Type of usage/ commas restrictive appositive

Question

Volunteer, Lucy has set out to arrange a charity run.

Jenny and her partner, Steven would instead be attached as potential owners.

Could you use two commas here instead of one ? What is the difference in meaning with one comma or two?

Could this use of commas be at the writers discretion or should these examples always have commas. I don't see how the meaning of the sentences are changed dramatically with or without them ?

I can see this usage needing a comma: Jenny and her only partner, Steven.

But I'd be inclined to write: Jenny and her partner Steven would be attached as potential owners.

Volunteer Lucy has set out to arrange a charity run.

Answer 1

Whenever you're adding extra information, it should be set off by commas. In this case, your example would need two commas.

Jenny and her partner, Steven, would instead be attached as potential owners.

The basic sentence is "Jenny and her partner would instead be attached as potential owners." Because "Steven" is extra information, something just being added to clarify (like this clause), it must be set off from the rest of the sentence by commas.

In your first case, you're also missing a determiner (article, etc.). But it would also require two commas. That is:

The volunteer, Lucy, has set out to arrange a charity run.

Depending on the context, "the" could be replaced by "Our", etc.

Here's the Chicago Style Guide on the subject. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Commas/faq0005.html

The waters are muddied a bit by the AP style guide which states that a comma should not be used for a single-word appositive, so these commas may be optional, depending on your style guide, but the Chicago/Oxford style of setting names off with commas in non-restrictive appositives is, in my experience, far more common, and adds a great deal of clarity (as discussed in the link, above).

In summary, I would recommend following the Chicago/Oxford style, even if there may be some style guides that disagree.

Answer 2

Having just discussed this topic with a user, I can provide a bit of information.

The pdf based on the Oxford style guide says this:

Style guide pdf

The AP style guidel says:

When to use a comma:

To separate a nonrestrictive appositive from the rest of the sentence.

• Raymond Turner, a biologist, described the species.
  

When not to use a comma:
Before or after a one-word appositive.

• The GABAA receptor agonist muscimol did not influence the response of WDR neurons in normal or allodynic animals.
  

The appositive in the last example is "muscimol", which is restrictive as it identifies "The GABAA receptor".

This means that the Oxford style guide and the AP style guide give opposing prescriptions.

Another style guide I found here says:

If an appositive is non-restrictive—that is, if it doesn’t contain essential information for identifying the noun that it follows—it is off-set by commas. In the following example, the appositive a doctor is helpful, but does not necessarily identify the preceding noun.

• My cousin, a doctor, is going to join the Peace Corps.

If an appositive is restrictive—that is, if it contains essential inform ation for identifying the noun that it follows—it does not require any added punctuation. In the following example, the appositive David identifies the noun that it follows:

• My cousin David is going to join the Peace Corps.

Note, the AP style guide seems to prohibit ", Steve," because it's a one-word appositive, not because it's restrictive or non-restrictive.

On the example of David Cameron as the appositive of prime minister, I assume it's taken that David Cameron is non-restrictive as there is only one prime minister. In the same way, I think "Steve" is a non-restrictive appositive because we take it that Jenny has one partner.

Given this information, and if we ignore the AP style guide which prohibits single word appositives from being "set off" by commas, then surrounding "Steve" with commas would probably be the best thing to do.