I often see comma splices in mainstream publications, so often that it seems they are acceptable now. Today’s Wall Street Journal has one in the first letter to the editor:
“Intolerance shares the same characteristics as cancer, it will grow wildly when untreated.”
To me, it seems obvious that the comma should be a colon or a dash. A period would work, but not as well.
Other examples I’ve seen lately are even more clear cut. In those, the sentence is simply two declarative clauses connected with a comma when they should be two separate sentences. The clauses do not refer to one another.
So has something changed while I had my back turned? Are comma splices now just fine and dandy?
There’s always going to be some element of subjectivity about what is “acceptable”, but in my view, absolutely not. The example you gave is just jarringly wrong. I suspect the reason people write like that is that colons and semicolons tend to be more rarely seen than the ubiquitous comma, especially in informal writing, so maybe they feel it makes the writing seem too formal or stilted. But the result is still indisputably wrong. You’re quite correct that the example you gave calls for a colon. A weak argument could be made that a semicolon or em dash works, too, but using a comma in my opinion is just illiteracy.
I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ve found comma splices in books from major, mainstream publishers. My theory is that seeing them constantly in unedited writing on the internet (Facebook, blogs, YouTube comments, etc.) has desensitized people to them.
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We live in a time where media sources are in a balls out race to get stories printed. This whole “editing” step is being skipped for the most part. This example is pretty tame compared to some of the gaffs I’ve seen.
That’s “gaffes” . I agree that it is a combination of the internet making us accustomed to bad writing by amateurs (see also just about any Wikipedia article), and media sites being under pressure to get the story out, because there is so much competition now.
Newspapers pretty much make up their own style guide, and it sometimes favors concise brevity, rather than formal syntax.
I’m reminded of a colleague of mine who worked for a newspaper that replaced the “c” in Mc- names with an apostrophe, like M’Carthy or M’Gee. My friend’s name was McIntyre, and complained that “M’Intyre” in his byline robbed him of some part of his identity.
By the way, the newspaper in question (New Orleans Times Picayune), like many southern papers, had a policy of referring to a white woman as “Mrs Smith”, but a black woman as “the Jones woman”. Their husbands would be “Mr Smith” and “Jones”. This enabled them to indicate the unstated race of persons in news reports.
So, the answer to the OP is that newspapers can make all sorts of things acceptable, within the compass of journalism.
Are letters to the editor *fully *proofread and corrected, though? I have never assumed that they were. All of the “Opinion” sections I can recall seeing have a disclaimer stating that the newspaper has a right to do some editing (for brevity if nothing else), but I have seen a good deal of colloquialisms and poor grammar throughout the years.
As far as the rest of the newspaper articles: yes, I agree that overall proofreading seems to be rushed. I really skim the news these days and I still detect quite a few obvious errors.
Comma splices really annoy me, because proper use of a semi-colon is such a basic rule in English. We were taught/drilled in its function is the third grade, but it was already pretty ingrained in my head just from reading. (I remember which grade we were taught to use semi-colons, because that teacher was very fond of old-school sentence diagramming.)
That is fascinating! I wonder whether I would have picked up on that as a young reader. Do you know when the Times-Picayune stopped using that form of address? I’ll have to ask my husband if he ever saw that, since he grew up in NO.
Yes, they are. Or rather, they should be, especially at a paper with the stature of the WSJ. I’ve worked at newspapers and in publishing for a long time, and nothing was supposed to see print without thorough editing. Letters to the editor always needed a good edit.
Regarding the southern papers that had a code for noting the race of people, it also used to be common for newspapers (especially smaller hometown papers) to use a code for obituaries. I don’t remember all of it, but “died of a lingering illness” meant cancer,“died suddenly” meant a heart attack, “died peacefully” meant natural causes, and so on. Everyone pretty much knew what the phrases meant but it was a more genteel way, respectful approach.
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who would write: “Intolerance shares the same characteristics as cancer; it will grow wildly when untreated.”
Not, “Intolerance shares the same characteristics as cancer: it will grow wildly when untreated” as some posters up thread asserted.
Intolerance shares the same characteristics as cancer: it will grow wildly when untreated.
Colon, or semi-colon, that sentence still has problems. Since when is there a “shares…as” construction? It needs to be “Intolerance and cancer share a characteristic: they will grow wildly when untreated”; or “Intolerance shares a characteristic with cancer: they both grow wildly when untreated.” Or something.
All in all, I think it’s pretty clear the newspaper does not proofread op-ed letters. Maybe this is the policy; they publish them, warts and all. Some papers do, and it’s a fair policy, IMO.
I agree as well. I’m a legal secretary and spend a good portion of my working life making sure the commas, semicolons, dashes and stuff all go in the right place. I work for people who graduated from law school and passed the bar, but can’t write in proper business English for some reason. (Pet peeve: starting a sentence with And or But. Just don’t.)
It’s starting to feel like i’m the only one in the office who cares.
You and many others, but it doesn’t make it right. You’re not the only one by any means; [correct use of semicolon!] quite frankly, I probably would, too, in informal writing – or I might use the em dash as I just did. But it’s not strictly correct where a colon is called for, and it basically all comes down to how concerned one is with being correct at the expense of possibly sounding to your particular audience like an anal-retentive grammar freak. But in anything formal enough to be printed and published, I’d certainly go with the correct usage. The colon provides a break with the implication that a direct consequence of the statement is coming, while the semicolon just provides a generic break. So using a semicolon in the exact context for which a colon is intended is suboptimal and technically wrong. But using a comma is just complete ignorance.
. I agree that it is a combination of the internet making us accustomed to bad writing by amateurs (see also just about any Wikipedia article), and media sites being under pressure to get the story out, because there is so much competition now.