As sentences get shorter and shorter in today’s world of mass communications, commas are disappearing. Where we used to use them, they often seem to have disappeared. But commas are still used consistently in many instances to denote change of tempo, to identify clauses and what belongs to what.
The best source to observe this trend is journalistic style. The following is an article from the BBC, but with all the commas removed.
Where would you put them? Where are they optional?
We first meet Oliver and his dad Ricky in December 2024 at the clinical research facility at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. It’s a big day.
Since being diagnosed with Hunter syndrome in April Oliver’s life – like that of his elder brother Skyler who also has the condition – has been dominated by hospital visits.
Skyler had shown some late development in speech and coordination but this had initially been put down to being born during Covid.
Ricky tells me his sons’ diagnosis came as a complete shock.
“When you find out about Hunter syndrome the first thing the doctor tells you is ‘Don’t go on the internet and look it up because you’ll find the worst cases and you’ll be very very disheartened’.”
“But like anybody you look it up and you’re like ‘Oh my goodness is this what’s going to happen to both my sons?’”
Children are born apparently healthy but around the age of two they start to show symptoms of the disease.
These vary and can include changes to physical features, stiffness of the limbs and short stature. It can cause damage throughout the body including to the heart liver bones and joints and in the most serious cases can lead to severe mental impairment and progressive neurological decline.
Answer key
I have highlighted the words that introduce a clause where you usually need a comma. The explanations are in brackets and italics.
We first meet Oliver and his dad Ricky in December 2024 at the clinical research facility at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. It’s a big day.
Since being diagnosed with Hunter syndrome in April, Oliver’s life – like that of his elder brother, Skyler, who also has the condition – has been dominated by hospital visits. (The first comma is used because we started with “since”. Then the next comma is to denote the name Skyler and then the comma before the relative clause starting with “who”, which adds information, thus requiring a comma.)
Skyler had shown some late development in speech and coordination, but this had initially been put down to being born during Covid. (The comma before “but” is optional, but it adds emphasis to separate the clauses.)
Ricky tells me his sons’ diagnosis came as a complete shock.
“When you find out about Hunter syndrome, the first thing the doctor tells you is ‘Don’t go on the internet and look it up because you’ll find the worst cases and you’ll be very, very disheartened’.” (The first comma is because we started with “when” – just like “since” earlier. The second comma is to show the coordination between two adverbs or adjectives before a noun.
“But, like anybody, you look it up and you’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, is this what’s going to happen to both my sons?’” (The first two commas are to separate a clause that has been inserted. Both are required here. The third one after “like” is to introduce the quotation. The fourth one is after a short introductory clause.)
Children are born apparently healthy, but around the age of two they start to show symptoms of the disease. (For consistency, this journalist uses the optional comma before “but”. Another optional one the journalist didn’t use would be after “around the age of two”.)
These vary and can include changes to physical features, stiffness of the limbs and short stature. It can cause damage throughout the body, including to the heart, liver, bones and joints and in the most serious cases can lead to severe mental impairment and progressive neurological decline. (These commas are all examples of list ones. They separate the items in the list. Note that this journalist uses British style, so doesn’t put a comma before “and” in the list.)
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Author: Carol Waites
Presentation/editing by Christina O’Shaughnessy
https://worldwidewriting.org/
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Carol Waites (PhD)
Email: carolswritingtips@gmail.com
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