be permissible in haiku. The piece is by Haruo Shirane, Shincho professor of Japanese literature and culture at Columbia University in New York City. It was published in Modern Haiku magazine in 2000. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, this was the year of the Matsuyama Declaration, which politely insisted that writers of haiku in languages other than Japanese explore the form without being tied down by Japanese conventions.

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Pen to Paper: Literary Devices in Haiku

Greg Bryant wrote and posted a fine haiku over at his site. I immediately caught the use of personification in it — giving a non-human object human traits. This, I had always read and been told, was one of the big no-nos in haiku, no matter how good the result might be.

Haiku (so I was taught) is the poetry of simply noticing and letting the reader draw his own conclusions. Simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, and all the other staples of Western poetry have no place in a form that seeks to describe in the plainest terms that which is.

But is that the case?

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