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Synonyms – how to understand them

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Synonyms – definition

In a very general sense, synonyms are different words which have the same meaning.

Examples

Word Synonym

kingly royal

pavement sidewalk

youth youngster

strong powerful

Word	Synonym
kingly	royal
pavement	sidewalk
youth	youngster
strong	powerful

Use

Strictly speaking, such words are rarely [if ever] quite identical to each other.

There are bound to be semantic, stylistic, regional, or other differences between them.

It is often said that if two words do have exactly the same meaning, one of them is likely to disappear.

Moreover, two words might be synonymous in one statement, and different in another.

NB! Synonyms offer us variety in our expression.

Synonyms are usually referred to by linguists as ‘near synonyms’, because they argue that no two words mean exactly the same. If they did, one would probably disappear from use.

English is a language which has ‘borrowed’ from many varied sources during the course of its history. This has created a wide and heterogeneous lexicon. For example, terms which were originally French currently coexist with their Anglo-saxon equivalents:

French Anglo-Saxon

petite small

tour trip

chauffeur driver

aperitif drink

promenade front (as in sea-front)

escritoire desk

French	Anglo-Saxon
petite	small
tour	trip
chauffeur	driver
aperitif	drink
promenade	front (as in sea-front)
escritoire	desk

The French term usually carries a prestige value over that of the English equivalent, which is often seen as basic and even crass. This is because of the history of French dominance over the English as a result of the Norman Conquest.

During the period of French rule after 1066, a state of diglossia existed throughout the south of England. Diglossia means that two languages are used by one society, but applied to two discrete functions. French was used for matters of church and state, whereas English was used by the common people for personal and family discourse.

The legacy of this diglossia is that we have a multitude of synonyms or near-synonyms at our disposal.

However, it is usually preferable to state the same idea in a variety of styles, rather than to repeat one definitive term for one specific phenomenon.

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the king confesses to being a ‘foolish fond old man’. The use of two near synonyms has a poetic and dramatic effect, as one adjective has the effect of intensifying the other.

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Syntax – how to understand it

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Syntax – definition

Syntax is the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence.

It concerns both word order and agreement in the relationship between words.

Syntax is primarily concerned with structure of sentences.

Examples

The following statements follow normal English word order:

The cat sat on the mat.
My old brown leather suitcase.

The following statements do not follow normal English word order:

The cat on the mat sat.
My brown leather old suitcase.

Use

Word order is very important in English, because the language is no longer inflected. That is, individual words do not have endings to show which parts of speech they represent.

Changes to conventional synatx are often used to create dramatic, poetic, or comic effect.

For instance, poets and song lyricists often change syntactic order to create rhythmic effects:

“I’ll sing to him, each spring to him
And long for the day when I’ll cling to him,
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.”

[RICHARD ROGERS]

NB! “To boldly go …” is STAR TREK’s famous syntactic inversion [and split infinitive].

A normal sentence in English usually contains at least three elements: subject, verb, and object.

Subject Verb Object

The cat eats the goldfish

John likes football

Mary chose the wallpaper

Subject	Verb	Object
The cat	eats	the goldfish
John	likes	football
Mary	chose	the wallpaper

Every language has rules of syntax, and to the linguist the essential rules are descriptive. They are the rules which underpin the life of the language and which are extremely slow to change.

These are not to be confused with the presecriptive ‘rules’ of traditional grammar [For instance, ‘Never end a sentence with a preposition’].

An example of a descriptive rule of English syntax is that in the imperative in English, the verb takes the initial position in the sentence, usually directly before the noun which is the object.

Put those books on the table.
Take the lid off after half an hour.
Remove all packaging before heating the soup.
Isolate the switch in case of fault.

It is important to make a distinction between grammar and syntax, and to realise that syntax is a component of grammar.

The term ‘grammar’ refers to the whole structure of the language including the naming of its parts, its rules of tense, and its sound system. It is a comprehensive term.

Syntax only refers to the relationship between the grammatical components of language in use. In other words it is the nature, quality or type of relationship between terms in any given statement which is the province of syntax.

The construction of the passive voice is a syntactic issue, as it involves word order. The following statement is in the passive voice:

A woman was run over in central London today by a vehicle travelling at high speed.

If we transfer this to the active voice, we have:

A vehicle travelling at high speed ran over a woman in central London today.

