Page 156 - Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking
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Coordinating Conjunctions).
■ We finished dinner in silence, but I knew I would have to apologize.
■ She wanted to help her dry garden, so she invented her own rain
dance.
16.2.2 COMMAS AND INTRODUCTORY CLAUSES
Commas are also used after introductory clauses, such as in sentences where
ideas are related but set off by great contrast, where they show cause and effect,
where they indicate the order of events, or where an existing condition is
introduced as the background to an event.
Participial phrases in particular require a comma.
■ If you take off your jacket, you’ll be much cooler.
■ Being of sound mind and body, I leave all my worldly goods to my
wife.
■ Before you start building the furniture, you had better read the
instructions.
■ When you draft a string along the floor, the cats will always pounce on
it.
Sometimes commas are not used in sentences like these. But if you do decide not
to use them in these circumstances, read the sentence aloud to yourself to make
sure there’s no room for confusion.
16.2.3 COMMAS AND INTERJECTIONS
Many interjections are set off by commas. See section 15.0, Interjections.
Similarly, commas are used in tag questions, which are usually a confirming
restatement of a sentence’s overall idea.
■ We’re ready to go, aren’t we?
■ They’ll never fit that couch up those stairs, will they?
