Do I need a comma? [duplicate] Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern)Use of comma separating two adjectivesShould there always be a comma after “therefore”,“However” etc.?When do we need to put a comma after “so” at the beginning of a sentence?Is a comma needed after “a, b and c”?How to separate two phrases in a grammatically correct way?Hello [Comma?] John,Comma after full date?Comma usage with respect to coordinating conjunctionsShould there be a comma after prepositional phrases that start a dependent clause?Nevertheless after comma is good style?
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Do I need a comma? [duplicate]
Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara
Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern)Use of comma separating two adjectivesShould there always be a comma after “therefore”,“However” etc.?When do we need to put a comma after “so” at the beginning of a sentence?Is a comma needed after “a, b and c”?How to separate two phrases in a grammatically correct way?Hello [Comma?] John,Comma after full date?Comma usage with respect to coordinating conjunctionsShould there be a comma after prepositional phrases that start a dependent clause?Nevertheless after comma is good style?
.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty margin-bottom:0;
This question already has an answer here:
Use of comma separating two adjectives
3 answers
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
punctuation
marked as duplicate by tchrist♦ Mar 24 at 14:52
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
migrated from writing.stackexchange.com Mar 24 at 13:09
This question came from our site for the craft of professional writing, including fiction, non-fiction, technical, scholarly, and commercial writing.
add a comment |
This question already has an answer here:
Use of comma separating two adjectives
3 answers
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
punctuation
marked as duplicate by tchrist♦ Mar 24 at 14:52
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
migrated from writing.stackexchange.com Mar 24 at 13:09
This question came from our site for the craft of professional writing, including fiction, non-fiction, technical, scholarly, and commercial writing.
Is there a reason you use the unusual construction middle-ager?
– Rasdashan
Mar 24 at 2:40
Don't worry about your tags being edited, or your formatting, or your spelling. That's just normal process - we don't expect you to know all the tags and the markup right from the start, so we make those little changes for you, making your question more findable, more readable, and likelier to get an answer. :) That said, do take a look at our tour and How to Ask pages. They should make things easier for you.
– Galastel
Mar 24 at 10:13
add a comment |
This question already has an answer here:
Use of comma separating two adjectives
3 answers
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
punctuation
This question already has an answer here:
Use of comma separating two adjectives
3 answers
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
This question already has an answer here:
Use of comma separating two adjectives
3 answers
punctuation
punctuation
asked Mar 24 at 2:07
randy
marked as duplicate by tchrist♦ Mar 24 at 14:52
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
migrated from writing.stackexchange.com Mar 24 at 13:09
This question came from our site for the craft of professional writing, including fiction, non-fiction, technical, scholarly, and commercial writing.
marked as duplicate by tchrist♦ Mar 24 at 14:52
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
migrated from writing.stackexchange.com Mar 24 at 13:09
This question came from our site for the craft of professional writing, including fiction, non-fiction, technical, scholarly, and commercial writing.
Is there a reason you use the unusual construction middle-ager?
– Rasdashan
Mar 24 at 2:40
Don't worry about your tags being edited, or your formatting, or your spelling. That's just normal process - we don't expect you to know all the tags and the markup right from the start, so we make those little changes for you, making your question more findable, more readable, and likelier to get an answer. :) That said, do take a look at our tour and How to Ask pages. They should make things easier for you.
– Galastel
Mar 24 at 10:13
add a comment |
Is there a reason you use the unusual construction middle-ager?
– Rasdashan
Mar 24 at 2:40
Don't worry about your tags being edited, or your formatting, or your spelling. That's just normal process - we don't expect you to know all the tags and the markup right from the start, so we make those little changes for you, making your question more findable, more readable, and likelier to get an answer. :) That said, do take a look at our tour and How to Ask pages. They should make things easier for you.
– Galastel
Mar 24 at 10:13
Is there a reason you use the unusual construction middle-ager?
– Rasdashan
Mar 24 at 2:40
Is there a reason you use the unusual construction middle-ager?
– Rasdashan
Mar 24 at 2:40
Don't worry about your tags being edited, or your formatting, or your spelling. That's just normal process - we don't expect you to know all the tags and the markup right from the start, so we make those little changes for you, making your question more findable, more readable, and likelier to get an answer. :) That said, do take a look at our tour and How to Ask pages. They should make things easier for you.
