Timeline for Using commas to offset appositives
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 3, 2018 at 19:36 | history | protected | MetaEd | ||
| Sep 6, 2016 at 7:10 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | The original wording in the OP's question, in the answer, and in the comments to both included the factual detail that John Kerry was a Republican candidate, which is incorrect (he has always been a Democrat). Since Kerry's actual party affiliation is irrelevant to the usage question posed by the OP, I decided to correct the distracting misidentification. | |
| Sep 6, 2016 at 7:05 | history | edited | Sven Yargs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Changed Kerry's party affiliation from Republican to Democratic, to reflect reality.
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| Dec 27, 2015 at 15:24 | answer | added | BillJ | timeline score: -1 | |
| Dec 27, 2015 at 0:18 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | *Note that either 'Tiddles' or 'the cat' may be dropped without compromising the syntax. | |
| Dec 27, 2015 at 0:15 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | @WS2 I believe that the whole nature of 'appositives' needs to be better defined. In 'Tiddles, the cat, died' / 'Tiddles the cat died' the parenthetical is a true restatement of the initial noun phrase and is what I would prefer appositives to be restricted to.* Here, I believe the commas to be optional for setting off the parenthetical. With OP's second set of examples, the parenthetical is different in nature, being either an identifying (restrictive: no commas by convention) relative clause or a purely information-adding (nonrestrictive: commas necessary) relative clause. | |
| Dec 27, 2015 at 0:05 | comment | added | WS2 | @EdwinAshworth Well it provides a convenient differentiation in that particular case. But how about John Kerry, a Republican candidate...? And what about Tiddles, the cat, died versus Tiddles the cat died? Are you suggesting that the former only be used with people who don't happen to know that Tiddles is the office cat, and might think, if you don't mention the fact, that you are talking about the Chairman's secretary? | |
| Dec 26, 2015 at 23:40 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | "The kid, who owns toy cars, is nice." means essentially "The kid we're talking about is nice (and did you know he owns some toy cars?)". "The kid who owns toy cars is nice." means essentially "That kid with the toy cars is nice." | |
| Dec 26, 2015 at 23:02 | comment | added | Yay | This is a matter of restrictive vs non-restrictive clauses. Both are correct, but are used in different situations. You should google that or ask on ELL for further clarification if you still have any concerns after some research (the first hit on Google should do). | |
| Dec 26, 2015 at 22:46 | history | asked | Griffin R. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |