Comma Usage Made Simple

Don't they drive you nuts?

You can visit all the rules of style you want, and you can read all the books and articles you want. You'll still be confused. You'll see inconsistency. You'll see experts who don't agree with each other. And you'll pull out your hair. Unless you're me, since my hair's falling out all by itself. I think it'd do that even if I weren't an editor hunting down errant commas.

Well, folks, here are some rules. A bare minimum. Internalize these and ignore everybody else.

(1) Never put a comma between a subject and a verb. It's always wrong. The dog, barked. What is that? Idiocy. Read it aloud, and pause at the comma. Don't you feel stupid?

(2) If you want to separate a clause, put a comma on both sides of it. Ot View the rest of this article