– Galastel
Mar 24 at 10:13
Don't worry about your tags being edited, or your formatting, or your spelling. That's just normal process - we don't expect you to know all the tags and the markup right from the start, so we make those little changes for you, making your question more findable, more readable, and likelier to get an answer. :) That said, do take a look at our tour and How to Ask pages. They should make things easier for you.
– Galastel
Mar 24 at 10:13
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
Whether or not you use a comma has to do with what type of adjectives you think you're using.
If you can either swap the position of the adjectives or put an and between them without altering the meaning, then you are using coordinate adjectives and should use a comma.
Take this as an example:
❔ It was a dark stormy night.
Do we need a comma?
✔ It was a dark and stormy night.
✔ It was a stormy dark night.
So, it uses coordinate adjectives, and a comma should be used:
✔ It was a dark, stormy night.
Note that you can always use an and instead of a comma. In this case, most people would probably use an and. But a comma is also fine.
But adjectives that cannot be rearranged or have an and inserted without changing the meaning should not use a comma:
❔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
✘ It was an exquisite and custom houseboat.
✘ It was a custom exquisite houseboat.
In this sentence, exquisite is directly modifying custom. (The custom houseboat was exquisite.) If the two words are separated or their position swapped, the meaning of what's being described changes.
Therefore, this is an example of cumulative adjectives, and there is no comma:
✔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
In some cases, it's not immediately clear what the meaning of a phrase is. Your own sentence is one of those.
It's not clear which of these you actually mean to convey:
He was a smelly middle-ager. He was also a redheaded middle-ager.
This uses coordinate adjectives:
→ He was a smelly and redheaded middle-ager. OR
→ He was a smelly, redheaded middle-ager.
He was a redheaded middle-ager who was smelly.
This uses cumulative adjectives:
→ He was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
So, really, you just need to ask yourself if your sentence still works if you add an and between the adjectives. If it does, then you can either use an and or you can use a comma. (But you shouldn't leave it with nothing between the two adjectives.) On the other hand, if inserting an and changes what you want to convey, then don't use a comma.
My personal opinion is that I think it would sound a bit awkward with an and (or, therefore, a comma). If you really do mean them to be separate adjectives, I suggest rephrasing the sentence:
The man I met was a redheaded middle-ager. He also smelled.
Or something like that. But that goes beyond the scope of explaining the difference between the two types of adjectives.
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
add a comment |
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager. Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
I know this question is about an English sentence. It should be posted on the English Stack Exchange or the English Language Learning Stack Exchange. However, the title is way too broad: "Do I need a comma?"
The English language is a subject-prominent language. This is different from a topic-prominent language, such as Chinese, which may also explain why Chinese punctuation rules are quite different from English punctuation rules.
Deathblade is a translator of Chinese web novels, and he notices that there are a lot of commas in Chinese writing; in his translations, he has to replace the commas with periods, as well as insert subjects. In my own observation of Chinese-as-second-language users, they use a lot of periods with excessive use of pronouns. It is not necessarily wrong/unacceptable in Chinese, but it does feel very rough. In my own analysis of the writing, I notice that an English sentence is subject-prominent. It is literally SVO (subject-verb-object). When English speakers want to talk about a different thought, they begin a new sentence with a pronoun to refer to the subject in the previous sentence. Meanwhile, a Chinese sentence is topic-prominent. All the clauses in the sentence are about this topic. The topic is most prominent, and all the clauses are actually comments (topic-comment). While native English speakers may write in this format (subject-verb-object-comma-conjunction-subject-verb-object), native Chinese speakers may write in this format (topic-comment-comma-comment).
As a heritage speaker of Chinese, I'd say that I think more like a first-language speaker than a second-language speaker. Other heritage speakers may lean towards the second-language speaker side, because they associate more with their English-speaking friends than Chinese-speaking parents, or because they never went to school in China. At first, I didn't know how to describe it in words. Stories just read smoothly from the get-go, and I just copied this pattern. I also like to read stuff about linguistics, and the technical terms are really helpful in putting my feelings into words.
