Another question about comma placement.

[NotWise]

I seem to use the construction of [independent clause] conjunction [prepositional phrase, indendent clause] fairly often, as in:

Vic pulled Sara through the door by her hand and, when it closed behind them, he twisted her arm to the middle of her back and used his grip to hold her body against him.

Should I omit the comma before the conjunction, as I did in the example, should I add it so there are commas at both ends of the conjunction, or should I add the comma before the conjunction and omit it after the conjunction?

 

[jaF0]

I would do:

'Vic pulled Sara through the door by her hand. When it closed behind them, he twisted her arm to the middle of her back and used his grip to hold her body against him.'

 

[oggbashan]

If you use Grammarly, it wants more commas than are necessary.

 

[KeithD]

You asked for punctuation of what you wrote, not for rewriting it to someone else's taste, so that's what I'll respond to. Publishing houses would use both commas. They both are the grammatically correct usage and publishing houses tend to want the roadmap as clear as possible for readers.

 

[jehoram]

You asked for punctuation of what you wrote, not for rewriting it to someone else's taste, so that's what I'll respond to. Publishing houses would use both commas. They both are the grammatically correct usage and publishing houses tend to want the roadmap as clear as possible for readers.

With all respect to KeithD, I would use jaf0's re-write, as it flows better than the other versions. Just because something is grammatically correct doesn't mean that it couldn't use improvement. But I'm just an amateur editor ... maybe a pro could shed more light here.

 

[KeithD]

With all respect to KeithD, I would use jaf0's re-write, as it flows better than the other versions. Just because something is grammatically correct doesn't mean that it couldn't use improvement. But I'm just an amateur editor ... maybe a pro could shed more light here.

Yes, it looks better to me too, but the OP asked for help with how the OP wants to write--his voice choices. I answered the question he asked. I'm not writing it; he is. I could have gone on to say, "You might consider breaking the sentence up to see if that suits you better," but JaFO took care of that. But she didn't really answer the question asked.

When giving writing advice to others, I try to think like an editor, not like a writer imposing my voice on the other writer.

And, by the way, I am a pro--both writer and editor. Got the advanced degrees and decades of experience to support that. I haven't done it by easy button or by personal opinion.

 

[NotWise]

Yes, it looks better to me too, but the OP asked for help with how the OP wants to write--his voice choices. I answered the question he asked. I'm not writing it; he is. I could have gone on to say, "You might consider breaking the sentence up to see if that suits you better," but JaFO took care of that. But she didn't really answer the question asked.

When giving writing advice to others, I try to think like an editor, not like a writer imposing my voice on the other writer.

And, by the way, I am a pro--both writer and editor. Got the advanced degrees and decades of experience to support that. I haven't done it by easy button or by personal opinion.

The sentence is written without a full stop after the first independent clause because, in context, I preferred the way the text flowed. Out of context, the full stop is fine.

Right or wrong, I'm resistant to placing commas before and after the conjunction. It puts too much emphasis on the conjunction -- almost like underlining it. Maybe whether rules require it could be argued either way.

 

[KeithD]

The sentence is written without a full stop after the first independent clause because, in context, I preferred the way the text flowed. Out of context, the full stop is fine.

Right or wrong, I'm resistant to placing commas before and after the conjunction. It puts too much emphasis on the conjunction -- almost like underlining it. Maybe whether rules require it could be argued either way.

You asked and I gave you the mainstream publisher's response. Whether there's a comma or not gives the reader warning on whether this is going to be a sentence with at least one following independent clause or not (unless the following independent clause is going to be very short).

You can, of course, punctuate it anyway you like, but you asked and I gave you the mainstream publisher practice--and the reasoning for it. I have no need to defend a standard I identified as the standard for the industry.

 

[NotWise]

You asked and I gave you the mainstream publisher's response. Whether there's a comma or not gives the reader warning on whether this is going to be a sentence with at least one following independent clause or not (unless the following independent clause is going to be very short).

You can, of course, punctuate it anyway you like, but you asked and I gave you the mainstream publisher practice--and the reasoning for it. I have no need to defend a standard I identified as the standard for the industry.

And thank you for your response. Now if I'm going to break the rule, at least I can do it defiantly instead of accidentally. If I were doing it for money, I'd do what the editor wanted. It isn't that important, but it comes up a lot in my writing.

