Confession: I am obsessed with punctuation. I adore it. I
agonize over it. I have had a favorite punctuation mark since I was fourteen
years old. (The semicolon. I love the semicolon like I love my dog.) And my
favorite thing about punctuation is that a single, tiny mark can completely
change the meaning of an entire sentence.
Not all punctuation is this
important, of course. In many cases a choice in punctuation isn’t a big deal.
For example, I could have put a comma after “in many cases,” since those three
words form an introductory adverbial phrase.* But I didn’t, because it’s
optional and I didn’t want the pause.
But that last sentence—take a careful look—brings me to a
punctuation question that is capable of sending me into raptures. This is the
question of whether or not to put a comma before a “because” clause that
follows a negative statement.**
In other words, which of these sentences is punctuated
correctly?
I
didn’t go to the dance, because my suit was yellow.
I didn’t go to the dance because my
suit was yellow.
Trick question! The answer is, it depends on whether or not
this person attended the dance. The first one implies that they didn’t.*** The
second implies that they did.
When my Basic Editing Skills professor went over this
question, I was baffled. It took me the full hour to catch on. So let me
explain. The first one is fairly straightforward. This person didn’t go to the
dance, and the reason they didn’t go was that they only have one suit and it is
yellow, and for some reason that is a problem. Psshh. You would have rocked it,
dude. Get over yourself.
The second sentence implies that this person did attend the
dance, but that they did so not because their suit was yellow, but rather for
some unknown reason, like that they wanted to show off their new neon dreads.
Hopefully, for the sake of clarity, the person who writes the second sentence
follows up immediately with a clarifying sentence:
I didn’t go to the dance because my
suit was yellow. I went because I wanted to show off my new neon dreads.
See the difference? And it all hinges on that one little
comma. How cool is that?? This is me in
raptures over punctuation, people.
Of course, it would be clearer, in the second case, for the
author to retool the sentence so that the negative falls in the second half
rather than being stuck to the verb, but honestly, who’s going to write
I went to the dance, not because my
suit was yellow, but because I wanted to show off my new neon dreads.
Um, no one. Fine, maybe John F. Kennedy.
So the comma picks up the slack, for the win. You’re
awesome, comma. Thanks for being a bro.
Do you have any punctuation questions that have been bugging
you? Ask me in the comments—I’ll comment back if it’s a simple fix or do a post
if it requires more depth (or is too awesome not to post about).
*Chicago (16th ed) 6.36, “Commas with
introductory adverbial phrases.”
** Chicago (16th ed.) 6.31, “Comma following main
clause.”
***I’m a fan of using “they” as a generic singular pronoun,
but I understand if this hurts your soul, and I apologize. I thought about
using “he” here, but I have a female friend who would totally rock a yellow
suit. Yes, Bridey, I’m talking about you.
