{"id":1630,"date":"2014-09-02T10:41:13","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T16:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=1630"},"modified":"2022-03-02T16:19:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T22:19:32","slug":"essential-and-nonessential-elements-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/effective-writing\/essential-and-nonessential-elements-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential and Nonessential Elements, Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"

See what you can infer from this sentence:\u00a0When my three siblings and I entered the dark house, my brother, Marky, got scared<\/em>. A careful reader would know instantly that the author had one brother and two sisters.<\/p>\n

Why? Because of the commas surrounding\u00a0Marky<\/em>, which tell us that the brother\u2019s name is\u00a0nonessential<\/em>. The commas enable the writer to say\u00a0my only brother, whose name is Marky<\/em>\u00a0in three words.<\/p>\n

Suppose the writer had entered the house with three brothers. In that case,\u00a0my brother got scared<\/em>\u00a0would not tell us enough. With more than one brother involved, the sentence would have to say\u00a0my brother Marky got scared<\/em>\u2014no commas. The absence of commas makes the brother\u2019s name an\u00a0essential<\/em>element, and it is essential because without\u00a0Marky<\/em>\u00a0we wouldn\u2019t know which brother the writer meant.<\/p>\n

Along the same lines:\u00a0Mark Twain published his beloved book, \u201cThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer,\u201d in 1876<\/em>. The commas must go; the book\u2019s title is essential. It is undeniable that Twain wrote more than one beloved book. Without commas the sentence would say what it means: that Twain wrote many beloved books, and\u00a0Tom Sawyer\u00a0<\/em>is one of them. If the book\u2019s title were nonessential, then\u00a0Mark Twain published his beloved book in 1876<\/em>\u00a0would not be such an inadequate sentence.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a comma gaffe many inexperienced writers make:\u00a0The film features the world-famous actor, Robert De Niro<\/em>. Delete the comma fencing off\u00a0Robert De Niro<\/em>. It mistakenly tells the reader that the actor\u2019s name is nonessential\u2014but the sentence makes little sense without De Niro\u2019s name in it.<\/p>\n

The terms\u00a0wife<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0husband<\/em>\u00a0always require commas in sentences like this:\u00a0My wife, Marie, enjoyed meeting your husband, Lucas<\/em>. This is because we can have only one spouse at a time, so their first names\u00a0<\/em>are nonessential, supplementary information.<\/p>\n

Note: The following sentence is an exception to the wife-husband<\/em>\u00a0rule above:\u00a0Cuthbert Simms and wife Marie sailed to the Bahamas last weekend<\/em>. No comma is called for because in that sentence\u00a0wife<\/em>\u00a0is not a noun, but rather an adjective modifying\u00a0Marie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The rule for\u00a0grandmother\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0grandfather<\/em>\u00a0is the opposite of the\u00a0wife-husband<\/em>\u00a0rule. This sentence is correct without commas:\u00a0My grandmother Bess thinks your grandfather Horace is a twit<\/em>. Everyone has two biological grandmothers and two biological grandfathers, so the names\u00a0Bess\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Horace\u00a0<\/em>are essential information.<\/p>\n

Punctuation proficiency is crucial to serious writing. Don\u2019t take the humble little comma for granted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pop Quiz<\/strong><\/p>\n

Correct the following as needed.<\/p>\n

1. Bertram\u2019s wife Deluxa was late to the ball.
\n2. My only sister Julia left with husband Mike on their annual vacation.
\n3. Hedley\u2019s cousin Jaden did not meet my grandfather, Otis, until this morning.
\n4. An actor, named Robert De Niro, showed great potential in his early film,\u00a0The Wedding Party<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Bertram\u2019s wife,<\/strong>\u00a0Deluxa,<\/strong>\u00a0was late to the ball. (commas added;\u00a0Deluxa<\/em>\u00a0is nonessential)
\n2. My only sister,<\/strong>\u00a0Julia,<\/strong>\u00a0left with husband Mike on their annual vacation. (commas added because\u00a0Julia<\/em>\u00a0is nonessential; no comma after\u00a0husband <\/em>because it is an adjective modifying\u00a0Mike<\/em>)
\n3. Hedley\u2019s cousin Jaden did not meet my grandfather Otis until this morning. (no commas because\u00a0Jaden<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Otis<\/em>\u00a0are essential information)
\n4. An actor named Robert De Niro showed great potential in his early film\u00a0The Wedding Party<\/em>. (no commas because the actor\u2019s name and the title of one of his early films are essential information)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

See what you can infer from this sentence:\u00a0When my three siblings and I entered the dark house, my brother, Marky, got scared. A careful reader would know instantly that the author had one brother and two sisters. Why? Because of the commas surrounding\u00a0Marky, which tell us that the brother\u2019s name is\u00a0nonessential. The commas enable the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,13,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives-adverbs","category-commas","category-effective-writing"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5863,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions\/5863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}