We've now covered
two deviations from convention during our Punctuation and
Professionalism segments. The most recent involve
skilled writers sometimes adding a comma before a coordinating
conjunction even though that conjunction is not connecting two
independent clauses. One of the examples we use
came from In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri. "I need someone with whom I can
struggle, and fail." I want to show you
another example, however, because it highlights an
additional factor that might affect whether you deviate
from the convention or not. The example comes from a
judicial opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts of the United States
Supreme Court. He's describing a
hypothetical situation. "Suppose Congress
enacted a statute providing that every
taxpayer who owns a house without energy efficient windows must
pay $50 to the IRS. The amount due is
adjusted based on factors such as taxable income
and joint filing status, and is paid along with the
taxpayer's income tax return." Focus on the second sentence. If we were only concerned
with following convention, we might remove the comma
in front of the second "and." The reason: what comes after the "and" can't stand
alone as a sentence. It's not an independent clause. But notice what would happen
if we did remove that comma. The separation between part
1 of the sentence and part 2 of the sentence could be
harder for readers to discern. The whole thing might
just sort of blend together. Adding the comma more clearly
delineates the division, especially given the presence of that other "and"
in the sentence. "The amount due is
adjusted based on factors such as taxable income
and joint filing status, (comma) and is paid along with the
taxpayer's income tax return." Without the comma,
some readers might mistakenly think that
the second "and" goes with the first to create one
of those polysyndeton moves we talked about in the first
part of this specialization. In future segments,
we'll talk about how punctuation affects
other punctuation. But I wanted to bring up this example from
Justice Roberts now because the second "and" shows that something else is true as well. Conjunctions affect
other conjunctions. Following the conventions
that govern conjunctions is a lot easier when you only have one conjunction
to deal with. As soon as you have more than
that, things get trickier. I obviously don't know if
Justice Roberts was thinking about any of this when he
decided to include that comma, nor do I know whether each of you think it was
the right choice. My main hope is that you keep sentences like this
in mind as you continue to navigate the
sometimes-complicated world of punctuation and
professionalism, as well as the not uncommon tension between clarity
and convention. As long-time editor,
Harold Evans suggest in Do I Make Myself Clear? Why Writing Well Matters, "We should respect
grammatical rules that make for clarity, but never be scared to reject
rules that seem not to."