TLDR: Rules of punctuation depend on the language. English and Spanish are both subject-prominent languages and thus, in my opinion, have very similar punctuation styles. Chinese is a topic-prominent language, like Japanese and Korean, so the punctuation use for commas revolves around separating separate comments.
answered Mar 24 at 11:38
Double UDouble U
96251127
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
Whether or not you use a comma has to do with what type of adjectives you think you're using.
If you can either swap the position of the adjectives or put an and between them without altering the meaning, then you are using coordinate adjectives and should use a comma.
Take this as an example:
❔ It was a dark stormy night.
Do we need a comma?
✔ It was a dark and stormy night.
✔ It was a stormy dark night.
So, it uses coordinate adjectives, and a comma should be used:
✔ It was a dark, stormy night.
Note that you can always use an and instead of a comma. In this case, most people would probably use an and. But a comma is also fine.
But adjectives that cannot be rearranged or have an and inserted without changing the meaning should not use a comma:
❔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
✘ It was an exquisite and custom houseboat.
✘ It was a custom exquisite houseboat.
In this sentence, exquisite is directly modifying custom. (The custom houseboat was exquisite.) If the two words are separated or their position swapped, the meaning of what's being described changes.
Therefore, this is an example of cumulative adjectives, and there is no comma:
✔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
In some cases, it's not immediately clear what the meaning of a phrase is. Your own sentence is one of those.
It's not clear which of these you actually mean to convey:
He was a smelly middle-ager. He was also a redheaded middle-ager.
This uses coordinate adjectives:
→ He was a smelly and redheaded middle-ager. OR
→ He was a smelly, redheaded middle-ager.
He was a redheaded middle-ager who was smelly.
This uses cumulative adjectives:
→ He was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
So, really, you just need to ask yourself if your sentence still works if you add an and between the adjectives. If it does, then you can either use an and or you can use a comma. (But you shouldn't leave it with nothing between the two adjectives.) On the other hand, if inserting an and changes what you want to convey, then don't use a comma.
My personal opinion is that I think it would sound a bit awkward with an and (or, therefore, a comma). If you really do mean them to be separate adjectives, I suggest rephrasing the sentence:
The man I met was a redheaded middle-ager. He also smelled.
Or something like that. But that goes beyond the scope of explaining the difference between the two types of adjectives.
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
add a comment |
Whether or not you use a comma has to do with what type of adjectives you think you're using.
If you can either swap the position of the adjectives or put an and between them without altering the meaning, then you are using coordinate adjectives and should use a comma.
Take this as an example:
❔ It was a dark stormy night.
Do we need a comma?
✔ It was a dark and stormy night.
✔ It was a stormy dark night.
So, it uses coordinate adjectives, and a comma should be used:
✔ It was a dark, stormy night.
Note that you can always use an and instead of a comma. In this case, most people would probably use an and. But a comma is also fine.
But adjectives that cannot be rearranged or have an and inserted without changing the meaning should not use a comma:
❔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
✘ It was an exquisite and custom houseboat.
✘ It was a custom exquisite houseboat.
In this sentence, exquisite is directly modifying custom. (The custom houseboat was exquisite.) If the two words are separated or their position swapped, the meaning of what's being described changes.
Therefore, this is an example of cumulative adjectives, and there is no comma:
✔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
In some cases, it's not immediately clear what the meaning of a phrase is. Your own sentence is one of those.
It's not clear which of these you actually mean to convey:
He was a smelly middle-ager. He was also a redheaded middle-ager.
This uses coordinate adjectives:
→ He was a smelly and redheaded middle-ager. OR
→ He was a smelly, redheaded middle-ager.
He was a redheaded middle-ager who was smelly.
This uses cumulative adjectives:
→ He was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
So, really, you just need to ask yourself if your sentence still works if you add an and between the adjectives. If it does, then you can either use an and or you can use a comma. (But you shouldn't leave it with nothing between the two adjectives.) On the other hand, if inserting an and changes what you want to convey, then don't use a comma.
My personal opinion is that I think it would sound a bit awkward with an and (or, therefore, a comma). If you really do mean them to be separate adjectives, I suggest rephrasing the sentence:
The man I met was a redheaded middle-ager. He also smelled.
Or something like that. But that goes beyond the scope of explaining the difference between the two types of adjectives.
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
add a comment |
Whether or not you use a comma has to do with what type of adjectives you think you're using.
