Word for Wednesday: Comma

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For the month of March, we are theming our Word for Wednesday blog posts around types of punctuation. So far we have looked at the word apostrophe and the word parenthesis. This week’s word is comma.  

Commas have a variety of functions yet many people are uncertain of how to use them. The main purpose of a comma is to clarify meaning by grouping together specific parts of the sentence. Each group within the sentence is separated by a comma which marks a slight break. One tip that teachers often use when teaching students how to read is to pause for one beat when there is a comma and pause for two beats at the end of a sentence.

In this blog post, we look at five instances when you need to use a comma in more detail.

As a Latin word, comma dates to the 1520s when it meant ‘short phrase or clause of a sentence’. It comes from the Greek ‘komma’ meaning ‘piece which is cut off’, from ‘koptein’ meaning ‘to strike, smite, cut off’. The word has been used in English since the 1590s. 

 

 

 

Sources: The Online Etymology Dictionary


18 Mar 2020
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