Bumbo Learns about Implied Words

The Koan

The teacher went to the platform to give his lesson on commas. He looked at the students, saying nothing. Then he wrote a comma on the wall and left. “Ah,” said Bumbo. “Missing words need commas, too!”

The Lesson

When the teacher stands before the students, saying nothing, all his words are implied. What Bumbo learns is that whether the sentence contains all the words or whether some words are purposefully left out, a writer needs to use commas as if they were all there. The comma left behind by the teacher indicates that comma rules apply even when some words are missing from a sentence.

Calling All Comma Masters

Nearly every day, I see comma errors in texts I read.

I don’t mean the texts clients send us for editing prior to publication. I expect to find comma errors in those documents. Clients send their documents to us at Precise Edit so we can make them right before they are submitted, delivered, or published. We edit the documents so they are well written, and we proofread them so they are correct.

What I mean is I find comma errors in articles, signs, books, and other types of texts that have already been finalized and made public. 

Do you find comma errors, too? Do you find commas in incorrect places or sentences missing commas? Are you a Comma Master?

Now is your chance to show off your comma mastery and have some fun. 

The Challenge 

Find a sentence in a public (i.e., published) document that contains a comma error. In the comments below, provide

• the faulty sentence,
• the source of the sentence,
• an explanation of the error (a couple of sentences will be sufficient), and
• the corrected sentence.

Any entry that provides this information will be considered a qualifying entry. I will accept only one qualifying entry per person.

Visit the Zen Comma blog to enter. 

You have until 11:59 p.m. (EDT), May 29, 2011, to enter this contest with a qualifying entry. Any entries after that time will not be considered. (This gives you about a week.) 

The Reward 

The person who provides the selected entry can choose any one of our books in PDF form (except Your Writing Companion, which we give away free at http://hostileediting.com). These include

• Zen Comma: 45-page PDF with examples, instructions, and anecdotes to teach you the 14 major uses for commas and the most common errors;
• 300 Days of Better Writing: 191-page PDF with 300 strategies for improving your writing, organized for daily study, with a topic index for in-depth exploration of a writing topic;
• Precise Edit Training Manual: 65-page PDF with comprehensive instruction on the 29 most common editing strategies we use and problems we fix; and
• Which Word Do I Use?: 18-page PDF with definitions, explanations, guidance on using the words, and examples with discussion.

Visit the Zen Comma blog for more information and to enter this contest.

Where Does the Comma Go?

Do commas confuse you?

The final stage of the writing and editing process is proofreading: correcting any errors in spelling, punctuation, word usage, and format. Roughly 75% of what I do while proofreading clients’ documents is correct commas.

When I teach university writing courses, I ask the students, “What’s the number one thing that confuses you about punctuation and grammar?” In every class, someone says “Commas,” and about half of the students nod in agreement.

Commas confuse most people. Unlike other types of punctuation, they are used in so many ways. However, if you want to write clearly and professionally, you need to use commas correctly.