comma splice or clause coordination: Get off the bus, walk along...

[richardliu]

Hi to all friends on this forum,

I found these sentences in my material. I am curious whether they are in accordance with native speakers' language habits.
1. the sun shone, there was no wind and there were no clouds in the sky.
2. Get off the bus at the next station, walk along the road for several minutes and you can find a museum.

As you can see, comma was used to set off two independent sentences here. Is this usage correct?
Many thanks in advance!

Richard Liu

 

[Parla]

The sentences are understandable, but I would have punctuated them differently.

The first one (which should have begun with a capital letter) lists three weather conditions, so I would have used an additional comma. I would not have broken this into separate sentences.
The sun shone, there was no wind, and there were no clouds in the sky.

The second could well be two separate sentences, and I'd have used a semicolon (a "stronger" separation than a comma) to set off the first part. I would also have used "will" instead of "can".
Get off the bus at the next station; walk along the road for several minutes and you will find a museum.

 

[richardliu]

Thanks for your reply, Parla. It is really interesting to see sentences seperated by commas.

 

[cyberpedant]

While I can't say whether comma separation is still considered wrong, I would have used a semicolon, as Parla suggests.

 

[natkretep]

Richard, do you know what Julius Caesar was supposed to have said? The Latin (Veni, vidi, vici) is rendered in English as 'I came, I saw, I conquered', so you have indeed three 'mini sentences' as you said, separated by commas. This works because the sentences (clauses) are so short, and they employ parallel structures.

Your sentences are a little different, and I would go along with Parla's suggestions.

 

[kra2120]

I learned that usage from English teacher.


when you link two of sentences, you have to use 'and', 'or', 'for', 'so', or 'yet'...

But, linking three, you can use follows.

A and B and C

A, B and C <-

A, B, and C

A, B, C ->but, other than three of sentences, you can't use only comma like this.

 

[cyberpedant]

Your teacher must have meant "clauses" rather than "sentences."

 

[MuttQuad]

The commas don't work where you show them. They should be replaced by semicolons, and an additional semicolon goes between "minutes" and "and" in sentence two.

 

[GreenWhiteBlue]

but, other than three of sentences, you can't use only comma like this.

If you are trying to say that you cannot use a comma in four or more clauses, that is not correct; you certainly may have four or more clauses in the same sentence punctuated with commas:
Every night Tim cooks dinner, John sets the table, Amy serves the food, Pat pours the wine, and Sally washes the dishes afterward.

 

[kra2120]

If you are trying to say that you cannot use a comma in four or more clauses, that is not correct; you certainly may have four or more clauses in the same sentence punctuated with commas:
Every night Tim cooks dinner, John sets the table, Amy serves the food, Pat pours the wine, and Sally washes the dishes afterward.

Sorry, I made you misunderstand, since I couldn't convey my opinion well....

I just meant to say that A, B, C, D or A, B or A, B, C, D, E, ... is incorrect apart from A, B, C, when linking "the sentence phrase" which have equal grammatical power ^^;;

I'm Sorry.....

 

[MuttQuad]

If you are trying to say that you cannot use a comma in four or more clauses, that is not correct; you certainly may have four or more clauses in the same sentence punctuated with commas:
Every night Tim cooks dinner, John sets the table, Amy serves the food, Pat pours the wine, and Sally washes the dishes afterward.

The way I was taught, that would be completely incorrect. They are not just clauses but could stand alone as complete sentences, each having a subject and predicate. I would definitely separate them with semicolons. Commas are more useful for separating parts of a compound sentence or items in a series.

 

[Einstein]

1. the sun shone, there was no wind and there were no clouds in the sky.
I find this correct. The comma after "shone" substitutes "and". There is no comma after "wind" because "and" is still there. That's what I learnt at school.

Every night Tim cooks dinner, John sets the table, Amy serves the food, Pat pours the wine, and Sally washes the dishes afterward.
I see nothing wrong with this except for the comma after "wine", same reason as above. If you can say Every night Tim cooks the dinner and John sets the table, why is it incorrect to continue the list? The only other objection might be that while "every night" in introducing the list refers to all the actions, "afterward" refers only to the last, so that "Sally washes the dishes afterward" is not equivalent to the other items in the list. So we could correct it as follows:
Every night Tim cooks dinner, John sets the table, Amy serves the food and Pat pours the wine; Sally washes the dishes afterward.
But that's quite nit-picking.

