Nothing like a little Culture Club pun to liven up an otherwise dense conversation about when to use a comma, right?
A subscriber recently wrote me this interesting question about overwhelming comma rules:
Dear Stefanie,
I write textbooks and often get pulled up for my comma usage. I was always taught that it marks a pause in the sentence but this rule doesn’t seem to work all the time.
A lot of comma usage can be down to individual taste it seems and you might be a heavy or light user. I think there may also be some US/UK differences (I am from the UK by the way).
I have consulted the Chicago Manual of Style and I see that there are endless pages on how to use commas in a variety of different situations.
To get to my point, I was wondering if you had a simple guide for comma usage that works and isn’t overly complicated to put into practice.
Thanks for your help. [Read more…]