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Request to clarify 3rd bullet in "Use a comma" #324

Open mara-dolan opened 2 years ago

mara-dolan commented 2 years ago

At https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/punctuation/commas#use-a-comma, it would be clearer if you didn't use an example with "you understood."

"Select Options, and select Enable fast saves." looks like a misplaced comma because "you understood" can be interpreted two ways:

I dropped the "then" from your example bc I don't think it affects this discussion and our house style is to drop "then" after "and."

In addition, your instruction farther down on this same page, 2nd bullet in Don't use commas, contradicts this earlier instruction.

At any rate, this earlier instruction causes authors to create sentences with (what jumps out as) misplaced commas, such as:

Create the xxx combo box, and add it to the xxx controls.

Create a xxx() function, and define the xxx label.

Any clarification of this guideline that you could make would be much appreciated.

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S-LRaillard commented 1 year ago

Hi @mara-dolan , Thanks for this feedback. I need a bit more clarification, as I'm not finding the reference to "you understood" that you mention. Could you please call out the specific sentence(s) that you think need to be revised for clarity? Thanks!

mara-dolan commented 1 year ago

My comment is picayune, but our authors aren't consistent on this, so it would be great to get it clarified (so I can stop removing hoards of what I consider to be comma-splice thingies).

In the third bullet after the Use a comma heading, it says to use a comma to join two independent clauses. The example given there is, "Select Options, and then select Enable fast saves."

While that sentence can indeed be interpreted as two independent clauses:

(You) select Options, and then (you) select Enable fast saves.

... it can also be interpreted (I think more commonly) as two verbs using the same subject (both using the same "you understood"):

(You) select Options and then select Enable fast saves.

If you agree that when two verbs are using the same subject, a comma should not be used, then it would probably be better to use an example here that is not "you understood" (ie, that is not open to interpretation). After all, a little bit farther down the page--second bullet under Don't use a comma --it says what I'm saying: "Don't use a comma between verbs in a compound predicate (when two verbs apply to a single subject)."

LMK if that doesn't make sense--wrote this in a rush too!