Dread Comma Splice
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Transcript of Dread Comma Splice
The Dread Comma Splice
Your instructor writes c/s on your page, c/s C/S
C/S! C/S!!
Instructor says It's Easy
Instructor says “You can't do that. See, that's two sentences put together as if they were only one. Where that comma is, you must put a period, semi-colon, colon, or conjunction.”
Instructor actually cares about your success in getting your ideas across to readers. You actually care about putting Instructor's head in a bottle.
Don't Do ItBecause Instructor is right. Instructor is always
right.
And you can't hear Instructor telling you what to if his head is in a bottle. First you would see the underside of his lips pressed against the glass, then his eyes bug out, and then he would charge you, and we all know running with glass is dangerous. So is a run-on sentence. That's what he's been trying to say all along. They can get you into trouble. He only wants to save you from yourself.
Not Right, Not Right At All
A run-on sentence happens when you use a comma splice, which involves using a comma to link two complete sentences together. It is so wrong. Just so, so wrong.
Why Is C/S So Very Wrong?
Because it makes you sound insane.
And Thus
It makes the narrator or character saying the run-on sentence with a c/s sound insane. Is that what you want, seriously?
When the reader reads a lot of c/s sentences, the reader feels insane. When Instructor reads a lot of them year after year, Instructor feels really, really insane.
We Speak With Pauses
Can you imagine someone talking without pauses? Who does that? Think about it.
Punctuation Tells When To Pause
A comma tells us to barely pause, but not be very serious about it, just sort of wishy washy, like -- yeah, well, I'm sorta pausing, but you ain't gonna make me pause very long, bitch.
When You Get Serious About Pausing
Hit up your friend Semi-colon. Or your even stronger friend Colon, or your bigger, badder friend, Period. You might even need to call in the Conjunction crowd. But Comma is a wus. Forget Comma. Comma is just sitting there in between two complete sentences, grinning, waiting to get you in trouble with Instructor.
We Can Feel What Is Incomplete
While Amy skated at the rink for people over 10 feet tall
What.....? While Amy skated, what? What Happened? Something feels off. You can't just go up to someone and say that. They'll wait and stare at you and want to put your head in a can. That's not good, because cans eventually leak aluminum, and you might start to act weird once it turns your brain into metal.
We Don't Like Incomplete
Whenever I feed the bushes with my special fish sauce
We Like Complete
Whenever I feed the bushes with my special fish sauce, they start opening and closing their blossoms, saying Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh.
So, Tell Me, What Is Complete Here?
When Mary leaked
Whenever Julie broke her noggin
Or else
And that was all she wrote
Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.
So, you could add more to any of those fragments. Yes, Fragments. Incomplete sentences.
Just feel how they make your body react. You feel like you should have more. Like you've been cheated, if that's all you get. Like you should sue. Someone needs to give you what you deserve, and not leave you hanging like that. Right?
How Bout These?
I am sometimes a wombat.
You never answer the door when I knock with my butt.
Spring is a ridiculous idea.
Perhaps you should invite a lonely skyscraper for tea.
You Know The Difference. I Know You Do.
You can feel it in your body, right? Some sentences feel like they are done, and there is nothing missing, nothing left out, nothing lurking behind the corner ready to pounce. It's all there, laid out in the open for all to see. You feel safe. You would buy something from a complete sentence. You would hang out with it.
You Know You're Too Good For That
You would not hang out with an incomplete sentence, because you never would know what it would be up to next. You would always feel like it wasn't telling you the whole story. You would always wonder, but it would remain incommunicative. You would say: We need to talk. And it would look at you like, yeah, right. I don't do that, bitch. And it would look away, and you'd be supposed to act like that was OK.
Feel The Difference Between Complete and Incomplete
Sentences, With Your BodyAnd that's about all you really need to know to
avoid writing comma splices. Other than in rare circumstances, best avoided unless you know exactly what you're doing, just don't ever combine two complete sentences with a comma.
It's that easy.Cool.
If You See Two Complete Sentences
Standing around looking tough, but lonely, and you want to match-make, sure, you can hook them up. Just use a semi-colon, if the two sentences are a lot a alike, and seem like they would be good friends.
The house is the ugliest color of blue I have ever seen. The painter is a mongoose.
That's two sentences, and a semi-colon would treat them just fine.
If One Sentence Is Explaining
. . . or giving examples of the sentence before it, consider getting them together over a cup of hot colon.
I often don't fit into the crowd. My head is a spinning plate and it must always stay in motion.
Semi-Colons And Colons Bring Complete Sentences Together
The house is the ugliest color of blue I have ever seen; the painter is a mongoose.
I often don't fit into the crowd: my head is a spinning plate and it must always stay in motion.
Those are happy couples, not co-dependent, but independent, living their own lives, and so are complete sentences joined by conjunctions like so:
Conjunctions Make Good Go-Betweens
When you are trying to escape the dreaded c/s, and Semi-Colon and Colon are acting huffy and seem too stiff and formal, call in
And But If Or When
Even A Period Will Do
If you really want a serious pause. Periods don't play around. They really mean it when they say
STOP.
So, You Can Use
A semi-colon, colon, conjunction, or period to combine two complete sentences. You can even use a dash if you can't figure out what the hell else to use, in one of those really wonky sentences only you could write. You know how you are.
You Just Can't Use A
What. You know what.
A COMMA.
Or Instructor will put your head in a box. Instructor knows how to tie a really good knot. Try untying your head box without being able to see it. Better instead to learn how to avoid a c/s.
Now, Practice
What punctuation would you chose to combine these sentences?
You are going to be bigger than Instructor one day. You are smarter than Instructor, really.
You don't like it when people talk without breathing, ever ever ever breathing. That's what writing comma splices sounds like.
You Are Right
Many ways are correct. Like:
You are going to be bigger than Instructor one day; you are smarter than Instructor, really.
You don't like it when people talk without breathing, ever ever ever breathing: that's what writing comma splices sounds like.
This Is Wrong
A man is walking down the street talking to you, you don't want to talk to him because he never pauses in between his sentences.
What's wrong with that sentence? It's a damn c/s is what it is. Why? Because it's two complete sentences joined with a comma. Only someone really odd would talk like that, without pausing between sentences. Sure, I care about odd people too. I'm not a bad person. But, still. . . .
These Are Correct
Nancy wanted to marry Ted, but Ted didn't like her use of comma splices and cut her off.
Ted wanted to marry Nancy, so Ted taught Nancy how to write the way she spoke, intelligently, with poise.
Ted and Nancy married; they became nudists.
Ted and Nancy got arrested: they decided to wear clothing after that, but they didn't like it one bit.
Commas Belong
Commas are fine little creatures. We love the little buggers, those commas. But we don't love them when they get mischievous and get into places they don't belong, like in between two complete sentences. Then, we kill them. Totally obliterate them. We replace them with other objects of our love, semi-colons, colons, periods, and conjunctions. One big happy family.
C/S
Is just using a comma as a juncture between two complete sentences, making the reader get confused, feel insane, distrust you, think you are not educated, throw out everything else you wrote, and go find someone else to love. Is that what you want? I think not. I think not indeed.
Learn More
From Tantra Bensko, the maker of this
presentation, at
http://onlinewritingacademy.weebly.com