Gaius and Jem.

Nil illegitimis carborundum.

Just blogged about commas. Not directly about your example, EmmaH, but thanks for getting me started!

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2012/06/commas.html

Emma

You're welcome, Emma. And an interesting blog post, thanks.

I notice a lot of people leave out the question mark, which on balance is what I would do. That's the bit that I find most difficult to decide.

I notice a lot of people leave out the question mark, which on balance is what I would do. That's the bit that I find most difficult to decide.

Yes, that is the bit where it is a straightforward correct/incorrect decision.

The easiest way to check is to imagine that the question-y bit is being said out loud, then lay it out as dialogue:

You wouldn't write:

"How on earth are we going to clear all this up," I say as I reach the living room?

you'd write:

"How on earth are we going to clear all this up?", I say as I reach the living room.

because the overall sentence isn't a question, it's a statement, about something being said (a something which happens to be a question).

So even when you take out the "", you don't put a ? at the end of the sentence, because it's still, really, a statement about something happening: some wondering being done.

(I could go on about why with the sentence as it stands you can't put a ? after "up", either, if it's not dialogue... but I won't)

I'd write it either like Jem said, or the other version -

How on earth are we going to clear all this up, I wonder as I reach the living room.

Emma, glad everyone likes those links - it's a great site isn't it

Kat x

Why did they never teach me this stuff in my English degree? It's a bit embarrassing really.

Why did they never teach me this stuff in my English degree?

I think the trouble is that it's quite dry stuff to teach to children, so they do the minimum - or indeed none at all when the pendulum swung so far the other way from reams of formal stuff to no stuff at all. And, actually, most of us absorb the basics reasonably well, as we do grammar. But when it comes to trying to use it actively, as it were, in fiction - to bend the rules to our will - then we discover we don't actually know the rules well enough to do that with confidence and effectively.

Plus, of course, there's the problem of the two different functions of puncutation. An nasty comma splice sounds perfectly sensible, because a comma doesn't sound much different from the semi-colon or full stop which should actually be there. It's a distinction which is entirely about grammar and formal conventions...

It's only when you explain properly not just the rule that "two whole sentences shouldn't be joined by a mere comma", but how the writer should think properly about the connection of logic and meaning between the two sentences, that the rule just stops seeming arbitrary and tiresome, and starts to make sense and so be memorable and useful.

I'm expecting the work in my RLF Fellowship to have TONS of punctuation-talk in it...