Reviving a thread about commas...

"Commas should go after conjunctive adverbs (therefore, consequently), but not after coordinating conjunctions (but, yet, and, or)."

This was posted by a workshopper for one of my limericks on OEDILF. Here is how I had posted it:

The knights had such cumbersome armor
To shield them from harm and the harmer.
The metal was hot,
So they sweated a lot.
But, it made for a great-looking charmer!

Two workshoppers agreed to the above statement and provided me 2 grammar sites for reference. To please them, I changed it to a comma after "lot" and then deleted the comma after "but."

However, is the rule that black and white? The reason I didn't want to do that was because it made for such a complex sentence. I wanted to make it 2 sentences.

Certainly a comma after "But" in line 5 is wrong.

Starting a sentence with "but" is often looked upon by pedants as wrong, but is perfectly acceptable and happens all the time in speech.

Surely you can still keep it as two sentences, Kalleh? Just delete the L5 comma and leave it at that. As arnie said, opening a sentence with 'But' is fine - particularly in something humourous like a limerick where you need to be punchy!

The comma adds a pause. This will affect the meter. If you wanted a pause in that particular spot, leave it in. If you didn't, take it out.

Tinman

So, all of you agree that the comma is wrong. I am surprised because many people write it wrong then. I have seen sentences like, "But, then maybe I won't go." Or "And, I have four cats as well."

I will have to look it up myself.

Tinman, how would the pause affect the meter? The stresses would still be the same, right? Or, is there more to "meter" than I realize?

Or, is there more to "meter" than I realize?

Probably. (In my experience, everything is more complicated than I, at first, take it to be.) Pauses are important in some poetry. The caesura is a pause that breaks a line into two hemistichs. More on casura with examples in Latin and English. (You can also click through on meter for a good entry.)

I see nothing wrong with the comma after the but in line 5, but it does change the reading of the line for me. One thing I always notice in older books (say 18th century and before) is how weird the punctuation is by modern standards.

As Tinman says, a comma indicates a pause. I'll use a comma (or maybe a dash or ellipsis) after 'but' or 'and' if I want there to be a longer pause than there would naturally be between two consecutive words, but only then.

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I have seen sentences like, "But, then maybe I won't go." Or "And, I have four cats as well."

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Unless the writer wished there to be a pause of the type I mentioned above, I would consider such use of the comma to be wrong. I'm not saying I'm right in that consideration (I honestly don't know - and apologies to whoever wrote them!) - can anyone enlighten me? My point is that I equate commas with pauses, so if I don't want a pause in my writing, I don't use one. Commas have some specific rules one should stick to, but much of the time it's subjective - even the same person might use commas in different ways at different times depending on how they want the sentence to be read - I know I do! Someone else might not have used a comma after the word 'writing' above, but I wanted the pause to be felt that time, so I put one in.

With regards to meter, I find that a comma has an effect on meter in the same way that a rest does in music, so I read the limerick in two different ways with and without the comma - and without the comma feels better.

so I read the limerick in two different ways with and without the comma - and without the comma feels better.

Really?! Interesting. I read it the same either way, though I do pause also with a comma. Those were just sentences I made up, Cat. In each I thought there should be a pause. In the first, I hear him contemplating..."But, (elipsis might be better) (thinking, thinking, thinking) maybe I won't go." I was thinking the same with the second sentence. It could be written like this, though: "I had planned to attend the movie, but then maybe I won't go."

I was just saying that a comma in those situations after "but" could be appropriate. The person who corrected me seemed to indicate that it was never appropriate. However, I suspect I use those types of commas too much. You have encouraged me to change!

Ah, the poor little comma, such a hard worker and so misunderstood.

The trouble is that the comma serves two incompatible sets of functions.

First there are its various grammatical uses - lists, before direct speech, separating some types of clause, sometimes for missing words.

Then there's the "oh my I'll have to pause for breath now" usage which thankfully is much less common nowadays.
Playwrights and authors did this to give a breathing indication to actors and to show how they intended the line to be spoken or recited.

When you put in every possible comma of both sorts the result can be overwhelming.

