A Comma Here, A Comma There

I spent the better part of yesterday evening, into the night, grading analysis essays. As I marked up the papers, I pondered a few things:

1. Since I am the teacher, why did I assign such a big assignment, at such a busy time, that I would have to spend hours grading?
2. Is there something shorter I could have students do in the future?
3. What in the world has happened to commas?

I will deal with the first couple of items on my own, but let’s talk about that last one. Commas are an important piece of punctuation, maybe the most important one, and my teachers through the years drilled their proper usage into me. One instructor, in particular, could catch a comma splice from 10 miles away.

Now, commas seem to be in flux. Do we use the Oxford comma or not? What about a serial comma? Are the two one and the same? If I am giving a list of cereals, do I use a serial comma or a cereal comma? These questions make my head spin, and my inner copy editor is extremely stressed these days.

In the papers I graded, commas were often left out in compound sentences connected with a conjunction. I wanted to yell, “No!!” I didn’t think my wife would appreciate that, so I refrained from screaming. I stuck to marking in missing commas with my grading pen.

It may be time to return to Conjunction Junction and remember the function. Two complete thoughts? With a conjunction? Use a comma!

The main problem that gets me is use of commas toward the end of a list of items. Missing commas at that point can give a whole new (and often unintended) meaning to the message. For example, I once read this phrase in a newspaper:

“Pray for the children harmed by hardship and our ministry.”

Now, we should pray for these children, but have they really been harmed by the ministry? It’s like saying “Let’s eat grandma!” instead of “Let’s eat, grandma!”

Proof that commas, if used correctly, can make a difference in this world. Don’t make me get out my grading pen!

Carlton Hughes wears many hats. By day, he’s a professor of communication at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College. On Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, he does object lessons and songs with motions as Children’s Pastor of Lynch Church of God. In his “spare time,” he is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Chicken Soup for the Soul and several devotional books from Worthy Publishing—Let the Earth Rejoice, Just Breathe, So God Made a Dog, and Everyday Grace for Men. Carlton and his wife Kathy have two sons, Noah and Ethan, both of whom recently flew out of the nest, and a daughter-in-law, Kersyn. He is on the planning committee for Kentucky Christian Writers Conference and is a year-round volunteer for Operation Christmas Child. He is represented by Cyle Young of Hartline Literary Agency. His book Adventures in Fatherhood, a 60-day devotional co-authored with Holland Webb, will release in April 2020 from Worthy/Ellie Claire.