The semantic content is similar in the two statements, but the emphasis is changed according to whether it is expressed as active or passive.

The difference between the two versions is dependent on the positioning of the subject and the object in the sentence. In the passive version, the object takes the initial position. This is a syntactic principle.

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Teacher’s Guide to Grammar

June 3, 2009 by Roy Johnson

teaching language and the national curriculum

The other day I overheard a young girl of around eight ask her mother “What’s a phoneme?” Not surprisingly, her mother didn’t even understand the question. And the girl added, “I think it’s part of a word” – which was not a bad shot. This made me realise just how firmly traditional English grammar was back in our national curriculum. And when I thought of the poor teachers having to implement this policy, my heart sank on their behalf. I think Deborah Cameron would understand and sympathise with this feeling, because this teacher’s guide to grammar is aimed specifically at existing and would-be classroom workers. They now have the unenviable task of introducing what is essentially the study of linguistics into the daily life of schoolchildren.

Cameron starts by dispelling some of the common misconceptions and myths about grammar, and making the important distinction between written and spoken English. Instead of looking at grammatical rules then giving examples, she works the other way round, examining the way language is actually used, then drawing some general lessons from it. First the way words are formed (morphology) then how sentences are built up via regular syntax and well organised phrases.

All the points she makes are illustrated by short modern examples drawn from the way people actually speak and write, and she offers some quite useful tables which I can easily imagine teachers using in their classes.

She delivers some interesting analyses of scientific writing, newspaper headlines, and children’s creative prose to illustrate the use of compression in writing by using noun phrases. The same is true of her treatment of verbs. Instead of dry grammatical definitions, we get a more useful account of the function of different verb forms and modality – making statements about different periods of time and various shades of possibility and probability.

She also offers careful analyses of real examples of student writing – not merely to point out grammatical errors, but to reveal the real structure of the language holding together the meaning underneath the surface. And many of these ‘mistakes’ are features of language which novelists and poets use deliberately for artistic effect.

The whole of the debate over Standard English and dialect/received pronunciation is put into refreshing historical context, as is the use of different registers (which interestingly enough are not a prescribed requirement of the national curriculum).

She demonstrates in a way which classroom teachers will find useful that non-standard speech can co-exist quite easily along with standard writing. And she concludes with an examination of the special circumstances surrounding English as an additional language (EAL).

Anyone faced with the need to understand grammar or explain it to others will find this book useful. It’s good that linguists of Deborah Cameron’s stature are putting their intellectual shoulder to the wheel in helping the classroom teacher.

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Deborah Cameron, The Teacher’s Guide to Grammar, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.163, ISBN: 0199214488

Tenses – how to understand them

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Tenses – definition

The term tenses refers to the temporal aspect of verbs in use.

There are many tenses in English to express past, present, and future.

Examples

PRESENT tense

The child brings joy into their lives.
Paris is the capital of France.
Paul is looking for the cat.

PAST tense

It was a wonderful day for all of us.
Judith had left the key on the table.
Fred had been about to leave when the telephone rang

FUTURE tense

The wedding will be a splendid affair.
I am going to stop smoking.
Stephen goes to college next week.

Use

All languages have tenses. It is interesting that English is the only modern European language which has no future tense as a designated term.

The future tense in English is expressed by using other tenses or by the semantic context.

In the example ‘Stephen goes to college next week’ the term ‘Stephen goes’ is present tense. It is the context in this case – created by the phrase ‘next week’ – which tells us that we are being informed about the future.

NB! Hold on to your hat! This topic can become quite complex.

There are many tenses in the English Language. They are all varieties of past, present, and future.

The following examples have all been placed in a context so that the complexity and the range of English tenses can be appreciated.

The names for tenses vary from one grammar text book to the next. Don’t worry about the exact name. It is more important to

assess whether the statement is in past, present, or future
look for any auxiliary verbs (‘to have’ and ‘to be’) used to construct the tense

Varieties of the past tense

I ran (so that I could be here at this moment)

I have run (all the way here)

I was running (when I fell over a few minutes ago)

I had run (so that I could arrive on time yesterday)

I have been running (and that’s why I’m out of breath now)

I had been running (and that’s why I fell over yesterday)

I used to run (but I have walked for some time now)

Varieties of the present tense

I run (to work every morining)

I am running (and that’s why I’m out of breath)

I have been running (for fifteen minutes, and I’m still running)

Varieties of the future tense

I shall run (so that I’ll arrive on time)

I will run (so don’t try to stop me)

I shall be running (to work for the foreeeable future to keep fit)

I shall have run (twelve miles by tomorrow morning)

I shall have been running (to work each morning for two weeks by next Friday)

I run (tomorrow because that’s the day of the race)

In some instances of these future varieties ‘shall’ and ‘will’ are auxiliaries deriving from the Old English ‘to wish’ or ‘to want’.

In order to assess whether an action or a state of existence is expressed in the past, present or future tense, it is important to have an idea of a fixed point in time from which the action or state is valued.

For example ‘I shall have been running’ implies a point in the future from which the past of that time is being viewed.

“I run into the house and there’s a masked gunman waiting to rob me!” looks like the simple present, but in fact it refers to an event in the past. Technicallly this is known as the vivid present and is mainly used in speech to add a sense of drama to an account of an exciting event.

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The Art of Punctuation

July 4, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how to use common marks of punctuation

Noah Lukeman is a writers’ agent with a lot of top class clients, so maybe he knows whereof he speaks on this issue. He is concerned with the business of clarifying your writing by using punctuation in an efficient manner. The unique selling point in The Art of Punctuation is that there are no grammar lessons and no attempt to bore the reader with rules and conventions. Instead, he seeks to inform by showing examples of successful use by well-known authors.

And his exposition is aimed at creative writers, who I suspect will enjoy this approach. Most of his argument is posed in the form of metaphors (commas: the speed bumps of punctuation) and when he analyses examples, he tries to show how professional writers achieve their special effects. He starts off with an examination of what he rightly identifies as the ultimate basic set, which he calls ‘the triumvirate’ – the comma, semicolon, and the full stop. It’s amazing how much there is to say about them.

You might disagree with some of his arguments. I don’t think it’s a good idea to discuss the dash and brackets at the same time, as if they perform the same function, But on the whole readers unsure about punctuation are likely to profit from what he has to say.

He illustrates his guidance with brief quotes from famous writers – all of which I think will make readers more sensitive to the subtleties of punctuation.

No iron can stab the heart with such force as a full stop put just at the right place. — Isaac Babel

I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th century writer were ‘I should have used fewer semicolons’. — Lynn Truss

By its very form (;) the semicolon betrays its dual nature; it is both period and comma. — Eric Partridge

He’s quite good on quotation marks, and I think anyone writing character-based work would do well to look closely at the variety of different ways dialogue can be presented in prose fiction.

The same is true of the paragraph. This in my experience is a much neglected aspect of giving structure to writing. I spend a lot of time teaching my students how to identify a topic, how to introduce it, discuss it, and conclude in such a way that brings the topic to a close yet leads on to the next.

This is a non-technical and non-judgemental approach to the subject of how to give pace, flow, and cadence to your writing. It’s also full of insider tips which he drops in from time to time. For instance, he reveals that publishers’ readers will know on the first page of your submitted work if its punctuation is amateurish or professional. And they will know by page five if it goes in the bin or not. So be warned. Get it right.

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Noah Lukeman, The Art of Punctuation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.208, ISBN 0199210780

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The Classic Guide to Better Writing

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

guide to writing skills basics – plus grammar and spelling

This is a book with three titles. The Classic Guide to Better Writing was originally The Way to Write, and it has also been issued by Warner books as The New Guide to Better Writing. What does this mean? Well, my guess is that it indicates a compilation of sound advice which has been successfully marketed in various guises. As the blurb claims, “The book that has taught millions the art of writing well”. You also get the benefit of many revisions and new editions in its lifetime.

Flesch and Lass are emphatic planners. They start off with what they claim as the three essential chapters – the need to plan, how to generate ideas, and how to put these ideas into some order. There’s a reassuring tone, and they cover many different kinds of writing. They even discuss the common mistakes and distractions which prevent people from writing well. I think this is what has made this book a best-seller: they keep the needs of their readers in mind.

The first part of the book discusses the construction of paragraphs; linking ideas and statements; audience and tone; clauses, phrases, and sentence construction; brevity, clarity, and avoiding ambiguity. Their advice is academically based, but chapters on making your writing more direct, interesting, and even amusing will appeal to general readers and those with a penchant for creative writing. However, they issue a warning that “This book won’t make you into another Shakespeare…But it will, we hope, teach you to write simply, clearly, correctly”

Part two tackles basic grammatical problems – double negatives; agreement of verb and subject; incomplete sentences; commonly confused words (affect/effect, imply/infer, lie/lay) spelling; quotations; awkward plurals (Mrs, court-martial, zero) and capitalization.

