Grammatical Gripes

[alisa]

I was always taught that you never put a comma in front of 'and' as it is a joining word, or begin a sentence with and, but or so, yet this practice has been on the increase for some years now. I do have other grammatical gripes but would be interested to hear other people's nominations.

[Jabba]

I have a grammar textbook from the 1950s (back when they used to teach grammar), and that lists situations where you use a comma before "and". Perhaps the problem was with your teachers.

[dml54]

My pet gripe is the use of ' when not required. The main culprits seem to be shops who seem to delight in putting ' where it shouln't be eg Sale's, bar's when they are referring to more than one sale or bar, not something belonging to the sale or bar.

[littleoldme]

Top of my hitlist are people who say or write "I could/should/might OF..." instead of "I could/should/might HAVE...". Grrr. Then there are people who spell 'lose' or 'losing' with two 'o's - OK, that's spelling rather than grammar, but it seems to be reaching epidemic proportions.

[FP]

I was definitely taught that there are situations where a comma is used before 'and' and I was taught grammar in the 50's.

[FP]

My biggest gripes: 'At this moment in time' instead of 'Now' and 'Can I help you' instead of 'May I help you'

[Sylday]

Hope you don't mind me saying so, but yours is rather a petty gripe. As regards the comma before "and", I wouldn't use it in a simple list of one-word things, but would certainly where the "and" starts a whole new clause - eg "I went to Brighton to see Uncle Bert, and then to Hove to see Aunt Lil." On the old chestnut of not starting a sentence with "And" or "But", I would recommend you look through almost any book by Dickens. It won't be long before you find not only sentences, but paragraphs, and occasionally whole chapters, beginning with one or other of these conjunctions. And [sorry!] if it was good enough for him, it ought to be good enough for us.

[zgma]

My gripes:

"Me" in the subject, as in "You and me are going to eat dinner now.

Incorrect use of apostrophe - "The bird got out of it's cage" or "I did'nt know."

Using the wrong verb form after a complicated subject, like "The Church of All Saints are having a rummage sale today" (instead of "is" - are the saints having the rummage sale, or the church?). I can't think of others right now, but I'm sure I will as soon as I click the button.

[Quizmonster]

I agree completely with Sylday. There are many situations in which 'comma/and' is a perfectly acceptable structure. Re opening sentences with conjunctions, not only Dickens but the finest writers of English for centuries have been doing precisely that. Have a look at the King James' Bible, Chaucer and Shakespeare, for example. I'm afraid your teachers quite misunderstood English usage. Churchill famously refused to countenance this sort of nonsense. On being told he should never end a sentence by using a preposition, he replied: "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put."

[SteveD]

It's possible to create a gramatically correct and intelligible sentence using the word "and" 5 times consecutively: The Landlord of the Pig and Whistle pub had the sign repainted but he complained to the signwriter that it wasn't how he wanted it. What's wrong with it?", said the signwriter? "There's too much space between the pig and and and and and Whistle", said the landlord.

[SteveD]

Sorry about the extra "?" - Oh for an edit function!

[Quizmonster]

To make your sentence truly intelligible, Steve, you need some additional quote-marks/single inverted commas, as follows: "There's too much space between the 'Pig' and 'and' and 'and' and 'Whistle'," said the landlord.

[splodger]

Maybe it's worth buying Lynne Truss's excellent book � 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'. It has all these examples and is also quite amusing

[Hgrove]

I seem to remember that in the L. Truss's book, the comma before the conjunction was called an Oxford comma.

[bernardo]

as I understand it, the rule about not putting a comma before "and" is only a simplified version which is taught to young children, to prevent them using it excessivelY. similarly, the rule about not starting a sentence with "and" is to prevent the insertion of a full-stop between clauses which should be in the same sentence, but which children might list as separate sentenceS. it is only later that one learns the greater subtleties of language usage, and can then do it correctly in the right contexT.

by the way, i agree with all the points of pedantry listed abovE. especially the one about the apostrophE.

[SteveD]

Quizmonster, I was considering putting the quotation marks in, but I thought that some bright spark would say that the words were not really consecutive. You can't win 'em all!

[alisa]

While there may be some points made in the replies I still think that commas are too often used unnecessarily in sentences with 'and', especially in very short sentences. Also I have read Dickens, Shakespeare and Chaucer, but language has changed much since then, especially Chaucer's day! I fully accept that language has to change and adapt, though please let us not take on too many Americanisms, such ugly use of the English language. I said that I have other gripes, petty as some of you may think, but that is what is good about sites like this. Words such as 'none', meaning no-one, is often used in conjuction with a plural such as 'are'or 'have' when it is singular and should be 'is' or 'has'. Also the use of words like 'quicker' when the person really means 'more quickly'. Sorry folks but petty it may be but I may as well get annoyed by small things as well as bigger things too!

[Bohne]

I learned that there's a comma in front of 'and' if it's a list of more than two thing. I like apples, pears, and bananas. But I like apples and bananas.

[NoGood Boyo]

Move the comma up a couple of millimetres and you enter the realms of cockney-speak, as in: "a bird in the 'and is worth two in the bush". (a-propos of nothing at all)

[zgma]

I thought of another one... misuse of commas. Example: You should bring, a pencil, your notebook, and a folder. It's that first one that drives me nuts - why do people do that?

[zgma]

(I wrote that and then remembered that alisa also has a comma complaint - this is a different comma complaint. I get bothered when people use commas in a way that is unambiguously wrong.)