Oh, the Splices You’ll See!

I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it? – Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies

In a previous post I explained what comma splices are, and how and when to avoid them. Now I’d like to share a few more examples of their appearance in edited text (they are spliced into this post), and to discuss some of the advice and commentary on their use.

I had worn the wrong shoes, they had heels. – Moy McCrory, The Wrong Vocation

The blue, igloo-roof over the rock went away to a vast distance, the visible world expanded with a leap. – William Golding, Pincher Martin

Some people describe comma splices as an error, a horror, a nightmare, an insult — something terrible, to be dreaded and denounced. We are urged to spurn them, to expunge them swiftly and severely as though they were insidious “germs” in our otherwise unsullied text. Even when they are acknowledged to be occasionally acceptable, we are advised to avoid them to be on the safe side. “[O]nly do it if you’re famous,” Lynne Truss suggests. Leave it to the experts.

This kind of advice can be helpful to learners, or writers who want a quick yes–no answer. But it also tends to be simplistic and misleading, failing to reflect the subtlety and complexity with which skilled writers consciously use comma splices. Moreover, when authorities dismiss certain techniques out of hand without mentioning the breadth of their usage in various stylistic and historical contexts, they can perpetuate fear of making mistakes and ignorance of how language works.

Apes have flat feet, we have sprung arches. – Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines

Don’t get excited and rush around accusing people of stealing your Corona, just relax. – James Thurber, The Pleasure Cruise, and How to Survive It

My throat is dry, I can hardly swallow. – James Brown, The L.A. Diaries

There’s no clearer indication of this intolerance than the fact that comma splices are also known as comma errors, comma faults, and comma blunders. Yet they were not always considered ungrammatical; this is a relatively recent development. Current convention holds that they are inappropriate for many formal contexts, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Robert Burchfield, in The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, comments that “wide variation can be seen in the work of many contemporary writers and, even more so, in that of earlier centuries. . . . this habit of writing comma-joined sentences is not uncommon in both older and present-day fiction.” Non-fiction, too:

We saw Bob’s cousins Denny and Donny, they live outside Las Vegas where they race cars on weekends. – Garrison Keillor

A self can contain or be contained by something that is either less or more than a self, it can never contain or be contained by a self. – Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

Morality is a sickness peculiar to humans, the good life is a refinement of the virtues of animals. – John Gray, Straw Dogs

The variations are infinite, the formula remains the same. – Arthur Koestler, Janus.

Bryan Garner, in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, summarises as follows: “Most usage authorities accept comma splices when (1) the clauses are short and closely related, (2) there is no danger of a miscue, and (3) the context is informal.” I don’t have as many usage books as Mr Garner, but I’ll quote from a few that are close at hand.

The Fowler brothers, masters of the blunt put-down, write that “among the signs that more particularly betray the uneducated writer is inability to see when a comma is not a sufficient stop” (The King’s English). Despite this forbidding survey, they note that it is “roughly true that grammatically independent sentences should be parted by at least a semicolon; but […] there are very large exceptions to this”.

The next day, several commanders came to Ender or sent soldiers to tell him not to worry, most of them thought the extra practice sessions were a good idea, he should keep it up. – Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

He must grow, I must disappear. – Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East

The causes don’t matter, the enemy can be anybody. – Anthony Burgess, 1985

It was dark black water, secret, and the air was filled with murmurings and rustlings, it was as if they were walking into another world that had been kept secret from everyone and now they had found it.– Daphne Du Maurier, The Pool

One of the Fowlers’ natural heirs, Ernest Gowers, took a hard line on comma splices. In The Complete Plain Words, he described as “incorrect” the use of commas “between two independent sentences not linked by a conjunction” — except when there are more than two independent sentences, and a conjunction links the last two, e.g. “Dogs bark, sheep bleat, and cows moo” (cf. asyndeton).

Gowers’s book was intended to improve official English, so his guidance need not be taken to apply across the board. Poets can relax: comma use owes more to context and personal taste than the stricter grammarians might have us believe. Even The Elements of Style allows for exceptions, albeit stingily: “If the clauses are very short, and are alike in form, a comma is usually permissible.”

