A comma mistake
I’m a big fan of commas. These little guys have so much to offer in terms of injecting (often) much-needed clarity into writing. But they are also often overused or, to my dismay, used in the wrong places.
TL;DR
An error that I see all the time is the misuse of commas with appositives.
An appositive (or identifier) is a noun or pronoun that provides more information about another noun or pronoun. These little grammatical gremlins are preceded by commas – unless they’re restrictive. In other words, an appositive that provides unnecessary (or interesting) information follows a comma. In every other case, the comma is left out.
When in doubt, leave it out
At school, most of us are taught that a name or proper noun should always be preceded by a comma. This, however, is incorrect. All this construction serves to do is create an unnecessary pause between the appositive and the noun. Unless the name is the only thing that can be described by the appositive, leave the comma out.
For example:
“I made many mud pies with my childhood friend, Sandy.”
I had a childhood friend named Sandy, but she was not the only one who could be described by the phrase “my childhood friend”. Using the comma here would imply that Sandy was my only childhood friend. However, seeing as I was such a social butterfly, including the commas creates the wrong impression.
The correct construction, using the name and appositive, would be:
“I made many mud pies with my childhood friend Sandy.”
Two’s company
When it comes to appositives in the middle of sentences, it’s important to remember that the commas always work in pairs. So, where the appositive is applicable only to the noun or pronoun, you will use two commas to separate it from the rest of the sentence.
For example:
“Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, loves gadgets.”
This sentence would make sense without “Tim Cook”, so we put this additional information or non-restrictive phrase between commas.
TL;DR
- If a noun, pronoun or phrase is essential to the sentence and will change the meaning of that sentence if it’s removed, don’t put a comma in front of it.
- If the appositive is non-essential, it needs to have commas on either side of it.
Featured image courtesy of Aaron Burden on Unsplash
