# Is joining independent clauses with a comma EVER allowed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 24, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741 "2015-05-24T20:20:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/41 "2015-05-27T01:31:30Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Well, not a literal “pause” in the sense that one imagines the speaker taking a break to have a sip of water before continuing, but a comma is a separator that aids comprehension by separating distinct ideas. This is important in long sentences with independent clauses, as already noted, but it’s also important in preventing word run-ins, a plague of the comma-averse that tends to render a sentence ambiguous or even change its meaning entirely. As, for instance, in the following real headline: “Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog”. A headline that could surely have benefited from a couple of commas. Absolutely. No argument there. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/42 "2015-05-27T01:55:33Z")
Weird, it has a predefined definition of comma splice, yet improper to use. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/43 "2015-05-28T10:14:20Z")
I remember some guides saying that comma splices were allowable if the independent clauses were really short. I can’t remember the specific examples, but both clauses were like two or three words each and naturally connected with each other. Looking it up with Google, I see that “I came, I saw, I conquered.” is a common cited acceptable comma splice. I see some saying that the reason is not necessarily how short the clauses are, but the parallelism that makes them more poetic. Others treat it the way that people treat the occasionally acceptable sentence fragment–knowingly breaking the rules for effect. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2015, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/44 "2015-05-28T10:26:51Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > … It’s only when you get to three or more things that the comma becomes necessary. Hi, Opal. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/45 "2015-05-29T00:30:48Z")
Take a bath, brush your teeth, and put on your pajamas. Is that a good sentence? I’ve joined three independent clauses, only using “and” between the second and third. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/46 "2015-05-29T04:11:16Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > Is that a good sentence? Yes. It’s a list – a chronology of sequential actions. But a semicolon would be called for if introducing an independent clause incongruent with the list: Take a bath, brush your teeth, and put on your pajamas; it’s well past your bedtime. Take a bath, brush your teeth, and put on your pajamas; only then will I read you a story. But the story-reading could also become part of the chronology, separated from the list only with another conjunction: Take a bath, brush your teeth, and put on your pajamas, and then I will read you a story. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/47 "2015-05-29T05:38:33Z")
But why a semicolon, why not a full colon? _Take a bath, brush your teeth, and put on your pajamas: only then will I read you a story._ The last clause there is literally dependent on the preceding clauses (by dint of “only”), a colon would be a better fit. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/48 "2015-05-29T19:11:38Z")
Take a bath. Brush your teeth. Put on your pajamas. Take a bath; brush your teeth; put on your pajamas. Take a bath, brush your teeth, and put on your pajamas. It seems to me that all three of those are correctly punctuated. So here’s an example where you can actually use a comma instead of a semicolon because you used the conjunction “and” but you don’t have to use the “and” at every spot, just the last one. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/49 "2015-05-30T20:15:20Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > I don’t see how punctuation is included in [lexicology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicology) (though I believe in a few very rate occasions they intersect). This issue [has come up here before](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=393173). From a strictly linguistic point of view, punctuation is not part of grammar, but is about written conventions which sometimes derive from it. Some people use the term “grammar” in a very loose way to include anything involving language, and I get that. But this particular concern–the comma splice–is more like a typographical error: putting in the wrong symbol. The language is otherwise grammatical. If someone is speaking, you’re not going to “hear” comma splice. Punctuation affects grammatical interpretation and is therefore IMHO part and parcel of grammar. If you write software to do grammatical analysis of written language, the punctuation lexical elements are significant. Of course, in common terms, we often say “grammar and punctuation,” and it’s true that there is no punctuation in spoken language, so obviously punctuation is not a part of the grammar of spoken language. From a strictly linguistic point of view, punctuation is crucial to grammatical analysis, so I don’t think one can say “From a strictly linguistic point of view, punctuation is not part of grammar” and be particularly correct or illuminating. For example, when a sentence is incorrectly punctuated, it’s often not possible to tell (without knowing beforehand the intended meaning) whether the error is a punctuation error or the use of the wrong words (non-punctuational grammar error). Punctuation isn’t mere typography. It’s a system of rules for writing language that began to help disambiguate what might normally be obvious from vocal stress, but ended up being its own set of rules for written language. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741/50 "2015-05-30T20:50:19Z")
How about this? > [@](#): > > “Nobody knows how things will turn out, that’s why they go ahead and play the game, Moose.” _(Gennifer Choldenko, “Al Capone Does My Shirts”, toward the end of chapter 5)_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-joining-independent-clauses-with-a-comma-ever-allowed/720741.md?page=2)