Too many commas?

[Britva415]

I for real thought there was such a thing as like a Polandish manicure or something we were talking about.

And they say the Oxford (read: unnecessary) Capital is for enhancing clarity.

 

[TheLobster]

I think it's one of those Proper Adjectives. The capitalization gives it away to me.

Curious that there are Proper Adjectives, but not Proper Adverbs. We don’t have Polishly, Germanly, or Americanly.

“Seeing the brawl brewing at the table nearby, he very Frenchly made a hasty retreat.”

It, uh… I guess it could work? Maybe?

 

[Britva415]

Curious that there are Proper Adjectives, but not Proper Adverbs. We don’t have Polishly, Germanly, or Americanly.

Grammarly

 

[TheLobster]

Grammarly

Right, I suppose all the foo.ly startups realized you could do this back in the Roaring Ruby-on-Rails 2010s.

 

[Britva415]

Right, I suppose all the foo.ly startups realized you could do this back in the Roaring Ruby-on-Rails 2010s.

Except most of them weren't capitalized even though they were proper names!

Silicon Valley Hip

 

[Britva415]

Americanly

Yankily?

Not to be confused with small-Y "yankily."

 

[TheLobster]

Except most of them weren't capitalized even though they were proper names!

But they sure were venture-capitalized!

*runs*

 

[TheLobster]

Yankily?

As well as Pierogly, Bratwurstly, and Croissantly.

Yup, we're totally getting somewhere

 

[anthrodisiac]

I love reading the first page, last page, having no idea how we got to Pierogly from a discussion on commas. I could read the second page, but life's more fun with mystery.

 

[If_Only_]

Hello?

 

[If_Only_]

Reworded?

"I lifted my short dress, pulled my thong aside and freed my rigid cock. My freshly-manicured nails glittered as I pointed it at my naked sisters." (I'm assuming you already told the reader the speaker has two sisters earlier in the story. If this is the opening line, you might or might not have to drop that in.)

Pointed what?

 

[If_Only_]

If it's the opening line,

It wouldn't be, It would be well into the story after a lot of detail in how they got there.

 

[IWroteThis]

Back in the dark ages, I was taught the following with respect to lists and commas. A comma is NOT needed before the word “and.”

I wore a blouse and skirt. No comma needed. I believe most everyone would agree with this.

I wore a hat, a blouse and skirt. Only one comma needed to separate hat and blouse. The word “and” separates the blouse/skirt pair already, thus a comma is not needed before the “and.”

Now, I know that I will get slammed for this, but if you look at why the comma is there in the first place, the logic and instructions from my junior high school English teacher do make sense.

I will go to my bunker now.

A missing Oxford comma in a Maine labor law cost a dairy a $5 million settlement regarding overtime.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

It wouldn't be, It would be well into the story after a lot of detail in how they got there.

It occurs to me that pointing one penis at two people is interesting, unless it bifurcates. "Pointed it at Lucy, then at Marilyn"?

 

[anthrodisiac]

It wouldn't be, It would be well into the story after a lot of detail in how they got there.

I'm sure other people put in good suggestions, but I'm too lazy to read them right now.

It's not too many commas (a few people pointed out there should be one more, they're correct), but it is a high density of commas in a short sentence, which is probably why it looks weird to you.

Honestly, though, not a ton of readers care that much unless the sentence is particularly egregious, and this isn't. Given it's in the middle of the story, I wouldn't really worry about it.

But because my mom says I'm a solution-oriented monster:

'With my freshly manicured hand, I lifted my short dress, pulled my thong aside, freed my rigid cock and pointed it at my two naked sisters.'

With as much intact as possible:
I lifted my short dress and I pulled my thong aside with freshly manicured hands. Freeing my rigid cock, I pointed it at my two naked sisters.

If you wanted to keep is as intact as possible. But I'd take out the freshly manicured hands from this sequence altogether, too many details trying to do too much in too short a frame. It's busy, which is why you're having to use so many commas. I'd assume that the freshly manicured hands would've come up at some point prior to this, and thus wouldn't really need to bear repeating unless you have a very specific reason to do so.

Also a lot of extraneous modifiers you could strip out if you wanted to go with a better flow. Also changed a few words. Again, solution-oriented monster.

Less busy, pared down:
I lifted my dress and tugged my thong aside. My cock sprang free, aimed at my sisters.

The other modifiers: short dress, naked sister, freshly manicured hands, those should all have already been established by this point, and thus don't bear repeating.

 

[anthrodisiac]

It occurs to me that pointing one penis at two people is interesting, unless it bifurcates. "Pointed it at Lucy, then at Marilyn"?

Brother snake pointing his hemipenes at his naked sisters, obviously.

More likely: General direction, sisters huddled together.

But I'd definitely be more interested in hemipenes. That's just me, though. And we all know what sort of smut I like.*

*Snakes.

 

[InvisibleHarvey]

Brother snake pointing his hemipenes at his naked sisters, obviously.

More likely: General direction, sisters huddled together.

But I'd definitely be more interested in hemipenes. That's just me, though. And we all know what sort of smut I like.*

*Snakes.

"I bet that thing is like a python. I can't wait to see it."

Mildred was about to get what she asked for, but not quite in the way she had thought.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

This is why English is such a stupid language and we should all speak French.

"Our spelling may be stupid and have many, many letters that you don't pronounce, but at least we're consistent (mostly) in how we spell stupidly."

 

[Aviastroitel]

It occurs to me that pointing one penis at two people is interesting, unless it bifurcates. "Pointed it at Lucy, then at Marilyn"?

The two sisters could be really, really close. Entwined even ...

 

[Andreas_Kreuz]

Physics come before commas.
You can't point one cock at two sisters.

 

[RocketGrunt]

Physics come before commas.
You can't point one cock at two sisters.

You're just not using the stack properly.

Common programming mistake.

 

[caleb35]

I realize that this may be a minority opinion, and in fact might be utterly and completely wrong, but I say that YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY COMMAS -- I don't care what my old professor had to say on the topic [who actually did cite me once for using too many commas in a research paper, writing in the margins, "The comma is not always your friend" LOL ]

 

[TheLobster]

You're just not using the stack properly.

Common programming mistake.

I sense you might be advocating for abusing some compiler internals that will result in undefined behavior. I’d suggest one not be clever and simply make an array of sisters and point at its first element.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I sense you might be advocating for abusing some compiler internals that will result in undefined behavior. I’d suggest one not be clever and simply make an array of sisters and point at its first element.

Nah, you set up a message queue identifying both sisters as readers post your cock to the queue and both sisters can access it. It then falls to them to fight over who gets to read the message. Hopefully, brother is capable of posting more than just the one message.

 

[If_Only_]

Guy just wants to fuck his sisters while he's dressed in their clothes.

You lot are nuts.