If you can either swap the position of the adjectives or put an and between them without altering the meaning, then you are using coordinate adjectives and should use a comma.
Take this as an example:
❔ It was a dark stormy night.
Do we need a comma?
✔ It was a dark and stormy night.
✔ It was a stormy dark night.
So, it uses coordinate adjectives, and a comma should be used:
✔ It was a dark, stormy night.
Note that you can always use an and instead of a comma. In this case, most people would probably use an and. But a comma is also fine.
But adjectives that cannot be rearranged or have an and inserted without changing the meaning should not use a comma:
❔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
✘ It was an exquisite and custom houseboat.
✘ It was a custom exquisite houseboat.
In this sentence, exquisite is directly modifying custom. (The custom houseboat was exquisite.) If the two words are separated or their position swapped, the meaning of what's being described changes.
Therefore, this is an example of cumulative adjectives, and there is no comma:
✔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
In some cases, it's not immediately clear what the meaning of a phrase is. Your own sentence is one of those.
It's not clear which of these you actually mean to convey:
He was a smelly middle-ager. He was also a redheaded middle-ager.
This uses coordinate adjectives:
→ He was a smelly and redheaded middle-ager. OR
→ He was a smelly, redheaded middle-ager.
He was a redheaded middle-ager who was smelly.
This uses cumulative adjectives:
→ He was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
So, really, you just need to ask yourself if your sentence still works if you add an and between the adjectives. If it does, then you can either use an and or you can use a comma. (But you shouldn't leave it with nothing between the two adjectives.) On the other hand, if inserting an and changes what you want to convey, then don't use a comma.
My personal opinion is that I think it would sound a bit awkward with an and (or, therefore, a comma). If you really do mean them to be separate adjectives, I suggest rephrasing the sentence:
The man I met was a redheaded middle-ager. He also smelled.
Or something like that. But that goes beyond the scope of explaining the difference between the two types of adjectives.
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
Whether or not you use a comma has to do with what type of adjectives you think you're using.
If you can either swap the position of the adjectives or put an and between them without altering the meaning, then you are using coordinate adjectives and should use a comma.
Take this as an example:
❔ It was a dark stormy night.
Do we need a comma?
✔ It was a dark and stormy night.
✔ It was a stormy dark night.
So, it uses coordinate adjectives, and a comma should be used:
✔ It was a dark, stormy night.
Note that you can always use an and instead of a comma. In this case, most people would probably use an and. But a comma is also fine.
But adjectives that cannot be rearranged or have an and inserted without changing the meaning should not use a comma:
❔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
✘ It was an exquisite and custom houseboat.
✘ It was a custom exquisite houseboat.
In this sentence, exquisite is directly modifying custom. (The custom houseboat was exquisite.) If the two words are separated or their position swapped, the meaning of what's being described changes.
Therefore, this is an example of cumulative adjectives, and there is no comma:
✔ It was an exquisite custom houseboat.
In some cases, it's not immediately clear what the meaning of a phrase is. Your own sentence is one of those.
It's not clear which of these you actually mean to convey:
He was a smelly middle-ager. He was also a redheaded middle-ager.
This uses coordinate adjectives:
→ He was a smelly and redheaded middle-ager. OR
→ He was a smelly, redheaded middle-ager.
He was a redheaded middle-ager who was smelly.
This uses cumulative adjectives:
→ He was a smelly redheaded middle-ager.
So, really, you just need to ask yourself if your sentence still works if you add an and between the adjectives. If it does, then you can either use an and or you can use a comma. (But you shouldn't leave it with nothing between the two adjectives.) On the other hand, if inserting an and changes what you want to convey, then don't use a comma.
My personal opinion is that I think it would sound a bit awkward with an and (or, therefore, a comma). If you really do mean them to be separate adjectives, I suggest rephrasing the sentence:
The man I met was a redheaded middle-ager. He also smelled.
Or something like that. But that goes beyond the scope of explaining the difference between the two types of adjectives.
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
answered Mar 24 at 3:15
Jason BassfordJason Bassford
21.3k32752
21.3k32752
add a comment |
add a comment |
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager. Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
I know this question is about an English sentence. It should be posted on the English Stack Exchange or the English Language Learning Stack Exchange. However, the title is way too broad: "Do I need a comma?"
