Commas can save lives

Let’s Eat Children!, said the invitation. “Oh dear! Really?? I’m not sure we want to do that…” I stammered when I read the invitation to the party. “Why?? She’s inviting you to tea at her house; you have to go,” my friend said. “But, … she says we’re going to eat children…” I know, I know… I’m being picky. But I don’t get why everyone else isn’t?

A single missing comma can wreak havoc. But so can an extra comma, as Lynn Truss in her hilarious book (Eats, Shoots and Leaves) on punctuation, points out. A panda all dressed up as a cowboy walked into a bar. He ordered some fries and a beer, enjoyed them, and got up to leave. As he was leaving, he took out a gun, fired a couple of well-aimed shots at the bar, and proceeded to walk out the door. “Hey, you!” shouted the bartender. “What do you think you’re doing? Not only have you not paid, but you’ve also destroyed my bar.” The panda turned around and looked at him. He threw a pocketbook of badly edited wildlife terms at him. “I’m a panda. Look it up!” he said. The bewildered bartender did just that and saw this entry: “Panda: Eats, shoots and leaves”. It took a second for the perplexed bartender to get it… With the comma, the sentence lists three actions the panda performs: it eats, then it shoots a gun, and finally it leaves the place. Without the comma, it says what it’s meant to. And then, of course, there are sentences where the mistake is doubled: After we ate Dad, Grandpa and I watched a movie. Cannibals! Ah well… moving on… 

Grammar isn’t just the horrible set of rules that make your life miserable. Yes, there are rules, but no, they can’t be avoided unless you’re only ever going to WhatsApp. And yes, they are an absolute must for clear, respectable communication. Even if you have an actor (noun) and an action (verb) in your sentence, they can meaningfully communicate only if the structure, word forms, and usage with the correct parts of speech, tenses, and punctuation are in place. Punctuation marks are NOT just squiggly lines that mean nothing! On the contrary, they are the dots and dashes that actually give correct meaning to what you’re trying to say. 

And it’s not just that. Haven’t you read those ‘looonng’ sentences where you get to the end and find that you haven’t a clue what you just read and have to go back and read it again? Reading a long sentence can be like sitting in a luxury car that goes on and on with never a brake or turn. Boring, and so you snooze. Punctuation is the much-needed jolt that keeps you awake. If you’re the writer, and especially if you’re a writer who is somewhat weak in the punctuation department, keep your sentences short. No more than 20-25 words. You can’t go far wrong with a sentence like ‘Jack went up the hill’. The longer it is, the more confusing it can get.

One of my biggest bugbears when reading student essays is why oh why can’t they get those three little words called articles, right? Agreed, there are a lot of prepositions! Maybe it’s hard to know all of them (it still doesn’t explain to me why people can’t see that ‘on’ and ‘in’ are different! You can’t sit in a bench!). To get back to articles, there are only three! Surely that can be learnt! Most nouns need an article. A book and an orange. ‘A’ when you talk about the generic and ‘the’ when you talk about the specific. That seems easy, doesn’t it? ‘An’ goes with a noun that has a vowel sound — not necessarily always a vowel. ‘The’ seems to cause the most problems. Proper nouns don’t take an article. It’s never ‘the Rahul’ or ‘the India’. The only time we’d use ‘the’ is when we refer to full names that contain common nouns or indicate a collection, making them descriptive — hence the United Kingdom or the United States.

“He told he’ll come in 15 minutes.” Really? Told whom? ‘Told’ is a form of reported speech and is usually followed by the person/people who were told. ‘He told me’ or ‘He said that’. Not hard.

These are the simplest things you can learn. Good grammar means clarity. Clarity means good communication and a professional appearance. Clarity prevents miscommunication and ensures that what you meant is what you said. Bad grammar can often make a bad impression. How can you make it right? Well, I suggest starting with the basic rules, but if you’re looking for real all-around improvement, read! You don’t have to stop and look at every sentence and examine the syntax, the vocabulary, and the grammar. You just have to enjoy the story! And in time, you will start automatically doing the right things with the language without even knowing it.

And now I have to get back to grading essays!