Saturday, April 29, 2023

spot the errors!

From a passage quoted in that Dr. V post:

Some people think cannibalism is wrong, others think that it is right. If the former are to prevail politically they must be willing to use force against the latter.

Two punctuation errors stand out, one in each sentence. What are the errors, why are they errors, and how do you correct them?



3 comments:

John Mac said...

Comma splice in the first sentence. Change the comma after wrong to a semi-colon to make it right.

The second sentence is missing a comma after the introductory clause. Fix it by adding a comma after politically.

Kevin Kim said...

The fact that you used the term "comma splice" makes me wonder if you resorted to Grammarly, but if you didn't, I apologize and congratulate you. Yes—comma splice for the first sentence, so you need a semicolon to separate two independent clauses. In the second sentence, the dependent clause comes first, so you need that comma you mentioned. "If you do that again, I'll kill you" versus "I'll kill you if you do that again."

So assuming you didn't use Grammarly, congrats on making the proper corrections, but I can't give you full marks since you didn't supply the reasons for the changes.

Kevin Kim said...

In your own words, and without recourse to a grammar guide, can you explain what a comma splice is and give an example of one (again, in your own words)?