Another prescriptive grammar guide? Sheesh—who needs it? The internet has plenty of helpful resources on how to use commas, as is. Who dares dispute the tips of Grammar Girl, the digital grande dame of proper grammatical usage, who’s been around since I was a teen and YouTube had just been set up, yet uncolonized by corporations and content creators? Let’s not forget the perennial writing style guides, such as Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style; and, trailing in their wake and available on Amazon, their many ephemeral epigones. If it’s syntactical counsel you seek from a major newspaper publication, The Economist has released a writing guide codifying its house style. If you like being intimidated, pick up, with both hands and good lumbar support, the thousand-and-three-hundred-page-long tome that is Garner’s Modern English Usage; if Thomas Aquinas is looking for a beach read this summer, I’ll know what to recommend. Bryan A. Garner, a lawyer-turned-writing-specialist who, when he has time away from lexicography, makes his living teaching lawyers to produce clearer and more convincing (and, hopefully, less dread-inducing) prose, even comes with David Foster Wallace’s personal seal of approval. Far be it for me then to muscle my way into the overgrazed pastures of prescriptivist grammar, where sentences don’t even have the space to run on without bumping shoulders with a frowning grammarian! I would not so presume, not when magisterial ruminants who gleam with a radiance of untouchability, a radiance unseen since Apollo’s golden cattle roamed the earth, have already claimed their territory in the field. I myself am but a humble cow with a few modest, though well-chewed, cuds to offer on the subject of grammar.
But whoever said this post was going to be a prescriptive grammar guide, anyway? (I might have in the very first sentence of my opening paragraph.) This is, rather, a scheme, a shortcut to grammatical proficiency. Do not balk at the word. Not everyone who wishes to improve their writing has the time for a careful, thorough review of grammatical rules. That’s why a scheme is called for—to bridge the gap between one’s desire to sharpen their syntax and one’s realistic time budget. What this post is, is not dishonesty; it’s a practical distillation!
Even the choice of topic is eminently practical. Commas are everywhere in writing; you can’t get away from them, so you might as well place them where they belong. And okay, I know the compunctions you have about all this grammar-improvement business. You certainly don’t want to complicate the syntax of your sentences needlessly. Sentences that are plainly constructed get the job done just fine! It’s just that…we all wish we could do more with our sentences. Your thought has nuances that are unable to be slotted into the syntactical compartments of your sentence. So they get left behind, hoping to board the next sentence, but that one has limited space, too. But skillful comma placement can change all that! The nuances in your thought deserve to have first-class carriages on your prose.
Comma Placement As A Craft
Comma placement is a craft, not an art, not a science. It isn’t an art, if we take the visual or performance arts as yardsticks, because it has a clear utilitarian aspect. Logical comma placement makes communication less ambiguous and the sentences themselves more legible. There are aesthetic effects, too, to comma placement, but its utility stands apart distinctly from these effects. It isn’t a science because the rules of comma placement are not as immutable as the laws of physics nor the elements of chemistry, nor would abuses lead to outcomes quite as serious. A misplaced comma wouldn’t blow up a writing lab.
So a craft it is, and one much like sashimono, the Japanese craft of wood joinery, a craft that is able to construct robust and gorgeous furniture and architectural components, without the use of any external fasteners. No glue, mortar, screws, or nails; just incredibly intricate and precise mortises and tenons to maintain the integrity of the entire structure. In this craft, there is an intimate marriage of function and form, and this marriage, like the craft itself, is a very traditional one. Function and Form know their place in relation to one another. Function takes precedence; Function conditions Form. The beauty of the mortises and tenons in sashimoto is a necessary one. They’ve acquired this beautiful form in order to support the master carpenter’s intended construction, be it a Zen Buddhist temple or an everyday convenience, like a table. And so too does the beauty of the end product speak to function conditioning from. The surfaces of the finished construction take on a pristine beauty because they are unmarred by traces of fasteners, such as the heads of nails, and they are unmarred because the intricately designed pieces of woodwork are perfectly functional in and of themselves.
The craft of comma placement is founded on the same interrelating principle of function and form. Clear Communication conditions Precise Expression. With placing commas well, the writer seeks to get across without ambiguity what they mean to say. The goal is simple: not to be misunderstood. Miscommunication can incur a heavy penalty. Yet, in trying to achieve clear communication, the writer is doing something else at the same time, something aesthetically oriented. They are getting down the precise shades and contours of their thought. They are achieving precision in the way they express themselves and their constructed meanings of the world. Quiddity as beauty, to go with the definition in James Joyce’s A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man.