2. Get off the bus at the next station, walk along the road for several minutes and you can find a museum.
I agree that this is not correct, because the first two verbs are imperatives while the third is an indicative and can't form part of a list. The solution is to substitute the comma with a semi-colon, as Parla suggests.

 

[MuttQuad]

>>
1. the sun shone, there was no wind and there were no clouds in the sky.
I find this correct. The comma after "shone" substitutes "and". There is no comma after "wind" because "and" is still there. That's what I learnt at school.
< <

I guess they teach it differently in the UK than at the US school I attended.

 

[Einstein]

>>
1. the sun shone, there was no wind and there were no clouds in the sky.
I find this correct. The comma after "shone" substitutes "and". There is no comma after "wind" because "and" is still there. That's what I learnt at school.
< <
I guess they teach it differently in the UK than at the US school I attended.

So you think "red, yellow, blue and green" needs a comma after "blue"? Or are you disagreeing on another point?

 

[natkretep]

For those interested in the issue of whether there should be a comma before and, have a look at Wikipedia on the series comma (or Oxford comma or Harvard comma):

In American English, the serial comma is standard usage in non-journalistic writing that follows the Chicago Manual of Style. Journalists, however, usually follow the AP Stylebook, which advises against it. It is used less often in British English, where it is standard usage to leave it out, with some notable exceptions such as Fowler's Modern English Usage.

 

[GreenWhiteBlue]

The way I was taught, that would be completely incorrect. They are not just clauses but could stand alone as complete sentences, each having a subject and predicate. I would definitely separate them with semicolons. Commas are more useful for separating parts of a compound sentence or items in a series.

In that case, you were taught incorrectly. Semicolons are used without conjunctions to join in one sentence independent clauses that have a connected, related idea: Jane is tall, thin, and beautiful; she would make an excellent fashion model. However, if independent clauses do not have a common idea, you should not use a semicolon. You may instead leave them as separate sentences, or else use commas and conjunctions:
Jane is tall, thin, and beautiful. Her mother was born in Birmingham.
New York is a large city, Albany is a mid-sized city, and Lake Placid is a small town.

 

[MuttQuad]

>>In that case, you were taught incorrectly.<<

Should I apply to Horace Mann and Princeton for a tuition refund?

 

[GreenWhiteBlue]

Should I apply to Horace Mann and Princeton for a tuition refund?

You ask that of a Harvard man?

 

[Einstein]

Looking at netkretep's link I read:

Or consider
They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid, and a cook.This is ambiguous because it is unclear whether "a maid" is an appositive describing Betty, or the second in a list of three people. On the other hand, removing the final comma:
They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid and a cook.leaves the possibility that Betty is both a maid and a cook (with "a maid and a cook" read as a unit, in apposition to Betty).

This intrigues me. According to what I learnt/learned, it's bad style to say "red and green and blue and yellow", so we remove all the ands except the last one, substituting the removed ands with a comma; there would be no need to add a comma before that final "and". After all, if our list had only two items I don't think anyone would want to put a comma before "and"; we'd write "red and yellow".
By this logic it's pefectly clear that in the first sentence above we're talking about two people: Betty (a maid) and a cook. In the second sentence it's clear that we're talking about three people.
However, it becomes less clear if there isn't unanimity about this.

Of course, we also have the opposite problem because some people hypercorrect and think there should never be a comma before "and". By this reasoning there could be no distinction between the two Oregon sentences above.

 

[MuttQuad]

You ask that of a Harvard man?

Don't be ashamed; some of my best friends went to Harvard.

I wrote based on my memory and the styling I have used for decades as a writer, editor, and typographer without being "corrected" by anyone. The challenge here, however, drove me to take a peek in the Chicago Manual (15th ed.). Apparently, Chicago does allow the use of commas to separate a series on independent clauses when there is no conjunction. But Chicago also suggests semicolons in such cases and mandates them in others, especially when any of the clauses contains internal punctuation (see Sections 6.57, 6.58, 6.59).