-3: The Pros and Cons of Commas

When kids tell me that spelling and punctuation are old-fashioned, I see red. I will admit to the reality that norms change over time. Conventions shift, methodologies fall in and out of favour. But disappear? Not on your life. Punctuation helps structure ideas, and is the tool required to ensure clarity of thought in the spoken and written word. Yes, I’m ranting.

These same kids will say, “But I know what my friend is trying to say in this text message even if there aren’t any commas and the words are missing letters so it’s okay!” Well, sure, but the kid probably knew what his friend was going to say anyway, and could guess at the content from context. That’s not clarity; it’s luck. And if this kid wants to read anything more complicated than a text message (and I truly hope in time he will), he needs tools, not guesswork. Just as the alphabet gives us the foundation for sounding out difficult words, punctuation gives us the building blocks for understanding complex sentences. Yes, I’m still ranting.

I remember a wonderful (but very sad) movie called Wit starring the marvellous Emma Thompson. In it Thompson plays an English literature professor who rails against the “hysterical punctuation” of a particular editor. She then reads the offending passage, complete with hysterical punctuation, and it’s one of the best movie scenes ever. It illustrates the other end of the punctuation spectrum, and I have to say I felt more comfortable there.

Although I’m not quite the zealot that Thompson’s character was (although I’ve heard snickers when I say that), I like to be careful. Commas separate clauses; semi-colons join two independent clauses. Right?

Apparently not. Early in my career an editor tried to gently ease me into the 21st century. “Penny, you’re absolutely right about the semi-colons, absolutely. But we try not to use them quite so much, as they’ve fallen out of fashion.”

I didn’t get the memo.

So in that book we virtually eliminated the semi-colon. It was a painful process for me, as I have always found it to be a useful little workhorse, worth far more than just a wink ;)

In the next book, it was commas. It was agreed that shorter sentences and fewer commas would be easier to read. It certainly changed the flow, but likely no one but me cared. Without commas, I feared that some of my sentences would become run-ons, but in this modern era that doesn’t matter. I feel old. But like the cliche says, you can teach an old dog new tricks, and I learned the modern way.

Red River Raging takes place in the not-too-distant past, in the new age of limited punctuation. So that’s how I wrote it, with a chunky, punchy rhythm. It works, I think, because of the first person approach that I talked about earlier. Finn, like any other thirteen-year-old, is likely to speak in no-comma mode.

My new editor just sent back some of her notes on the early copy. “I think there should be more commas,” she said. Hallelujah! I put them back in their rightful places. Then the proofreader got the copy. She took them out.

I’m confused. If the world takes away my periods, serious action may have to be taken.