When comma placement adheres to the logic of functionality, it is best able to dignify prose with the beauty of form. The point of proper comma placement isn’t pedantry but virtuosity.
Syntax & the Visual Sentence.
A sentence should look the way it looks because of its syntactical features. The placement of commas not only makes the sentence more legible, it indicates the syntactical features marked off by the commas. You can break down a sentence thus into its comma sections, that is, the sections flanked by one or two commas. Or: unilateral and bilateral comma sections.
Thinking of sentences this way allows you to consider how Function (the syntactical features) conditions Form (the optics of a sentence), where comma placement is concerned.
The rest of this post will discuss the syntactical features, common or rarer, that are found within comma sections and how those functions change if the commas were removed. The primary purpose of a comma is to disambiguate one syntactical feature from another. Aesthetic considerations follow in the wake of this purpose.
(We will not be touching on comma conventions as to be found in large numbers, dates, or other such stand-alone matters.)
How to Do Things With Commas
The list below is meant to be comprehensive but nowhere near exhaustive. More than anything else, it is meant to give the reader an overall sense of the logic, where there’s logic, governing the use of commas. We must not pretend that all the rules of comma placement are gospel. There are cases where the absence of a comma would lead to semantic ambiguity; the rules governing those cases of comma placement are ironclad. The rest of the rules are not; they are helpful conventions to aid legibility, and many are helpful simply because the majority of people who write in English have decided to adopt them.
Common Usages of The Comma
Commas where you would pause when speaking. Don’t do it unless you’re writing fictional dialogue, transcribing a person’s spoken words, or establishing a tone of casual speech, as with sentence fragments. Something like this, you know?
Comma Splices. This is what causes run-on sentences. You already know that’s a bad thing. Comma splices happen when you use a comma instead of a period. With a comma splice, you are joining two independent clauses, using just a comma. This is ungrammatical. You would need a conjunction after that comma to join those two sentences.
Demonstration & Analysis
a) He went into the store, he picked out his favorite bag of chips. Here you have two independent clauses joined by a comma. It’s the same subject, he, but it is being mentioned twice, each time with its own verb, went and picked. That makes it two independent clauses, so you can’t join them with a comma. You can with a period or a semi-colon. The error is more egregious if it’s two different subjects: b) he went to the store, his girlfriend went with him. There is, however, a defensible exception, as in this famous phrase attributed to Julius Caesar: c) I came, I saw, I conquered. Do with this example what you may. What makes it an exception? Because each independent clause is short? Because each independent clause is closely connected to the next? You get to judge for yourself when this exception applies.
Coordinating Conjunctions. Your frequently used coordinating conjunctions are FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. What they coordinate, or connect, are independent clauses (though they can also be used for other purposes, such as with a series of nouns). Commas should be placed before coordinating conjunctions when they connect independent clauses.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) I had lunch, for I was hungry. b) I had lunch, and I was no longer hungry. c) I did not have lunch, nor did I have dinner. d) I had lunch, but I was still hungry. e) I had lunch, or I didn’t. I can’t remember. f) I had lunch, yet I was still hungry. g) I had a light lunch, so I was still hungry. For all of these constructions, the second subject of the sentence need not be the same as the first: h) I had lunch by myself, for you did not show up. And so on.
Lists of Parts of Speech. Parts of speech that are frequently put into lists are 1) nominals (nouns, pronouns, and proper nouns), 2) adjectives, and 3) verbs.
Demonstration & Analysis for Nominal Lists:
Why use the Oxford comma, also known as the serial comma, the comma which immediately precedes the and in a list? For the sake of extra clarity. Consider: a) I enjoy ABBA, Queen and The Beatles. b) I enjoy ABBA, Queen, and The Beatles. Both can be taken to mean the same thing: a list of bands I like. But the first one, which omits the Oxford comma, can also be taken to mean that I am addressing Queen and The Beatles to tell them that I enjoy ABBA. Queen and The Beatles can also be taken as an appositive for ABBA; that would mean ABBA may be aptly described or denoted as Queen and The Beatles. There is also cause for confusion if certain things come as a set: c) For this soup dish, you’ll need to add cabbage, tomatoes, carrots and salt and pepper. c) For this soup dish, you’ll need to add cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, and salt and pepper. In the first sentence, where there is no Oxford comma, it’s quite difficult to tell that salt and pepper are standard paired seasonings, based on sentence structure alone. Visually, it also seems like carrots and salt and pepper go together as one set.