People with ASD can certainly become angry and upset, they are not robots. – Daniel Levitin, This Is Your Brain On Music

But she couldn’t go to stay with them for the first time in this predicament, it would be ridiculous. – Maeve Binchy, Shepherd’s Bush

“Your reason is on safe ground, all the elements of the tonal are on its side.” – Carlos Casteneda, Tales of Power

The marines were elated that the amateur smut had made it past the censors, it was another coup! – Anthony Swofford, Jarhead

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English tells us that “edited English almost never lets commas splices through, so we seldom see them in print”, but that “in fiction, poetry, and other imaginative literary forms you may occasionally encounter comma faults used deliberately to create special effects such as informality or another mood”. Italics are the author’s own: note the use of the prejudicial term “comma fault”.

The more descriptivist Pocket Guide to English Usage from Merriam-Webster refers to comma splices as “fairly common in casual and unedited prose”. Some books, such as the next two quoted, positively teem with comma splices:

They were nothing like the gulls and terns, their black-and-white had a special air, they went a little beyond being birds. – Russell Hoban, Turtle Diary

Claire’s tears had stopped but stood unwiped, she seemed not to have noticed them. – John Banville, The Sea

I know how it is with him, that’s why I never bother saying much. – Leonora Brito, Body and Soul

He saw no individuals, he was conscious of a froth of pink faces, of waving arms and garments, he felt the occult influence of a vast crowd pouring over him, buoying him up. – H. G. Wells, When the Sleeper Wakes

Far from being a literary evil, then, comma splices are often fine, but they create a noticeably casual effect that is widely considered ill-suited to contexts such as essays, reports, and business writing. They are seldom seen in news reporting except for rare appearances in dialogue, where they can serve to convey an informal speaking tone:

“There are no niceties in Klingon, I think that’s why a lot of people like it, it’s very straightforward.” – BBC News.

“The wireless-transmission efficiency is never better than a copper wire, that is not possible” – Wall Street Journal (via Literary Legs)

“It’s wonderful news to hear of a resighting of this animal, where it’s heading is the burning question” – BBC, Earth News.

Or removed altogether, leaving run-on sentences that lend a breathless, stream-of-consciousness effect:

“Usually fish are in the water now they are falling out of the sky what if anything bigger falls out of the sky next?” – The Telegraph (via The Engine Room)

[Post title is a reference to this wonderful book.]

* * *

Updates: John E. McIntyre has added his thoughts on comma splices at his blog You Don’t Say. Mr McIntyre is a self-described (and thoroughly sensible) moderate prescriptivist with considerable editing experience, so his insights are most welcome.

Lane Greene revisits the subject at the Economist‘s language blog, Johnson. He has sworn off splices since his English teacher “marked down any paper with even a single comma splice by two letter grades”, and he concludes that it’s “probably not worth the readers it will irritate”. I disagree, but his point is well made.

I’ve spliced in a few more comma splices, and I’m probably not finished with this. More below:

Miss Doreen Valvona was a good reader, she had the best eyes in the ward. – Muriel Spark, Memento Mori

I washed this by hand, it looks like new. – Alice Munro, The Peace of Utrecht

But it is already obvious that one cannot study “the impassivity” of Keaton’s face by itself, one thing leads to another, the face leads to action and action leads to the body. – J.-P. Lebel, Buster Keaton

He told me it was my friend Koichiro, he was going to be at Galerie Coupe Chou in Shinjuku on Tuesday at eight with some friends, I should come by if I had time. – Barry Eisler, Rain Fall

His face is not angry, it does not have any expression. – Paul Murray, Skippy Dies

He whined, sulked, was sick, demanded his grandmother, bit Lisa’s finger, disturbed other travellers with his screams. – D. M. Thomas, The White Hotel

Income taxes were cut, foreign companies were courted with massive tax breaks and the promise of light regulation. – Fintan O’Toole, Ship of Fools

A silence had fallen in on the three hillwalkers, it had a knuckly and mannish grip. – Kevin Barry, There Are Little Kingdoms

That little woman was probably right, it could be a matter of nerves, nerves are the very devil… – Jose Saramago, Blindness

He never goes out without us, of course, we can’t trust him to strangers. – A. L. Kennedy, A Perfect Possession