They do take the traditional [and perhaps outdated] view that you need to know the grammatical terminology for effects which most people use instinctively (‘relative pronouns’, ‘object of a preposition’) but fortunately every topic is illustrated with good examples, and anyone with the discipline to work through their exercises would give themselves a thorough grounding in the fundamentals.

Like many other classic guides, you get the advantage of a low price, because the publishers can afford to be generous, having made their money with earlier printings of a best-seller. This is a good-value manual on the principles of clear writing. Make sure you get the latest, 50th anniversary edition.

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Rudolph Flesch and A.H.Lass, A Classic Guide to Better Writing, New York: Harper, 1966, pp.288, ISBN 0062730487

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The Fight for English

June 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how language pundits ate, shot, and left

David Crystal is a prolific writer on the subject of English language and the way it is used. His output ranges from scholarly works of reference such as The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, to popular studies of modern usage such as his recent Words, Words, Words which tries to keep track of concepts of language. This latest book The Fight for English is his defence of descriptive grammar. In a sense it’s his riposte to the very popular work by Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves which knocked Harry Potter off the best-seller lists two or three years ago.

She was arguing for an adherence to traditional notions of grammar and correctness. Crystal is here saying that language changes all the time and that there is nothing you can do about it. What he offers is a historical tour through what has been written about the English language. This tour takes him from AElfric in 1000 AD to the present. Our language started with a cultural mix of Latin, English, and French (with English very much at the bottom of the prestige table) but all the time it was absorbing an enormous number of loan words. (This is why the lexicon in English is bigger than other languages – and why there are so many irregularities of spelling and grammar.)

The advent of printing began the process of standardisation – though it was hampered at first by lots of regional variations. Then early attempts at spelling reform were thwarted by lack of agreement between competing suggestions.

The first textbooks on grammar began to appear in the late sixteenth century and were followed by attempts to ‘regulate’ language via institutions such as the Royal Society. These too were unsuccessful – just as those of the Academie Francaise continue to be today.

Crystal has a high regard for Dr Johnson, compiler of the first really authoritative dictionary in English – but as he points out, even Johnson realised, after his monumental efforts to pin down the spelling and meaning of words, that language changes:

This is a lesson everyone who studies language eventually learns. You cannot stop language change. You may not like it; you may regret the arrival of new forms and the passing of old ones; but there is not the slightest thing you can do about it.

He makes what can be a complex issue easy to understand by breaking his argument down into separate short chapters – Standards, Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling – and so on. And he presents the whole development of English as a constant flux, with tensions between linguistic pedants and actual popular usage. It’s a process which he sees as self-correcting:

Languages seem to operate with an unconsciously held system of checks and balances. If a group of people go wildly off in one linguistic direction, using a crate of new words, eventually—if they want to continue as part of society and be understood by its other members—they will be pulled back, and they will drop some of their neologisms. At the same time, a few of the new words will have been picked upon by the rest of the community. And so a language grows.

He mounts a vigorous attack on prescriptive grammarians, then the same on the pronunciation police – demolishing all their pontifications with the same argument – that the ‘standards’ which they claim to be absolute are often either recent innovations, or are already out of date.

The latter part of the book is an assessment of the current state of English language teaching in schools, and an explanation of why he finds hope in the National Curriculum, which he helped to frame. This is a user-friendly book, written in a plain-speaking style, and his arguments are ultimately convincing. But he’s not as funny as Lynne Truss.

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David Crystal, The Fight for English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.256, ISBN: 0199229694

The Little Brown Handbook

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

encyclopaedia of writing skills + exercises and examples

Don’t be misled by the title. This book is neither little nor brown. It’s a reference guide to all aspects of academic writing that its authors say will “answer almost any question you have about writing…find out how to get ideas, punctuate quotations, search the Internet, cite sources, or write a resumé”. That’s a bold claim, but in almost one thousand densely packed pages, I think they live up to it. The Little, Brown Handbook has become a classic style guide over its many editions.