Demonstration & Analysis for Adjective Lists:
a) Celeste saw a great white shark. b) Celeste saw a great, white shark. c) Celeste saw a great and white shark. Celeste is seeing two different types of sharks across these three sentences. In the first sentence, Celeste’s shark is carcharodon carcharias, the megastar of Jaws. In the second and third, the shark is both great and white, but we may not, from this description alone, confirm what species it is. For a list of two adjectives, parting them with a comma instead of an and is okay if it’s casual or literary writing. Not so much, if it’s academic writing, serious journalism, or professional communication.
A way to understand how adjectives un-parted by commas work is to run an agglutinating catechism that aims to define the nominal essentially. What sort of shark was it? It was a white shark. Okay, what sort of white shark, was it? It was a great one. Ah, okay, so it’s a great white shark you saw! If you put a comma or an and in between the two adjectives, you’re saying the two adjectives bear no logical relationship to each other. The shark happened to be white, and it happened to be great; we have no idea what type of shark it essentially is, though, besides what those descriptors suggest to us.
Neglecting comma placement between adjectives can lead to awkward misunderstandings. Consider what is meant if someone expressed this sentiment: d) He is a friendly music-loving man; as opposed to: e) He is a friendly, music-loving man. The first sentence implies there are indeed music-loving men who are not friendly. The second carries no such implication; it merely observes that said man is friendly and a music lover. The first can seem like a pointed comment where none might be intended.
Demonstration & Analysis for Verb Lists:
A list of verbs conveys a temporally intimate and/or logically linked series of actions. a) He went into the store, picked out a bag of chips, and left. Here, the Oxford comma helps to mark out clearly the presence of 3 verbs. If it’s only two verbs connected by an and, there’s no need for the comma: b) He went into the store and picked out a bag of chips. Should we replace the and with a comma in a list of two verbs, as so? c) He went into the store, picked out a bag of chips. The possible confusion here is that the comma seems to mark apposition between the two verbal phrases, meaning that went into the store is, in some sense, equivalent to picked out a bag of chips. Consider these appositive verbal phrases: d) Soren loved her down to the core of his being, gave her all his affection and time. The writer, placing the comma where it is as to suggest apposition, is illustrating how Soren loved her down to the core of his being: by giving her all his affection and time. Perhaps our nameless subject above automatically purchases a bag of chips whenever he walks into the store?
Commas at the Start but Not the End of the Sentence (Adverbial Phrases & Adverbial Clauses).
Relevant background knowledge: a sentence can be just one clause or multiple. A clause contains, at minimum, a subject and predicate. A predicate has to have at least a verb, which is often followed by a nominal (noun, pronoun, or proper noun).
This rule of comma placement applies to adverbial clauses and phrases. Phrases do not have predicates and, technically, contain more than one word. Any phrase or clause that modifies the verb in an adjacent clause–and usually the modified clause would be an independent one–is adverbial.
- Adverbial Phrases (note that a number of these “phrases” are just one word; the rule on comma placement still applies):
- 1) time: at night, for an hour, after you’re done, etc.
- 2) place: at home, on 42nd street, within these walls, etc.
- 3) manner: the manner in which the verb is performed, e.g. with great gusto, without delay, in a rush of excitement, etc.
- 4) purpose: the purpose which the verb serves, e.g. in order to…, so that…, such that…, etc.
- 5) infinitive (“to”-verb constructions): to be better, to gain his trust, to become a teacher, etc.
- 6) comparison; as well as…, even better than…, worse than…, etc. (These phrases wouldn’t usually appear at the start of a sentence, unless it’s something like: as well as my cousin, do I play the piano. vs. I play the piano as well as my cousin.)
- 7) commenting: for what it’s worth, all the same, regardless of what was just said (regardless, on its own, can also be an adverbial phrase: regardless, I don’t think you should have said what you did. vs. I don’t think you should have said what you did regardless.
- Adverbial Clauses:
- 1) conditional: Conditionals are “if” sentences: If you like, you can have a cookie. vs. You can have a cookie if you like. Do not forget that conditionals come in many tenses, and the rule on comma placement applies to all of them alike.
