The Grammarian – text speak and the reluctant comma

“I’ll never date an apostrophe….the last one was just too possessive”

3 comma-related reasons to fear the absence of punctuation

Writing is a dying art and emails are becoming passé, but text speak is taking over the world.

1.Commas tells the reader what the verb relates to

“Let’s eat Grandma” (or for non-cannibals, ‘Let’s eat, Grandma’)

“I’m sorry I still love you” (but if trying to make amends this should presumably read ‘I’m sorry, I still love you’)

2. Commas break up lists

“Goats cheese salad ingredients: lettuce, tomato, goats, cheese” (not quite a vegetarian salad anymore?)

BUT be careful not to insert them when there isn’t a list

“The panda eats, shoots, and leaves”  (the psychopathic panda returns)

3. Commas & quotes work together…..rather well

“Emily said Jake planned the murder” (“Emily”, said Jake, “planned the murder”)

Don’t let text speak drown out punctuation

As text speak becomes omnipresent, trivialities such as commas risk becoming increasingly ignored. If so, one day they may go the way of the possessive apostrophe – feared, misunderstood and randomly thrown into sentences when unsure.

However, consider the damage that could be wrought by an absence of commas – is it not worth a few moments of your time to punctuate your texts, or risk a potentially fatal misunderstanding?!