Fowler and Aaron start with the standard academic essay and its requirements, then cover grammar, punctuation, spelling, sentence construction, vocabulary, and research. However, these simple headings belie the richness of the material they provide. The latest edition takes full account of computers and the Internet for writing and research, advice for users of English as a second language, plus the latest (1998) MLA guidelines.

It actually starts with a chapter on critical thinking and reading, then puts its emphasis on writing as a process of development, drafting, and revising. These sections act as a thorough course in essay-writing techniques, from formulating ideas to revising, editing, and proofreading the final drafts.

It’s full of handy hints. They suggest for instance the use of two-column reading journal – left column for summaries, and an empty right column which will “beckon you to respond” with critical notes. Every point is illustrated with examples, and there are exercises at the end of each chapter [though you have to work out the answers for yourself].

This is a book that could be used for reference [“Where does the comma go?”] as a teaching aid [“Work through exercises 4 and 5”] or as a source of self-instruction [Outliners and how to use them in generating structure]. For students, there are some very useful examples of revised drafts, tips on essay introductions and conclusions, the generation and substantiation of arguments, and recognising fallacies of argument. For tutors, they make suggestions for coursework.

The section on sentence construction is also an introduction to the basics of English Language and grammar. Like many other guides of its kind, it assumes that readers need to know about ‘prepositional phrases’, ‘subordinating conjunctions’, and ‘restrictive apositives’. Every single case and difficulty is listed, to the point of exhaustive completeness. The problem is that it might not be easy for students to locate the case they require from index entries which read ‘Commas – with conjunctive adverbs and transitional expressions’.

After sections on grammatical correctness, it goes on to questions of taste, style, and conventions in language-use. This embraces choosing the appropriate word, being concise, eliminating dross, and extending one’s vocabulary. The vexed issue of spelling is explained with all its common exceptions, and the latter part of the book discusses meta-issues such as planning a research project, using the Internet to good effect, evaluating sources, the traditional skills of taking notes, and the latest MLA conventions on text citation. At the end, there are sections on writing under exam conditions, business writing (with plenty of examples) and appendices on page layout, document design, oral presentations, and writing with a computer. These latter sections will be of interest to more advanced users.

For students, there are some very useful examples of sample research papers and an examination essay – not only the complete text, but a running commentary on the right-hand page explaining points of detail and commenting on structure, format, citation, and the handling of secondary sources. They even include revised drafts and notes made in the composition of the papers. This is an excellent resource, and just about the closest you could get to live tuition in the subtleties of academic writing.

This may be a book that will appeal more to course tutors, instructors, and librarians than to the students it is written for, but for anyone concerned with the development of writing skills Fowler and Aaron cover all (and I mean all) the details. It might be an expensive investment, but if you’re teaching writing skills it’s the most comprehensive resource I’ve ever come across, and if you’re just starting your academic career, it will see you through to post-graduate studies and beyond.

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H. Ramsey Fowler and Jane E. Aaron, Little, Brown Handbook, (7th edn) New York: Longman, 11th edition 2009, pp.992, ISBN: 0205734960

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The Myth of Mars and Venus

June 8, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Do men and women really speak different languages?

A notion has sprung up in the last decade or so that men and women use language differently – even that they are psychologically and genetically hard-wired for language in different ways. This notion has solidified around the expression ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, which was the title of a book which became a best-seller in 1992. This current book is Deborah Cameron’s exploration of gender and language from the perspective of an academic specialist in the field.

Not to hold back on her conclusions unnecessarily, she points out that the notion is complete rubbish. There isn’t any proof or justification for it in any of the published research. There are only vague ‘surveys’ and pop-journalism which make claims which evaporate under the scrutiny of rigorous examination. So the question immediately arises – why is this myth so widespread and enthusiastically accepted as a universal truth? Why do people continue to believe it, when it’s not true?

The answer to that question is that like most myths, it is comforting. It panders to prejudice and reinforces stereotypes of both men and women. And it spares us the difficulty of looking more closely at what we think we are observing.

She looks at all sorts of research into the relationship between language and gender, and it all points to the same conclusions – that for any investigation, the context needs to be given; that larger samples need to be taken; that general conclusions about choice of vocabulary, volume of speech, interrupting, and verbal dominance cannot be made on grounds of gender without many other factors being taken into account.

Rather than speaking differently simply because they are women and men, women and men may differ in their patterns of language-use because they are engaged in different activities or are playing different conversational roles.

