The problem with the comma splice is simple, it is not emphatic enough to join two independent clauses like this. The comma splice sounds wrong because it marks off part of the sentence (The problem with the comma splice is simple) that should end with a stress. A comma can’t create stress, because it has so many possible roles that we have to read beyond it to work out what it is doing there. A comma says, simply, ‘read on’. It hurries us forward into what follows.