I see ambiguity in the rules I've read. On one hand, a sentence with two independent clauses is written as "[independent clause], conjunction [independent clause]." There's no punctuation after the conjunction. On the other hand, a longer prepositional phrase within a sentence is usually offset with two commas.

I could say the prepositional phrase is in the middle of the sentence and should be offset with two commas, or the propositional phrase is the start of the second independent clause and the clause should be treated like any other trailing independent clause -- without a leading comma.

Can that be disambiguated?

 

[KeithD]

Can that be disambiguated?

Not really, because the Chicago Manual of Style gives ambiguous advice for when the prepositional clause doesn't need a comma in the instance you give. (I had misread which comma you were talking about--the one signaling an independent clause was coming or the one opening the introductory prepositional clause in the second independent clause). CMS says "short" introductory clauses don't need the comma. It doesn't say what "short" is. The last I knew publishers were considering three words in the prepositional clause as "short."

But, as Ogg posted, publishers fall on the side of being as clear as possible to readers in following the text, so they favor more rather than fewer commas.

If you had a preference you wanted to follow for Literotica posting, you probably would have saved everyone time and effort by just doing what you wanted and not asking.

 

[Athalia]

But I'm just an amateur editor ... maybe a pro could shed more light here.

As a professional editor, I would tell you what KeithD did. I would add that I would have suggested what JaFO did ... break it into two sentences to improve readability. I would then leave it to NotWise to choose whichever solution seemed better, since either one would meet publishing standards.

"Correct style" is only important when submitting work to publishing houses which have a preference for one style or another. In venues like Lit, it doesn't matter to me as a reader, as long as it's readable and doesn't make my attention stumble.

 

[NotWise]

If you had a preference you wanted to follow for Literotica posting, you probably would have saved everyone time and effort by just doing what you wanted and not asking.

I asked the question because my usage has been inconsistent. Your opinions have been helpful. Thank you.

 

[SimonDoom]

Definitely insert a comma before "and." The example you've given is a fairly standard example of a long sentence comprising two independent clauses joined by a conjunction, and standard usage would require inserting a comma before the conjunction. I would insert a comma after "and" as well because of the dependent clause starting with "when."

I wholeheartedly endorse JaFo's revision suggestions, but if you want to keep the longer compound sentence you should use the comma.

 

[NotWise]

Definitely insert a comma before "and." The example you've given is a fairly standard example of a long sentence comprising two independent clauses joined by a conjunction, and standard usage would require inserting a comma before the conjunction. I would insert a comma after "and" as well because of the dependent clause starting with "when."

I've given up on the idea of omitting the comma before "and." Ya'll have me convinced on that front.

The comma after "and" is what I wonder about. What follows the "and" it a prepositional phrase starting an independent clause. It isn't a dependent clause.

I wholeheartedly endorse JaFo's revision suggestions, but if you want to keep the longer compound sentence you should use the comma.

Out of context, jaF0's alternatives works very well. In context, the preceding sentences are fairly short, and using a full stop gives me a series of short sentences that would be choppy. I've used a series of short sentences before to convey immediate action, but that isn't the case here.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've given up on the idea of omitting the comma before "and." Ya'll have me convinced on that front.

The comma after "and" is what I wonder about. What follows the "and" it a prepositional phrase starting an independent clause. It isn't a dependent clause.

.

That's incorrect. "When" is not a preposition. It can serve several functions, such as an adverb, conjunction, or relative pronoun, but it's not a preposition.

In this case it's a conjunction that begins the dependent or subordinate clause "when it closed behind them." It's not an independent clause because it cannot stand alone as a sentence. It's a dependent or subordinate clause.

Some further discussion: https://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/list-of-conjunctions.html

Or this: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dependent--clause

 

[NotWise]

That's incorrect. "When" is not a preposition. It can serve several functions, such as an adverb, conjunction, or relative pronoun, but it's not a preposition.

"When it closed behind them," is a prepositional phrase because it places the events in time. Check your reference. The article you linked is about conjunctions.

This discussion lets me clarify my thought.

I think this is correct:

[independent clause], coordinating conjunction [independent clause]

and this is incorrect:

[independent clause], coordinating conjunction, [independent clause].

Is there some rule that requires a comma after the coordinating conjunction if the second independent clause starts with a prepositional phrase?

 

[SimonDoom]

"When it closed behind them," is a prepositional phrase because it places the events in time. Check your reference. The article you linked is about conjunctions.