- 2) concessive: These are clauses connected by conjunctions such as though, although, however, etc. Concessive clauses, as a the name suggests, make a concession to a view opposing the view implied by or stated in the independent clause. Do you HAVE to omit the comma if the subordinate clause happens at the end of the independent clause? Concessive clauses are supposed exceptions whereby it is appropriate to place a comma even at the end. c) Elias had to wait for the bus to arrive although he hated waiting. d) Elias had to wait for the bus to arrive, although he hated waiting. If we take the exception as a hard rule, the first sentence is less than grammatical. Yet, there are other grammarians who would find the second one less than grammatical. Both sentences are fine. There’s no compelling reason to do it one way or the other since there’s no consistent application among those who have given the matter thought. (Or do I mean: There’s no compelling reason to do it one way or the other, since there’s no consistent application among those who have given the matter thought?) A rule of thumb is, if the concessive subordinate clause at the end of a sentence is tryingly long, wedge a comma in there for ease of visual processing.
- 3) other subordinate clauses: Concessive constructions and conditionals are both subordinate clauses. Subordinating conjunctions are what create a subordinate (or dependent) clause in relation to the independent clause. How can you tell you’ve got a subordinating conjunction on your hands? It should be able to turn an independent clause into an incomplete thought, i.e. a subordinate clause. “Elias waited for his bus” is a complete thought, an independent clause. “While Elias waited for his bus” is not a complete thought; it is a subordinate clause. Here’s a sampler of common subordinating conjunctions: because, as, since, unless, until, till, in order that, when, whenever, as long as, however, though, etc
A particular confusion that bears noticing is one particular to adverbial phrases containing prepositions, e.g. for, with, on, in, at, etc. Here, their status as adverbial phrase would imply the omission of a comma at the end of the clause, but this can lead to much ambiguity in particular scenarios.
Demonstration & Analysis for Prepositional Phrases:
a) I went to my brother without a care in the world. b) I went to my brother, without a care in the world. In the first case, I am going to that particular brother of mine, of all the brothers I have, who has not a care in the world. In the second case, I am going without a care in the world to my brother, however anxious or not he may be. In scenarios as these, using the comma is necessary even if it goes against the set the convention of omitting commas for end-loaded adverbial phrases. Similarly: c) I found her in high spirits. d) I found her, in high spirits. In the first case, she’s in high spirits; in the second, I am, and she’s lost somewhere, and perhaps I’m in high spirits for having found her. Prepositions naturally pair with nominals (nouns, pronouns, and proper nouns), and many adverbial phrases have prepositions that do not have a nominal partner. They will find one if you give them a chance, so be sure to keep the preposition apart from the nominal it yearns to be with.
Restrictive vs. Non-Restrictive Clauses. These are clauses linked by relative pronouns such as who, which, or that. Less frequently: where and when. Restrictive clauses serve a defining function. Non-restrictive clauses serve a commenting function. The former identifies; the latter embellishes or offers supporting details.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) My friend who is an engineer collects Lego sets. b) My friend, who is an engineer, collects Lego sets. In the first case, the writer wants the reader to know which friend it is they’re talking about. In the second, the writer assumes the reader already knows who the friend is and is merely providing an additional detail, that he is an engineer.
c) That Italian restaurant which is right around the corner has great spaghetti. d) That Italian restaurant, which is right around the corner, has great spaghetti. Same analysis as above. The first case identifies, or defines, the Italian restaurant being talked about. The second one assumes the reader already knows, presumably from prior mentioning.
e) The Italian restaurant that is right around the corner has great spaghetti. For uses of that, the predicate it connects can only be restrictive/defining.
f) They went to that Thai restaurant where you can get a great pla rad prik. g) They went to that Thai restaurant, where you can get a great pla rad prik. Same deal as the Italian restaurant: defining vs commenting. (If anyone knows where this Thai restaurant is, do let me know.)
h) They’ll plan to go to that Thai restaurant when they’ve got free time. i) They’ll plan to go to that Thai restaurant, when they’ve got free time. Here, comma placement at the end of the sentence does not quite disambiguate one possible meaning from the other: Are they doing the planning when they are free or going when they are free? Better to go with this construction if it’s planning: j) They’ll plan, when they’ve got free time, to go to that Thai restaurant. (Hopefully, they’ll ask me along to taste some of that pla rad prik.)