The English language is a subject-prominent language. This is different from a topic-prominent language, such as Chinese, which may also explain why Chinese punctuation rules are quite different from English punctuation rules.
Deathblade is a translator of Chinese web novels, and he notices that there are a lot of commas in Chinese writing; in his translations, he has to replace the commas with periods, as well as insert subjects. In my own observation of Chinese-as-second-language users, they use a lot of periods with excessive use of pronouns. It is not necessarily wrong/unacceptable in Chinese, but it does feel very rough. In my own analysis of the writing, I notice that an English sentence is subject-prominent. It is literally SVO (subject-verb-object). When English speakers want to talk about a different thought, they begin a new sentence with a pronoun to refer to the subject in the previous sentence. Meanwhile, a Chinese sentence is topic-prominent. All the clauses in the sentence are about this topic. The topic is most prominent, and all the clauses are actually comments (topic-comment). While native English speakers may write in this format (subject-verb-object-comma-conjunction-subject-verb-object), native Chinese speakers may write in this format (topic-comment-comma-comment).
As a heritage speaker of Chinese, I'd say that I think more like a first-language speaker than a second-language speaker. Other heritage speakers may lean towards the second-language speaker side, because they associate more with their English-speaking friends than Chinese-speaking parents, or because they never went to school in China. At first, I didn't know how to describe it in words. Stories just read smoothly from the get-go, and I just copied this pattern. I also like to read stuff about linguistics, and the technical terms are really helpful in putting my feelings into words.
TLDR: Rules of punctuation depend on the language. English and Spanish are both subject-prominent languages and thus, in my opinion, have very similar punctuation styles. Chinese is a topic-prominent language, like Japanese and Korean, so the punctuation use for commas revolves around separating separate comments.
answered Mar 24 at 11:38
Double UDouble U
96251127
add a comment |
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager. Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
I know this question is about an English sentence. It should be posted on the English Stack Exchange or the English Language Learning Stack Exchange. However, the title is way too broad: "Do I need a comma?"
The English language is a subject-prominent language. This is different from a topic-prominent language, such as Chinese, which may also explain why Chinese punctuation rules are quite different from English punctuation rules.
Deathblade is a translator of Chinese web novels, and he notices that there are a lot of commas in Chinese writing; in his translations, he has to replace the commas with periods, as well as insert subjects. In my own observation of Chinese-as-second-language users, they use a lot of periods with excessive use of pronouns. It is not necessarily wrong/unacceptable in Chinese, but it does feel very rough. In my own analysis of the writing, I notice that an English sentence is subject-prominent. It is literally SVO (subject-verb-object). When English speakers want to talk about a different thought, they begin a new sentence with a pronoun to refer to the subject in the previous sentence. Meanwhile, a Chinese sentence is topic-prominent. All the clauses in the sentence are about this topic. The topic is most prominent, and all the clauses are actually comments (topic-comment). While native English speakers may write in this format (subject-verb-object-comma-conjunction-subject-verb-object), native Chinese speakers may write in this format (topic-comment-comma-comment).
As a heritage speaker of Chinese, I'd say that I think more like a first-language speaker than a second-language speaker. Other heritage speakers may lean towards the second-language speaker side, because they associate more with their English-speaking friends than Chinese-speaking parents, or because they never went to school in China. At first, I didn't know how to describe it in words. Stories just read smoothly from the get-go, and I just copied this pattern. I also like to read stuff about linguistics, and the technical terms are really helpful in putting my feelings into words.
TLDR: Rules of punctuation depend on the language. English and Spanish are both subject-prominent languages and thus, in my opinion, have very similar punctuation styles. Chinese is a topic-prominent language, like Japanese and Korean, so the punctuation use for commas revolves around separating separate comments.
answered Mar 24 at 11:38
Double UDouble U
96251127
add a comment |
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager. Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
I know this question is about an English sentence. It should be posted on the English Stack Exchange or the English Language Learning Stack Exchange. However, the title is way too broad: "Do I need a comma?"
The English language is a subject-prominent language. This is different from a topic-prominent language, such as Chinese, which may also explain why Chinese punctuation rules are quite different from English punctuation rules.