This discussion lets me clarify my thought.

I think this is correct:

[independent clause], coordinating conjunction [independent clause]

and this is incorrect:

[independent clause], coordinating conjunction, [independent clause].

Is there some rule that requires a comma after the coordinating conjunction if the second independent clause starts with a prepositional phrase?

You are incorrect. "When it closed behind them" is not a prepositional phrase. It's a subordinate or dependent clause. I've checked multiple references and I'm correct about this.

An example of a prepositional phrase is "to the middle of her back" in your sentence. "To" is the preposition and "the middle of her back" is the object of the preposition.

Other examples of prepositional phrases are "in the middle", "from New England", "of great worth."

"When it closed behind them" is not a prepositional phrase. It consists of a subject-verb clause (it closed behind them) preceded by the word "when", which in this case functions as a subordinating conjunction (in contrast to a coordinating conjunction like "and" or "but"). Other examples of subordinating conjunctions include words like "after", "before", "while", etc.

When you put the word "when" in front of a subject-verb clause like this it becomes a dependent or subordinate clause, because it can no longer stand as a sentence.

The structure of your sentence is this:

[independent clause], [coordinating conjunction], [[[subordinating conjunction] subordinate clause], [independent clause [subject + compound predicate]].

 

[SimonDoom]

and this is incorrect:

[independent clause], coordinating conjunction, [independent clause].

Is there some rule that requires a comma after the coordinating conjunction if the second independent clause starts with a prepositional phrase?

Putting aside the subordinating conjunction/preposition issue, this is a good question. According to Strunk and White, the answer is no in the case of a subordinate clause, and I think the answer would be the same for a prepositional phrase.

Preposition example: I went to the store, and after giving the matter some thought, I bought a piece of candy. "After" in this example is a preposition.

Subordinating conjunction example: I went to the store, and after I gave the matter some thought, I bought a piece of candy. "After" in this example is a subordinating conjunction.

I don't know how publishing houses would do it, but this is the way Strunk and White would do it. (Elementary Rule No. 4, 3d edition). They would NOT insert a comma after "and." I don't know if the Chicago Manual has commentary on this. That would be a better source for American fiction style.

 

[KeithD]

*sigh* Strunk and White is for high school themes, not commercial fiction. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had to point that out.

That said, I think it would be fine not to put a comma between "and" and "when" in the example given. I would put it there in doing an edit for a mainstream publisher, but this is Literotica.

 

[SimonDoom]

*sigh* Strunk and White is for high school themes, not commercial fiction. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had to point that out.

I'm aware of that, but I couldn't find any authority for putting the comma after the coordinating conjunction in this case, although my initial instinct was that it should be done that way. It's a good common sensical authority. E.B. White, after all, was a successful and extremely capable fiction writer, so his word counts for something. I don't have access to Chicago at the moment because my previous subscription ran out. I can't find any authority for putting the comma after "and" in Notwise's example.

 

[KeithD]

I'm aware of that, but I couldn't find any authority for putting the comma after the coordinating conjunction in this case, although my initial instinct was that it should be done that way. It's a good common sensical authority. E.B. White, after all, was a successful and extremely capable fiction writer, so his word counts for something. I don't have access to Chicago at the moment because my previous subscription ran out. I can't find any authority for putting the comma after "and" in Notwise's example.

I've added to my post that I think it's fine not to have the comma there for Literotica. It's just Literotica. I had been misconstruing that the key question was about the comma in front of "and."

 

[NotWise]

I love grammar wars. There's no fatalities.

But, right there was another construction I wonder about. "There's no fatalities" seems right to me -- maybe it's a dialect thing. But "there's" is a conjunction for "there is," or "there was," but "there is no fatalities" and "there was no fatalities" are both wrong.

 

[KeithD]

There're no fatalities.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yep. Subject-verb agreement. "Are" is correct because "fatalities" is plural.

There are no fatalities.

There're no fatalities.

I agree the nice thing about grammar wars is no blood is drawn. Plus, they can provoke lively discussions about some of the more abstruse points about writing. For some of us, that's fun.

 

[NotWise]

Yep. Subject-verb agreement. "Are" is correct because "fatalities" is plural.

I agree, but in dialogue I find myself using "there's" at times because it's comes off the tongue more easily than "there're" or "there are."

It could also be part of my western dialect -- that way I can blame my parents and my neighbors.