Artisanal Usages of the Comma
Absolute Constructions. These in English correspond to the ablative absolute case in Latin and the phrases that could be formed from the use of that case. It is a syntactical feature that describes the conditions under which the independent clause occurs. You’ll be using “ing” adjectives, namely present participles, to create absolute constructions.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) The weather being what it is, they decided to call it a day. The absolute construction is in the first comma section. It tells us, in this case, why the subject of the independent clause did what they did. You could add a with at the beginning to get a better sense of how this construction works. b) With the weather being what it is, they decided to call it a day. You can also do it in the perfective aspect. c) The weather having turned foul, they decided to call it a day.
And the absolute construction doesn’t always have to address a why; it can be a how. d) Jane looked at Mark, her eyes shining with tears. The absolute construction is in the second comma section; it tells us how she looked at him. You can play around with where you place the absolute construction: e) Jane, her eyes shining with tears, looked at Mark. You can consider shortening it if the meaning is clear enough: f) Jane, eyes shining with tears, looked at Mark. Not just the with, but the being or having been can be removed: g) Her anger being/having been roused, Jane deleted Mark from her contacts list and blocked his number.
You can also slot an absolute construction into a bilateral comma section: h) Jane, her heart set, decided she was giving up on love and devoting herself to her career.
Appositives. These come right after a nominal (noun, pronoun, or proper noun). They’re either restrictive or restrictive; they either offer a definition or a comment. (See “Restrictive Vs. Non-Restrictive Clauses” above). If they’re marked off by commas, they comment; if not, they define.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) My friend the engineer collects Lego sets. b) My friend, the engineer, collects Lego sets. In the first case, the writer wants the reader to know which friend it is they’re talking about; the appositive is restrictive. In the second, the writer assumes the reader already knows enough about the friend and is merely providing an additional detail, that he is an engineer; the appositive is non-restrictive.
You can add a lot of supporting details with non-restrictive appositives: c) World War II, the supposed “war to end all wars”, a war that wreaked destruction across three continents, finally came to an end in 1945. These details may even be highly particularized: d) John could not believe that Jack, his best friend of 18 years and the person who saved his dog from getting lost in the woods on three separate occasions, did not ask him to be his best man.
Adjectives & Adjectival Phrases. An adjective that precedes a nominal by itself does not need a comma. A succeeding adjective requires commas unless it’s a grammatical inversion. Adjectival phrases, preceding or succeeding, require commas. Present participles, or “ing” adjectives, are included in the discussion above.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) The woman, unhappy, decided to get a divorce. b) The woman unhappy decided to get a divorce. In the first case, you’re commenting on the woman’s state of mind: she’s unhappy. In the second, you’re defining the woman so the reader knows which woman you’re talking about. Which one? The unhappy woman! But you’re doing it in an inverted way, as though possessed by the spirit of John Milton.
Post-nominal, or succeeding, adjectives can be extended into a phrase: c) The woman, unhappy that her husband was neglecting doing the dishes, decided to get a divorce. Adjectival phrases are very common when the adjective is a present participle: d) The woman, trying her best to keep it together, confronted her husband about his lack of hygiene. You can move the adjectival phrase into the preceding position: e) Unhappy that her husband was neglecting doing the dishes, the woman decided to get a divorce. f) Trying her best to keep it together, the woman confronted her husband about his lack of hygiene.
You can also use adjectives in the manner of adverbs, by placing them after the nominal AND the verb: g) We have to act fast. The adjective fast technically modifies the subject We, not the verb act, but the meaning is understood as something like We have to act and be fast with the way we act. Sometimes a comma is needed for clarity: h) We finished the marathon, triumphant. i) We finished the marathon triumphant. Without the comma, the writer can be taken as saying, through Miltonic inversion, that the marathon is triumphant.
Perfect Participial Phrases. These are technically adjectival phrases, but their syntactical function is distinct enough from the other types in the category to warrant separate mentioning. A perfect participle indicates what the subject of a clause has already done before it begins enacting its predicate. These always need flanking commas.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) Having watched the particular episode of the show last week, Carter decided to switch channels. The perfect participial phrase is in the first comma section. The phrase can come after the nominal: b) Carter, having watched the particular episode of the show last week, decided to switch channels.
