You’ve seen the memes- signs: people eat children play – the spacing and placement of each word gives one the impression that people in the area eat children. Commas do a body good.
I have the hardest time with commas. Of the grammar rules I have learned, commas placement still confuses me. So, I sort of cheat and rely on grammarly.com to tell me where they go. Oh, I’ve had other writers tell me sites like grammarly are scams, but I don’t believe it to be true. You still have to read each editing suggestion. If those change the meaning of the sentence then I don’t accept them. A program is only as useful as its user, and only as educated as its programmer.
I do have an obsession with semicolons. I love them. I’ve read where some writers avoid them altogether, but there are places in sentences they really work.
And somewhere along the way writing programs have done away with the em dash? What happened to those? We really need them, you know?
I have the same issue with commas. I think part of the problem is that being Southern we speak slower and also tend to pause (in speech) for emphasis….in spots where you never would in written format.
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You’re right. And now I have Taylor Swift’s “Our Song” stuck in my head. lol. The line about him talkin’ real slow, cuz’ it’s late and her mama don’t know. 🙂
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