Monthly Archive

Let’s get right in here and begin with the terms we want to define:

• comma ,
  
• colon :
  
• semicolon ;
  
• ellipsis …
  
• brackets [ ]
  
• parentheses ( )
  
• hyphen -
  
• en-dash –
  
• em-dash —
  

Part One of this topic is going to cover commas, semi-colons, and colons.  We’ll cover the others in Part Two (ellipsis, parentheses, brackets), and Part Three (hyphens, em-dashes, and en-dashes).

Commas:

Commas are used to connect and differentiate phrases and clauses.  They can be used alone to connect a phrase to the rest of a sentence.

e.g., With quiet steps, Marjorie snuck up on Jake.    OR  With quiet steps, trembling hands, and a queasy stomach,…

When connecting a clause to another clause, however, they must be used with a conjunction, which I’ve underlined below.  The first example has a subordinating conjunction; the second, a coordinating one.

e.g., Though I was very tired, I continued to swim.  OR Bill and I were tired, but we decided to keep going.

Do not simply use them everytime you, uh, pause, because, you’re not sure, what to say.  If you’re in doubt, refer to the post about phrases and clauses.

Colons:

Colons are used to alert the reader to information you want to list or define.  However, be sure that the colon is preceded by a complete sentence (or independent clause).  Here are a couple examples:

Correct:  I have three favorite artists: Van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet.

OR          I can tell you one simple fact: there is no way to get rich quickly.

Incorrect: My favorite artists are: Van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet.

Grammar Girl says that an easy way to remember this is that you should be able to substitute the word “namely” for the colon, and the sentence will still work.

Semicolons:

Semicolons are typically used to connect independent clauses to each other.  Basically, if you have two sentences that can stand alone and that are related, you can connect them with a semicolon instead of using a period.  Make sure you’re not using coordinating conjunctions, like “and” or “but”, which are used with commas.

e.g., Bill and I are cousins.  We are also best friends. –> Bill and I are cousins; we are also best friends.

One exception to this is when you have a list with of phrases that include commas already; in this case, semicolons sort the list out.

e.g. There were three winning teams: Mary’s, Jane’s, and Nancy’s team; Sam’s, Bill’s, and Sandy’s; and Joe’s, Adam’s, and Howard’s.

That’s it for now.  Check back soon!

Stanley Fish has written a masterful column for the NY Times analyzing the inaugural address and has some really good points to make about the difference between parataxis and hypotaxis.  Here is a bit of what he said:

There is a technical term for this kind of writing – parataxis, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the placing of propositions or clauses one after the other without indicating . . . the relation of co-ordination or subordination between them.”

The opposite of parataxis is hypotaxis, the marking of relations between propositions and clause by connectives that point backward or forward. One kind of prose is additive – here’s this and now here’s that; the other asks the reader or hearer to hold in suspension the components of an argument that will not fully emerge until the final word. It is the difference between walking through a museum and stopping as long as you like at each picture, and being hurried along by a guide who wants you to see what you’re looking at as a stage in a developmental arc she is eager to trace for you.

Of course, no prose is all one or the other, but the prose of Obama’s inauguration is surely more paratactic than hypotactic, and in this it resembles the prose of the Bible with its long lists and serial “ands.” The style is incantatory rather than progressive; the cadences ask for assent to each proposition (“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood’) rather than to a developing argument. The power is in discrete moments rather than in a thesis proved by the marshaling of evidence.

To properly understand what Dr. Fish is trying to explain, you really should read the whole article here, as it is a great followup to our class discussion of parallelism.  Parallelism is a building block of style, but subordination (creating a hierarchy of ideas, ie. hypotaxis) and coordination (sticking ideas of equal emphasis together, ie. parataxis) are really powerful ways to organize an argument.