Lynne Truss quotes from Nicholas Nickelby.

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As they lay closely packed together, covered, for warmth's sake, with their patched and ragged clothes, little could be distinguished but the sharp outline of pale faces, over which sombre light shed the same dull, heavy colour,and here and there a gaunt arm thrust forth, its thinness hidden by no covering, but fully exposed to view, in all its shrunken ugliness."

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Her book may be flawed - even the chapter on commas is not uncontentious - but she does have a good history of this little tadpole and does give a fair account of why it seems so simple and yet so problematic.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
Then there's the "oh my I'll have to pause for breath now" usage which thankfully is much less common nowadays.

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Why thankfully Bob? Have I misunderstood you? Personally I find sentences with too few commas just as difficult to comprehend as those with too many without a couple of read-throughs even though I appreciate that one person's 'slow down comma ahead' point is another person's 'straight on no waiting'.

Whether you're reading something out loud or in your head, you still need to be aware of the rhythm, and if this is is disrupted, the piece can sound odd. Continuing my previous analogy, if you play a piece of music that's had the rests taken out, the piece doesn't work. Of course, writing is less structured than music, but understanding a work's rhythm as the author intended it is vital to its optimum appreciation, in my opinion, and punctuation is a necessary and very helpful pointer.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
So, all of you agree that the comma is wrong. I am surprised because many people write it wrong then. I have seen sentences like, "But, then maybe I won't go." Or "And, I have four cats as well."

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I guess I'm not included in "all." In your first example the comma would indicate a pause after "But." I think it would be more effective after "then," but then, I didn't write it and I don't know what the writer had in mind. In the second quote, the comma after "And" again indicates a pause. You can write the sentence without the comma, but throwing in the pause (comma) emphasizes the the last part of the sentence. Very effective.

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Tinman, how would the pause affect the meter? The stresses would still be the same, right? Or, is there more to "meter" than I realize?

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The pause would take the place of a beat.

Tinman

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
In the first, I hear him contemplating..."But, (elipsis might be better) (thinking, thinking, thinking) maybe I won't go."

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You just misquoted yourself! Your original sentence was "But, then maybe I won't go." In that sentence I think the comma would be better after "then," but in your revised sentence it makes perfect sense after "But." I read it exzactly as you explained it. Without the comma I would not have seen the hesitancy. I think an ellipsis would indicate a longer pause. A Wikipedia article on ellipsis includes this quote:

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When quoting, an ellipsis is used enclosed in brackets ([ ]) or, more often, slashes (//) if one wishes to omit a part of an original quotation. For example, if the original is the following: “I am reluctant, for no one has convinced me otherwise, to make this decision,” one may quote it by leaving out a part thus: “I am reluctant /.../ to make this decision.”

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Now, I didn't know that. I often wondered when I read a quote containing an ellipsis whether that indicated word omissions that were in the original quote or were added in a subsequent quote. (Does that sentence make sense?)

The Chicago Manual of Styleshows how to use an ellipsis to indicate a pause and to emphasize the following word.

Tinman

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Originally posted by Cat:

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Originally posted by BobHale:
Then there's the "oh my I'll have to pause for breath now" usage which thankfully is much less common nowadays.

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Why thankfully Bob?

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Because the sentence I quoted contained ten commas. Victorian authors scattered them like confetti around their writing. The only place you see such a surfeit of commas these days in in legal documents of this type.

"We, the undesigned, being members, in good standing, of the said body, do, herwith, with due consideration, give our consent, our abilty thertofore notwithstanding, for the proposed, and notified, action."

I just made that up of course but by the standards applied in Victorian writing every single one of those commas is correctly placed. I don't see for a moment how they are an aid to clarity.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
Because the sentence I quoted contained ten commas. Victorian authors scattered them like confetti around their writing.

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But I wasn't talking about Victorian writing, and I thought you weren't specifically talking about it either (I thought this because that style - and use of the comma - is so far removed from what we recognise today as good writing). It appears that I did misunderstand you.

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I don't see for a moment how they are an aid to clarity.

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I completely agree about such unnecessary overuse of commas - my point, however, was that underuse can be just as confusing.