Over comma-ing?

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scully931

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Just inserting Wizard of Oz names for example.

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

OR

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

Big red comma or no? I think it helps with the clarity of the sentence but commas surrounding Oz also don't look good.

Thank you for any advice. :)

--------------

Edited to add another question:

The stories he told Dorothy as a child hold not only the answers to the Oz's question but the very key to her survival.

Any comma's here???

Sorry I'm so inept with commas. It goes way back to a half-hearted elementary school. But I'm trying to learn. :e2flowers
 
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Chase

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The way I read, and the way my bosses want me to edit, commas aren't for looks (or pauses). They are placed for funtion to facilitate reading.

I won't bore everyone with more copies of the five rules for necessary commas handed down by Noah Webster, but one is that long introductory elements should be set off from main clauses with commas.

So, it's:

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

According to those five rules, the following essentially simple sentence needs no comma:

The stories he told Dorothy as a child hold not only the answers to the Oz's question but the very key to her survival.

Not one of Noah's comma rules, but if you don't like how the sentence looks, re-write it until you do.

For example:

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz and everyone in it will cease to exist.
 

Duncan J Macdonald

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Just inserting Wizard of Oz names for example.

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

OR

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

Big red comma or no? I think it helps with the clarity of the sentence but commas surrounding Oz also don't look good.

Thank you for any advice. :)
Big Red Comma = Yes

The basic sentence is "Oz will cease to exist."
The dependent clause "along with everyone in it" modifies Oz, and needs to be set off with commas.
The there is the conditional adverbial phrase, "If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land," which modifies the main verb "will cease".


--------------

Edited to add another question:

The stories he told Dorothy as a child hold not only the answers to the Oz's question but the very key to her survival.

Any comma's here???

Sorry I'm so inept with commas. It goes way back to a half-hearted elementary school. But I'm trying to learn. :e2flowers
Nope.
 

FennelGiraffe

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First sentence: Yes on the big red comma. Without it, you have "worthy of the land Oz" and a missing subject.

Second sentence: No commas.

I understand your quandary. I've constructed many sentences where I could point to solid justification for each comma, but the resulting clutter made me say, "Gaaahhh!" In those cases, I often find a complete rewrite to be a considerable improvement.
 

Dale Emery

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If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

I'm going to skip the grammar and focus on what happens in my head as I read this. When I hit the comma after the second Oz...

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz,

... my brain thought oh, that Oz is a parenthetical, reminding me which land they are trying to prove themselves worthy of. Only a few words later did I realize that wasn't the meaning you were trying to convey.

So though the big red comma may be grammatically correct, I don't think it works semantically. To fix it, you could change along to and, then drop the commas around the phrase to form a compound subject:

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz and everyone in it will cease to exist.

Dale
 

Chase

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From entry #2

For example:

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz and everyone in it will cease to exist.


To fix it, you could change along to and, then drop the commas around the phrase to form a compound subject:

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz and everyone in it will cease to exist.

Dale

Thank you, Dave. Flattery is the sincerest form of imitation . . . or . . . um . . . y' know . . . something like that.
 

Chase

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Getting the name right is a close second. ;-) Dale

You had me there for a second, Gale, but two people checked, and my name is right.
 

blacbird

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The basic sentence is "Oz will cease to exist."
The dependent clause "along with everyone in it" modifies Oz, and needs to be set off with commas.
The there is the conditional adverbial phrase, "If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land," which modifies the main verb "will cease".

All correct. And also symptomatic of the problem often revealed when commaitis strikes: The sentence is too complicated, too much dependency in clauses and conditional phrases. It probably should be rephrased into two sentences.

caw
 

Duncan J Macdonald

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All correct. And also symptomatic of the problem often revealed when commaitis strikes: The sentence is too complicated, too much dependency in clauses and conditional phrases. It probably should be rephrased into two sentences.
I'll repectfully disagree. The sentence, as it stands, is perfectly understandable and parses quite clealy. The fact that it can be seen as too complicated speaks more to an inadequacy in both teaching and learning the english language.
 

Tanya Egan Gibson

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The big red comma belongs in the first sentence for sure.

The second one doesn't need a comma before the "but"; however, it does need an "also" after the but. ("Not only" is usually followed by "but also" instead of just "but.")
 

scully931

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Just inserting Wizard of Oz names for example.

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

Does this change things?

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz and everyone in it, will cease to exist.


I know you can take out 'and everyone in it' which makes me think to put it inside commas. However, I'm wondering if the rule goes away because I used the word "and" - "Oz and."
 

Chase

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Does this change things?

If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz and everyone in it, will cease to exist. "

The tortured sentence aside, there's no reason for the comma after "it."
 
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maestrowork

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My head hurts. :)


If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz, along with everyone in it, will cease to exist.

--- the first comma is necessary. But the sentence reads really clunky. How about:


If Dorothy fails to prove she and the inhabitants of Oz are still worthy of the land, Oz will cease to exist, along with all its inhabitants.

---------


The stories he told Dorothy as a child hold not only the answers to the Oz's question, but also the very key to her survival.
 
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