Deathblade is a translator of Chinese web novels, and he notices that there are a lot of commas in Chinese writing; in his translations, he has to replace the commas with periods, as well as insert subjects. In my own observation of Chinese-as-second-language users, they use a lot of periods with excessive use of pronouns. It is not necessarily wrong/unacceptable in Chinese, but it does feel very rough. In my own analysis of the writing, I notice that an English sentence is subject-prominent. It is literally SVO (subject-verb-object). When English speakers want to talk about a different thought, they begin a new sentence with a pronoun to refer to the subject in the previous sentence. Meanwhile, a Chinese sentence is topic-prominent. All the clauses in the sentence are about this topic. The topic is most prominent, and all the clauses are actually comments (topic-comment). While native English speakers may write in this format (subject-verb-object-comma-conjunction-subject-verb-object), native Chinese speakers may write in this format (topic-comment-comma-comment).
As a heritage speaker of Chinese, I'd say that I think more like a first-language speaker than a second-language speaker. Other heritage speakers may lean towards the second-language speaker side, because they associate more with their English-speaking friends than Chinese-speaking parents, or because they never went to school in China. At first, I didn't know how to describe it in words. Stories just read smoothly from the get-go, and I just copied this pattern. I also like to read stuff about linguistics, and the technical terms are really helpful in putting my feelings into words.
TLDR: Rules of punctuation depend on the language. English and Spanish are both subject-prominent languages and thus, in my opinion, have very similar punctuation styles. Chinese is a topic-prominent language, like Japanese and Korean, so the punctuation use for commas revolves around separating separate comments.
answered Mar 24 at 11:38
Double UDouble U
96251127
The man I met was a smelly redheaded middle-ager. Do I need a comma here after smelly?
It is really hard to post here because of the constant rejection of my question body or tags.
I know this question is about an English sentence. It should be posted on the English Stack Exchange or the English Language Learning Stack Exchange. However, the title is way too broad: "Do I need a comma?"
The English language is a subject-prominent language. This is different from a topic-prominent language, such as Chinese, which may also explain why Chinese punctuation rules are quite different from English punctuation rules.
Deathblade is a translator of Chinese web novels, and he notices that there are a lot of commas in Chinese writing; in his translations, he has to replace the commas with periods, as well as insert subjects. In my own observation of Chinese-as-second-language users, they use a lot of periods with excessive use of pronouns. It is not necessarily wrong/unacceptable in Chinese, but it does feel very rough. In my own analysis of the writing, I notice that an English sentence is subject-prominent. It is literally SVO (subject-verb-object). When English speakers want to talk about a different thought, they begin a new sentence with a pronoun to refer to the subject in the previous sentence. Meanwhile, a Chinese sentence is topic-prominent. All the clauses in the sentence are about this topic. The topic is most prominent, and all the clauses are actually comments (topic-comment). While native English speakers may write in this format (subject-verb-object-comma-conjunction-subject-verb-object), native Chinese speakers may write in this format (topic-comment-comma-comment).
As a heritage speaker of Chinese, I'd say that I think more like a first-language speaker than a second-language speaker. Other heritage speakers may lean towards the second-language speaker side, because they associate more with their English-speaking friends than Chinese-speaking parents, or because they never went to school in China. At first, I didn't know how to describe it in words. Stories just read smoothly from the get-go, and I just copied this pattern. I also like to read stuff about linguistics, and the technical terms are really helpful in putting my feelings into words.
TLDR: Rules of punctuation depend on the language. English and Spanish are both subject-prominent languages and thus, in my opinion, have very similar punctuation styles. Chinese is a topic-prominent language, like Japanese and Korean, so the punctuation use for commas revolves around separating separate comments.
answered Mar 24 at 11:38
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answered Mar 24 at 11:38
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answered Mar 24 at 11:38
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answered Mar 24 at 11:38
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Is there a reason you use the unusual construction middle-ager?
– Rasdashan
Mar 24 at 2:40
Don't worry about your tags being edited, or your formatting, or your spelling. That's just normal process - we don't expect you to know all the tags and the markup right from the start, so we make those little changes for you, making your question more findable, more readable, and likelier to get an answer. :) That said, do take a look at our tour and How to Ask pages. They should make things easier for you.
– Galastel
Mar 24 at 10:13