Believe it or not, people pay attention to those things. However, as Grammar Girl so eloquently states in her blog condemning the comma splice, you are not Cormac McCarthy.ĭo not arbitrarily throw the rules of grammar to the wind. Is It Ever Okay to Use a Comma Splice?įor those who plead the case for creative use of structure and punctuation, I understand where you are coming from. When you have three other perfectly acceptable and grammatically correct methods of writing a sentence (or two), there is no excuse for a comma splice. His pursuer's headlights shone in his rear-view mirror. Louis stomped the accelerator into the floor of his car. Louis stomped the accelerator into the floor of the car his pursuer's headlights shone in his rear-view mirror.Īnd finally, if your head is spinning from my use of the words “conjunction” and “semicolon,” just make two good sentences out of one bad one. Or if you wanted to get fancy, you could add a semicolon to the sentence. Louis stomped the accelerator into the floor of the car as his pursuer's headlights shone in his rear-view mirror.
Instead, use a coordinating conjunction (and, but, as, or, etc.) to connect the two clauses. So in order to prevent your writing from getting on an editor's (or an astute reader's) nerves, I will tell you now: DO NOT USE COMMA SPLICES. Joe can attest to the fact that they're one of my biggest pet peeves. Why You Shouldn't EVER Use a Comma SpliceĪ comma splice occurs when a writer uses a comma by itself to connect two independent clauses, and speaking from an editorial perspective, I will tell you that they are evil. If you were annoyed by the lack of a conjunction, then congratulations! You win at grammar.
Louis stomped the accelerator into the floor of the car, his pursuer's headlights shone in his rear-view mirror. It pains me to write this, but here is a comma splice in action: We're venturing into a realm where writers bend the rules of grammar in the name of creativity, but to the great frustration of editors. A comma splice is one of the most easily avoidable grammatical travesties.
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