Adverbs. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Some adverbs, however, with the help of commas, only pretend to modify these parts of speech; in actuality, they convey the writer’s evaluation of events.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) Frederick luckily won the competition. b) Frederick, luckily, won the competition. In the first case, Frederick was helped by luck to win the competition. In the second case, the writer considers Frederick lucky to have won the competition; Frederick could have had extremely bad luck during the competition; it is just lucky, the writer considers, that he managed somehow to achieve the result of winning. The usage of the adverb in the second case is commentary by the writer. The adverb has nothing to do with events unfolding on the ground at the time; it is a post-hoc evaluative superimposition from the writer. This manner of using adverbs is ripe for irony: c) Frederick, sadly, won the competition. He was overjoyed to collect the prize money, but the sudden riches went to his head, and he racked up an impressive debt in the subsequent weeks from his uncontrolled spending.
Some adverbs are usually flanked by commas. Common examples are however and too. d) Drew, the second-prize winner was, however, much more prudent with the way he spent his winnings. e) He, too, liked nice things but knew better than to blow it all in a matter of weeks. As you can tell, both adverbs function as commentary—and that’s the only way they can function. (Remember, also, that too and however can modify adjectives and other adverbs, as with too good or however well; the placement of commas would help to show that you are using these adverbs to modify verbs instead.) Same goes for the adverb supposedly. For adverbs like naturally, apparently, honestly, seriously, etc., they work as commentary, but, without the comma, they modify the verb, on the ground. f) Roy naturally won the body-building contest. g) Roy, naturally, won the body-building contest. Only the first Roy did not, for a certainty, take ‘roids to win. Indeed, if we take the writer as being trenchantly ironic in the second sentence, the latter Roy won precisely because he was taking steroids on the sly.
Elliptical Constructions. Ellipsis, besides referring to “…”, refers to clauses that have words omitted because the meaning remains clear. An elliptical construction is syntactical shorthand. It denotes conventionally acceptable syntax while looking like butchered syntax.
Demonstration & Analysis:
a) This will cost us $800, if that. The full subordinate clause would be something like “if it’s even that amount”. b) Richard, though hardly the ambitious type, decided to try for a consultant position at McKinsey. The full subordinate clause would be “though he was hardly the ambitious type”. You can also think of this elliptical construction as an appositive (see above). c) 5 year-old Rebecca decided she would, unless told otherwise, stay the course of eating jam with her hands. The full construction would be “unless she was told to behave otherwise”. This elliptical construction can also be considered an appositive.
What Even Is a Misplaced Comma, Anyway?
Commas are here to help, not daunt us. Aristophanes (noted, among other things, for his portrayal of Socrates as a flagrant charlatanic sophist in The Clouds) invented the punctum, the ancestor of the period, to indicate pauses a person reading the text would find helpful to take. Later innovators of writing invented the rest of the punctuation marks we’re familiar with, similarly, to aid writers in clear and effective communication.
When writing, be aware of the tone and register you’re meant to be using; this determines how punctilious your comma placement ought to be. The question of what register and tone would be appropriate depends on the medium, format, and/or genre of your scribal undertaking. If it’s a casual text message, it would look awkward if every comma has its proper syntactical place. Text messages mimic the way we speak, for the most part. Plus, why would you spend that kind of effort on a text? If it’s an academic paper or an article of journalism, a much tighter discipline of comma placement is called for. Miscommunication would be quite unfortunate in those contexts. The rigor of comma placement positively correlates to the degree of white-collar professionalism expected for the writing task.
Though a golden cow I may not be in the field of prescriptive grammar, permit me to set forth 3 Golden Rules, summative of all that has been discussed, on comma placement.
- Set conventions about comma placement are tools to help with the two purposes listed below in this trialogue; where they do not or marginally help, use your own discretion on whether and where to place your commas for the sake of other considerations, like that of establishing tone.
- The primary purpose of comma placement is to disambiguate the intended meanings of your syntactical constructions from unintended ones.
- The secondary purpose of comma placement is to increase the legibility of your writing, especially when it comes to setting off distinct syntactical features from one another; this purpose should not take precedence over that of disambiguation.
So here I must leave you, my fellow comma-artisan, to make punctuation edits to the other things I write. I hope one day to come across a well-placed comma you have left behind, and, happily, may it be a beautiful, crystalline instrument of disambiguation and legibility.
Musings of an Educator, Writer, & Lifelong Learner 
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