Jane's Book of Grammar (And Other Things)

Other Comma Related Things

Other comma related things:

The large, wooden table stood in the empty, desolate room.

The bag contained apples, pears, oranges, and lemons.

Let's start off with these two. If nouns have multiple adjectives (for whoever stinks at English too, adjectives are words like 'large' or 'beautiful'), they are separated by commas. Beware of words like 'dark blue' though, because 'dark blue' is the name of the color, and won't have a comma between 'dark' and 'blue'. 

The second one is a list. This just happens to be a list of fruit. Lists can go on forever, but are generally kept short so that the readers won't run for the hills. In lists, every word is separated by a comma, including the last option. Otherwise, you get separate fruits and then oranges and lemons together.

"Do you want to die slowly, painfully, or just suffer forever?"

"I do not, and I repeat, I do not, like fish."

The top one is once more a list, although this is 'or' rather than 'and'. The same rules still apply as the list of 'and'.

The bottom one is one I don't have a name for. I call that commas for dramatic effect. That way, you can pause in the right moments and know just how much the speaker loathes fish.

"Well, let's see what you've got."

"What, you suddenly care?"

These ones are also a bit for dramatic effect. Still, they are needed, as the sentence sounds awkward without the short pause. If you add a word like that in, you need to add a comma so that it sounds good.

After a while, they left.

"I'm not fond of the idea. Regardless, I feel like we must do this."

The first one shows time. Other words that show time, such as 'tomorrow', 'last year', 'yesterday', 'last night', almost always have a comma after them. Without comma, it's generally at the end of the sentence (e.g. "They left after a while" instead of "After a while, they left").

The second one is a contradiction. 'I don't like it, but I'll do it.' Words like that also always have a comma after them. This also includes other words, such as 'on top of that' and 'yet'.

"Although I like you, I don't like you that much."

"I like you, although I don't like you that much."

This is a bit like the 'regardless' example, but here the words are mixed around. I can't truly explain this as this automatically happens in my mind, but you can see how it works. There's always a comma connecting the sentences together, and the 'although' is either at the start of the first sentence part or at the start of the second sentence part. It never has another position.

She wants to stay, but she has no choice.

He wants nothing but fame and power.

Almost always, 'but' has a comma in front of it. However, that only counts if the word 'but' is actually used as 'but'. In the second sentence, it's used as a replacement for 'except' (he wants nothing except fame and power). If it's a replacement for 'except', there's no comma. Any other time? Comma.

I prefer fish, by the way.

By the way, I prefer fish.

I thought I might add this. 'By the way' always has it's own sentence part, separated by a comma.

Have I missed anything? Anything else you want to know? Either Google it or let me know in the comments :)