The theory I’m working on for why Richard uses the occasional splice is that they’re a way of strengthening the second-person voice of his young narrator (himself). This one bothers me more, since the two clauses have different subjects. Here is another of Richard’s spliced sentences, which also showcases his use of second person and present tense:Īt home the Christmas tree is up, your mother cooks shrimp Creole for you. 2 is written with a very unusual point of view for a memoir: it starts in third person and switches to second. Thing is, he may have wanted the strength of “are”-and no semicolon, though he uses them elsewhere. Now, I’d cut the “are” in the second clause so that it becomes a dependent clause and the comma correct. Most of them have been up all night tying tobacco sticks, their hands are stained black with nicotine. Here’s a comma splice from a skillful writer, Mark Richard, from his memoir House of Prayer No. Memoirist Mark Richard’s use of comma splices Might’ve used a nice semicolon there, though. Except when the clauses are real short-but I take note of them.
#WHICH SENTENCE CONTAINS A COMMA SPLICE PROFESSIONAL#
Today comma splices sometimes bother me even when a professional writer uses them intentionally. Right! I was studying writing on my own, so I saw it right quick. He explained that a comma wasn’t sufficient to join two independent clauses. I marched right up and asked him what that meant. In my memory it’s actually in a blue book-though why even an English professor would bother to correct a comma splice in a handwritten exam flummoxes me. I remember so vividly my own dawning awareness of original sin, as an undergraduate, when a professor circled my comma splice. Not to mention cluing a few of them to the utter ignominy of the run-on. Showing them all the good punctuation options. I tell myself, I’m giving them practice writing and teaching them that comma splices are bad. Actually they’re how I justify my existence. And I get to sit on my couch and listen to the Beatles while I grade.Ĭomma splices are the bane of my existence. And as a fellow teacher once remarked, “Reading some of them is like getting hit in the forehead with a hammer with each sentence.” Yes, and again, that’s what we’re paid for. Yet if I suck after sympathy I recall an academic acquaintance’s rejoinder: “That’s a self-inflicted wound.” I give them work, and it boomerangs right back. And then more essays, a constant backlog, from busy young writers and revisers.
Hour after hour goes into grading-sometimes over six hours at a stretch, and then there’s reading and class prep. Right now in the semester, I’m buried in student essays.
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