This will go into an e-mail I’m composing to express myself better to one of my siblings - no, it’s not a happy letter, as will be evident. That’s besides the point, here. I’ve shown it to a friend, who disputes a grammar point:
…'You don’t like my choices, but I can live with that."
Comma or no comma? Is it a style thing only, or is there some formal rule of usage involved?
This is almost more GQ than IMHO, but… not quite… ?
My understanding is that, since that’s a compound sentence, in which each part that you’re joining with the conjunction “but” has a subject and a verb, the comma should be there.
But that it’s one of those rules that you can break if there’s a good stylistic reason for doing so.
If you were speaking this out loud, would you pause slightly where the comma is?
IIRC, the general style rule is to include the comma if the two clauses joined by the conjunction are independent; that is, they can stand as a sentence on their own. In your example, that’s the case, so the comma should stay. In the following example you don’t use the comma since one of the clauses is dependent; it can’t stand as a sentence on its own:
You can go to the edge of town but no further.
I seem to recall learning that if the independent clauses are short, you don’t have to use a comma before the conjunction (but you can if you want to). For example:
Should I stay or should I go?
Not sure if the example in the OP counts as “short” or not.
And for further shades of meaning based on this rule, this:
You can go to the edge of town but not further.
. . . . to me indicates possibility (what can physically be done) but this:
You can go to the edge of town, but not further.
. . . . to me indicates a directive, or permission. (Nevermind that in the second example “can” should actually be “may.”) In the first example, the meaning of the second clause is clearly dependent and cannot stand on its own – the meaning is “but not further than that,” which can’t stand on its own. In the second example, the meaning is “but farther than that you may not go,” which can stand on its own. So the use of the comma is actually dictated by the meaning conveyed and not be the actual words, which are the same in both examples.
So yes to a comma in the OP’s example. The difference is between “I like all desserts, but pecan pie is my favorite,” and “I like all desserts but pecan pie.”
Further, in the OP, each clause has a separate subject and a separate verb. I would definitely use a comma in that case.