What one person thinks of as a supportive tag question (isn’t it?) is another person’s facilitation. It all points to the need for more scientific rigour before making rash claims.

The most serious argument she makes is that giving credence to these myths can be a dangerous reinforcement of prejudice against both men and women which when translated into social action can result in discrimination, persecution on gender lines, and even social exclusion.

She also backs up her claims with excursions into sociology and ethnography, illustrating the point that behaviour which is often seen as essentially gendered is just a different way of responding because of a particular role being enacted – irrespective of gender.

She actually takes this further, into areas which seem to border on the philosophy of human existence in a way which reminded me very much of the work of Stephen Pinker. The ‘explanations’ of language/gender difference which stem from Stone Age evolutionary psychology are examined under her clear, realistic gaze and shown to be wanting.

This is only a short book, but there are thought-provoking ideas on just about every page.

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Deborah Cameron, The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp.208, ISBN: 0199550999

The Oxford Comma

September 19, 2011 by Roy Johnson

also known as the serial or the Harvard comma

What is the Oxford Comma?

The Oxford comma is a name given to the mark of punctuation used before the final and when listing a series of items. Here’s an example.

There were a number of items on the table: a handbag, a penknife, a clock, and a walking stick.

The Oxford comma is the comma which comes before the last item – , and a walking stick.

The Oxford comma gets its name from the fact that is has traditionally been recommended by the Oxford University Press in its instructions to typesetters and printers. The latest OUP style guide, New Hart’s Rules continues to urge its use. It’s also known as the ‘serial comma’, or the ‘Harvard comma’ in the USA.

When a number of items are listed in a sentence, the normal way to present them is separated by commas. However, there are two schools of thought about the need for the final comma.

The sentence above would still be understandable if it were written as follows:

There were a number of items on the table: a handbag, a penknife, a clock and a walking stick.

Some people argue that the final comma can be omitted in many cases because it breaks up the natural flow of the sentence. That’s true in this example – but only because all the items are quite distinct and carry equal weight. The comma in this case can be used or omitted. However, in other cases ambiguity can easily arise if the comma is omitted.

This is particularly true if the list includes things of a different kind.

cider, real ales, meat and vegetable pies and sandwiches

This example could mean that in addition to cider and real ales, the list includes meat, plus vegetable pies, plus sandwiches. But is more likely to mean meat and vegetable pies, plus sandwiches.

A famous instance of the same thing is that attributed to the American science fiction writer Teresa Hayden, who dedicated one of her books in the following way.

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

What she meant of course was ‘I am dedicating this book to my parents, to Ayn Rand, and to God’. Even that would have been pretentious enough, but the way she has expressed it, without the Oxford comma, the implication is that her parents were Ayn Rand and God.

A comma after the final and is not required when the last two items are a single expression or a ‘pair’

The menu offered us several options: roast beef, pasta bake, lamb chops, or fish and chips.

The comma should also be used if there is a grammatical extension to the list, as in this example.

brass, copper, bronze, and other non-ferrous materials

The need for the final comma become more acute when the list is a series of clauses in a single sentence.

The main points to consider are whether the competitors are skilful enough to complete the course, whether they have trained sufficiently for such a long race, and whether they are used to running at high altitude in these temperatures.

The commas in this example help the reader to understand a long statement made up of complex parts.

When the clauses in a complex sentence are themselves puctuated by commas, the separate clauses should be punctuated using the semicolon.

The outbreak of war was caused by a number of factors: Hitler’s determination to occupy Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland; the longstanding desire of Chamberlain and Daladier, as opposed to Winston Churchill, to avoid war at all costs; and Stalin’s cynical, last-minute pact with Hitler.

Even though the comma before the final ‘and’ is sometimes not required, it’s worth noting that it is never wrong. This is a good argument for always using it – to remove any possible ambiguity.

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free pages from our English Language software program

Synonyms – definition

Examples

Use

free pages from our English Language software program

Syntax – definition

Examples

Use

teaching language and the national curriculum

free pages from our English Language software program

Tenses – definition

Examples

Use

how to use common marks of punctuation

guide to writing skills basics – plus grammar and spelling

how language pundits ate, shot, and left

encyclopaedia of writing skills + exercises and examples

Do men and women really speak different languages?

also known as the serial or the Harvard comma

What is the Oxford Comma?

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