Murphy’s respect for the imponderables of personality was profound, he took the miscarriage of his tribute very nicely. – Samuel Beckett, Murphy

So often I forget something important, I just overlook it. – Alexander Luria, The Man with a Shattered World

No more is possible, no more is needed. – Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye

You don’t want your truck to break down, it can be dangerous. – John Updike, Terrorist

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are grey faces that peer over my shoulder. – William Golding, Free Fall

His body has been preserved, it’s regarded as a miracle. – Ken Bruen, London Boulevard

That’s what comes from seventeen years of being married, I knew that the motion meant that the drugs were on a small ledge behind some recessed lights we had installed inside a wall bench at the entrance to the bedroom. – Nicholas Pileggi, Wiseguy

The sun was down, only the upper sky glowed. – Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower

Orvie was being very helpful, he organized dances and games, he had passed plates of chicken and ice cream, he danced with some of the more awful wives. – Edna Ferber, Come and Get It

The snow banked high against the lodge, only the upper panes of the windows admitted a gray light. – Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising

There was a prim little worktable with a gathered sack underneath of puce silk, there was a rosewood bureau and a mahogany sofa table. – Agatha Christie, Sleeping Murder

I suppose the devil’s grandmother knows so much about the real psychology of a woman, I didn’t. – Carl Jung, in a letter to James Joyce

There are other options, it’s only midnight. – John O’Brien, Leaving Las Vegas

The windows overlooking the Quays now shut, the barge looked uninhabited. – Anaïs Nin, Under a Glass Bell

We still have our old big dog, he is eight years old. – C. S. Lewis, in a letter to his godchild

It was a shabby hotel, the yellow-washed walls needed a coat of paint as they hadn’t been done since the time De Valera came to that village during the election campaign five years before. – Edna O’Brien, Irish Revel

The noises terrified me, I had heard nothing like it before. – Simon Yates, Against the Wall

I must construct this home as a symbol, whether I live in it or not is not important, it is enough that it is here, but there is no heart to it, of course. – Gore Vidal, in a letter to Anaïs Nin, quoted in her journals.

We’ve got a foundation for the argument, now we need a solid framework. – George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, example sentence in Metaphors We Live By

Brodie’s disapproval of the Girl Guides had jealousy in it, there was an inconsistency, a fault.– Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

There are no personal possessions now, there are no inheritances. – Jorges Luis Borges, Utopia of a tired man

I didn’t know his family name or what he had done, I only knew that he was dead. – Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress

I don’t think the bromide had any lasting effect, the only way to stop a British soldier feeling randy is to load bromide into a 300 lb shell and fire it at him from the waist down. – Spike Milligan, “Rommel?” “Gunner Who?”

This simple need is forgotten, what passes for simple prose nowadays is a mechanical stringing together of stereotyped word-groups, without regard for the images contained in them. – Robert Graves, The White Goddess

By the time I saw it, there wasn’t much of it left, even the doors were missing. – Anne Enright, The Gathering

He had always had plenty of friends, he would have met with a friendly reception in almost every town in the region. – Hermann Hesse, Knulp

But you still lead during this, the guide does not lead under these circumstances. – John C. Lilly, The Centre of the Cyclone

He was alone, that was the outstanding fact. – Algernon Blackwood, The Valley of the Beasts

But he wasnay really worried about it, whether one way or the other, as long as he kept the concentraion going, that was the fucking main thing, no letting the head wander. – James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late

I just haven’t felt like a haircut for a while, there’s nothing else to my hairdo but that. – Daniel Woodrell, Give Us A Kiss

“I had never eaten kidneys, mother was prejudiced against them.” – Ita Daly, Ellen

“There’s much too little snow on the ground this year, everything is bare ice.”– Peter Habeler, Everest: Impossible Victory

This is the zone we know best, it is the one in which our heads, and the Stevenson screens that hold most of our weather-recording instruments, lie.” – Lyall Watson, Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind

The sun moved over the tree and down, the shadow of the leaves crept back towards the bole. – William Golding, Clonk Clonk

People would see them, she didn’t care. – William Trevor, Love and Summer

Pellig ignored the terrified workers and skimmed on, his feet barely touched the floor. – Philip K. Dick, Solar Lottery