comma splice or not: Is 'then' a coordinating conjunction?

A

angel heart1

Senior Member
Spanish
Hi,


Please, is this a comma splice?

Poe's short story


"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a story about a young man who kills an old man who cares for him, dismembers the corpse, then goes mad when he thinks he hears the old man's heart beating beneath the floor boards under his feet as he sits and discusses the old man's absence with the police.


Taken from: WRITING THE FIVE PARAGRAPH ESSAY by Harry Livermore Cook High School Adel, Georgia

Thanks.
 
    • Technically: Yes, there is a comma problem here. "Then" isn't a coordinating conjunction, so a proper sentence would have to have an "and" after "corpse, " and before "then":
    Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a story about a young man who kills an old man who cares for him, dismembers the corpse, and then goes mad when he thinks he hears the old man's heart beating beneath the floor boards under his feet as he sits and discusses the old man's absence with the police.
    Click to expand...
    That being said: It's not very serious. The "then" does actually do a lot of the work, and a speaker doesn't experience the sentence as stilted or wrong. Rather, it's kind of exciting and breathless, which could be appropriate for the sense of the sentence.
     
    No, that's not a comma splice. That's just a series of three clauses. You can break it down like this: It's about a young man who (1) kills an old man, (2) dismembers the old man's corpse, and (3) goes mad. So that's a perfectly legitimate use of commas.

    Crossposted with Lucas, but alas, we disagree, at least somewhat.
     
    Last edited:
    lucas-sp said:
    Technically: Yes, there is a comma problem here. "Then" isn't a coordinating conjunction...
    Click to expand...

    Is there an official list of coordinating conjunctions somewhere? I use 'then' this way all the time, and don't see why it should be considered incorrect.
     
    xqby said:
    Is there an official list of coordinating conjunctions somewhere?
    Click to expand...
    Um... people are pretty definite on this. FANBOYS, anyone?

    There are other coordinating conjunctions ("neither," "only," etc.) but I've never seen "then" described as one.
     
    lucas-sp said:
    Um... people are pretty definite on this. FANBOYS, anyone?

    There are other coordinating conjunctions ("neither," "only," etc.) but I've never seen "then" described as one.
    Click to expand...
    Could you explain FANBOYS, lucas? I vaguely remember seeing it on the forums, but I can't remember what it stands for....

    (I'd never heard of a comma splice before joining WRF :D:rolleyes:.)
     
    It's an initialism of "for and nor but or yet so", apparently. I don't know... I think mnemonics are useful for learners, but I don't see that they should be used to exclude things which seem natural yet aren't on the list. I actually started a thread a while ago about this very issue, because my Microsoft Word grammar check was upset that I had used "then" like how angel heart's quote uses it, and I didn't agree that it was a splice.
     
    I don't think this is a stricto sensu comma splice, because we aren't dealing with the archetypal "two or more independent clauses linked by a comma." Here we have a list (of verbs) linked only with commas. But the principle is apparently the same.

    FANBOYS is the traditional acronym for the coordinating conjunctions: for and nor but or yet so.

    The comma splice is unfairly denigrated, and is part of the "Strunk & Whitism" that still afflicts American style. Also the suppression of coordinating conjunctions ("asyndeton") is one of the oldest and most august rhetorical devices - it's even considered by Longinus to be one of the best two things to do when you're writing or speaking. I didn't want to say that this was a "wrong" usage, but it would be considered "wrong" by certain styles of proscriptive grammar.

    In other words, I said this is a technical comma error, but that it's idiotic to call it a technical comma error, because it doesn't give the full picture.
     
    xqby said:
    It's an initialism of "for and nor but or yet so", apparently. I don't know... I think mnemonics are useful for learners, but I don't see that they should be used to exclude things which seem natural yet aren't on the list. I actually started a thread a while ago about this very issue, because my Microsoft Word grammar check was upset that I had used "then" like how angel heart's quote uses it, and I didn't agree that it was a splice.
    Click to expand...
    Thanks, xqby. I remember now!

    It struck me when I last saw it that "for", in particular, is an extremely strange candidate for being a co-ordinating conjunction: I'd put it closer to "because" than to "and", "but" or "or".

    Like you, I have no difficulty with linking clauses with "then":).

    EDIT: Thanks to lucas too:thumbsup:. So the comma splice is a "Strunk & Whitism"....
     
    Last edited:
    Was this your thread, xqby: then as a conjunction?

    If so, I agree with the answers you were given. I wouldn't call then a co-ordinating conjunction, but I do think it can act as a conjunction:cool:.
     
    It is strange, isn't it? "Then" would technically be one of those adverbs that link phrases together without "technically" conjuncting them. Compare it to "however."

    You can also tell that "then" isn't fully independent/coordinating when you compare sentences like:

    We ate cheese, then ice cream. CAN BECOME We ate cheese, but then ice cream. OR We ate cheese, and then ice cream.
    We ate cheese and ice cream. CANNOT BECOME We ate cheese but and ice cream.
     
    It doesn't seem to me to be on a par with "however", lucas: I wouldn't join two clauses with "however".

    But I do think "then" can act as a conjunction as well as acting as an adverb.

    (So do you, I suspect...:))
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top