Grammar

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Grammar 2 min read

How Can You Tell if a Comma Is Unnecessary?

A children’s book called Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference! is about the power of punctuation. The title might be puzzling, but one glance at the cover reveals the joke: It’s about pandas. It also gives an example of how an unnecessary comma can completely

alter a sentence’s meaning. The comma after “eats”  turns it from a panda “eating bamboo shoots and leaves” to a  panda performing three separate actions: eating, shooting, and leaving. Commas are a bit like salt in the kitchen — necessary, but too much can ruin the whole dish. Superfluous commas...

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