|
ESL Forum:
Techniques and methods
in Language Teaching
Games, activities
and teaching ideas
Grammar and
Linguistics
Teaching material
Concerning
worksheets
Concerning
powerpoints
Concerning online
exercises
Make suggestions,
report errors
Ask for help
Message board
|
ESL forum >
Ask for help > commas after the prepositional phrases ?!!!
commas after the prepositional phrases ?!!!
|
Pretty3
|
commas after the prepositional phrases ?!!!
|
|
Hi,
why do these sentences don�t include commas after the prepositional phrases ?!!!
1- In the evening we have dinner and so / then I do my housework.
2- At the weekend she helps her parents, and / so she can�t meet her friends.
4- For dinner we usually have pizza or / so pasta
They are from the student�s book.
Regards
|
24 Sep 2012
|
|
|
|
gumby59
|
|
My personal view is that there has been a "dumbing" down of the the language in terms of grammar. Proponents of traditional grammar would cite that we need to have commas after the prepositional phrases and yet we have the functional grammarians or communicative people who subscribe to the view that anything goes as long as we are communicating without any confusion in meaning. |
24 Sep 2012
|
|
|
MoodyMoody
|
|
Generally, commas are a written representation of pauses in speaking. gumby59 is factually correct in his or her assessment of the changes in usage, although one can look at it with a different attitude. You can say "streamlining" rather than "dumbing down."
Another change in commas that comes to us from newspapers is the omission of a comma after the penultimate (second to last) item in a series. Apparently the publishers saved gallons of ink that way. |
24 Sep 2012
|
|
|
almaz
|
@ gumby59 Strictly speaking, a comma is a punctuation mark and is only related to grammar in much the same way that spelling is. But I have to say I �ve never heard any linguist or grammarian (that �s to say � someone who specialises in this area) say "anything goes". As the linguist David Crystal has pointed out many times when this charge has been levelled at him: No linguist has ever said �anything goes �. On the contrary, the whole basis of linguistics is to establish the rules governing language, and to define such notions as appropriateness in language variation. All linguists care about standards. All linguists care about clarity and precision.(On DCBlog: On QES RIP)
@MoodyMoody Are you talking about the serial comma? We don �t tend to use it as much in the UK, but I found this very interesting:
|
25 Sep 2012
|
|
|
