Periods vs. Commas: The War Over Ending

When to break a sentence into two sentences?  This has been a question for most writers since they picked up a pen in elementary school.  William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White feel that you should never divide a sentence in two.  But, I feel much different then they do on the matter.  There are times to divide a sentence into two different sentences.

When not to divide sentences:

• Don’t use periods as commas.

For example:

Gram is an honest person.  A woman of great ethics.

This should read like.

Gram is an honest person, a woman of great ethics.

Another example:

Pat is a hard worker.  On time for work every day.

This should be:

Pat is a hard work, on time for work every day.

In both these examples, the first period should be replaced by a comma, and the following word begun with a small letter.

• It is allowable to make an forceful word or phrase serve the purpose of a sentence and to punctuate it accordingly:

Time and Time again he called out. No reply.

  The writer must, however, be certain that the stress is necessary, and that he will not be suspected of a mistake in punctuation.

• When to cut a sentence in two:

A sentence can be divided into two sentences when there is a run on sentence and there is no conjunction combining the sentences.

For example:

The man ran for office he lost by only five votes.

This should read:

The man ran for office.  He lost by only five votes.

Another example:

Dan paid for his shoes He has to use his credit card.

This should read:

Dan paid for his shoes.  He had to use his credit card.

Writers should also know that they can use colleens and conjunctions to correct the problem of run-on sentences.

Where did this rule come from?

In Strunk’s guide to writing, The elements of style, He discuses this rule of when to use periods.  The book is a guide for writes to understand the use of style.  This book is dated and very strongly toned in its explanations of style.  When is comes to the rule regarding commas and periods, Strunk is too direct when explaining how to develop sentences.  He does not give readers the example on how to change a long run-on sentence into two separate sentences. Most sentences are not very long and the ones that are, are rarely crisp.  “The ability to write clear, crisp sentences that never go beyond twenty words is a considerable achievement.”(Williams 135)  A sentence can go on for ever as long as it clauses and punctuation is correct.  Williams gives an example of a long sentence written by Thomas hooker in 1594 that has eighteen subordinate clauses but is not a run-on sentence:

Now if nature should intermit her course and leave altogether, through it were but for while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way the time and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief-what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve?

Strunk gives good rule to follow but most of them are dated and opinionated. “The reader will soon discover that these rules and principles are in the form of sharp commands, Sergeant Strunk snapping orders to his platoon” (Williams, xiv).

Strunk’s and White’s description of the rule for not creating two sentences for one sentence is an example of the book’s commanding nature.  The elements of style is full of rules that are commanding, even though, it is really a opinionated guide. The problem with Strunk’s and White’s commanding that a sentence cannot be broken up into two sentences is that the rule is not always right.  The rule, for when to use a period verse when to use a comma, has much more to do with the length of the sentence and how the sentence flows than how Strunk and White describe the rule. 

Joseph M. Williams’ book, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, gives writers a better guide for writing clearly.  He details the “diagnostic principles of interpretation” in the style guide (Williams xiv). These principles offer not prescriptions, but choices (Williams xv).  Williams doesn’t go in great detail about when to use a comma or a period but he does teach his audience about length and coherence.  Both length and coherence can be altered by the rule of commas verse periods.  If a comma or a period is used instead of the other in the wrong place in a sentence, the sentence then becomes incorrect. 

Nevertheless, my rule on periods verse commas is not that great of an accomplishment.  One cannot simply defined rules when dealing with language.  Both Strunk and White and Williams try to give their audience a guide to become good writers but as time goes on, things change.  Strunk and White just give rules (which are outdated in many cases) where as Williams try to get reader to “understand the matter.” (Williams 1)