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Thread: Joining sentences with commas

  1. #1
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    Default Joining sentences with commas

    Hi fellow teachers and other who know English well,
    I like to get an idea about how many of you would accept the following as correctly-formed English sentences:

    1. Hello, my name's Mario, I'm 17.
    2. You may speak now, I'm listening.

    Thanks.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Joining sentences with commas

    The comma splice has become so common now that I wonder if it will soon become standard English. It still annoys me when people who pride themselves on their writing us it. I do not call it standard, and if I were a teacher, I'd mark it wrong.
    riquecohen and 5jj like this.
    I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. Please don't ask me about 2nd conditionals, but I'm a safe bet for what reads well in (American) English.

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    Default Re: Joining sentences with commas

    They are not correctly formed, in my opinion.

    I'd accept:

    1a.
    Hello. My name's Mario. I'm 17.
    1b.
    Hello. My name's Mario(,) and I'm 17.
    1c.
    Hello. My name's Mario, I'm 17 and I come from Commaria.
    1d (email):
    Hello,

    My name's etc


    2a.
    You may speak now. I'm listening.
    2b. You may speak now; I'm listening.
    2c. You may speak now - I'm listening.
    riquecohen likes this.
    Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.


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    Default Re: Joining sentences with commas

    Thanks.
    The reason I ask is that it is normal in some languages. On a Spanish-learning website, which I'm working through at the moment, they have:

    Puedes hablar ahora, te escucho.
    You may speak now, I'm listening.

    Now, this is correct in Spanish. But I agree, it's not correct in English. I don't want to make a fuss about this on that website if enough of you think it's normal. But they are teaching this as normal English.
    All the Spanish students are introducing themselves as in my sentence 1 (without capitalising 'I' or 'Mario', of course). Since we are meant to correct each others' posts, I'm wondering whether to bother to keep pointing out that we don't do this in English -- and more importantly, whether to point it out to the site editor.

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    Default Re: Joining sentences with commas

    Are they teaching it as English, or using English informally as a means of communication? If the latter, then correction would be out of place, in my opinion. We rightly correct comma spices and chatlish in this English language forum, but such things are very common eleswhere in chatrooms, blogs, etc.

    There is also the question of whether you are asked to correct everything in each other's posts, or just the Spanish.

    You might consider the informal "By the way, we capitalise Iand the first letter of proper nouns in (semi-)formal written English. We also use a full stop (period) rather than a comma to mark off separate sentences".(Even that sounds a bit pompous - you can probably do better.)

    If they are teaching it as correct English, then I would point the mistake out to the site editor.
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    Default Re: Joining sentences with commas

    I'll wait a few days and see if any native speakers here want to make the case that it's normal, good English.

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    Default Re: Joining sentences with commas

    It's hard to make a case for them being good English, but they're becoming so common that it is likely they will become acceptable.
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    Default Re: Joining sentences with commas

    riquecohen likes this.
    Context is always important; labelling is rarely important.


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