If you’re not already reading this, I invite you to join me in reading Reasoning With Vampires. (I liked Twilight except for Jacob, but I love the grammar education I’m getting with RwV.)
The next day’s response was
I’m a little confused about how the comma in your last post was incorrect. I interpreted the ‘and’ as combining two sentences: “I pulled out a letter. I pulled out a folded schedule of courses.” If that was the case, than the comma would be separating the two independent clauses, which would mean it was correctly used. Could you elaborate as to why it was incorrect?
Saturday, February 04, 2012, 12:38:31 PM
You’re partially correct. If that were the case, then the comma would be separating two independent clauses. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
I pulled out the letter, and a folded schedule of courses.
In your interpretation, you’re adding elements to the sentence that don’t exist. You’re adding an imaginary subject and predicate to make the second independent clause. I guess it’s okay if you want to do that, but you should keep the comma imaginary, too.
If you want to start from the beginning, just navigate to http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/page/96 (Replace the 96 with whatever the oldest page is today, then select “newer” at the bottom of each page till you reach the beginning. Remember that occasionally Dana adds 1-2 new tumbler images a day, so you may need to refresh the current page to see new entries before going to the new entry– otherwise you might miss entries as the entries are shifted to higher and higher numbered pages.)
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