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I'm a bit lost as to how the following sentence should be punctuated:

Life at sea, living on a tiny sailboat, is tough, but the sea provides a lot of free food, and so I don't mind the lack of luxury.

Assuming each clause cannot be separated into its own sentence, should the third and fourth commas be semicolons? I've heard you don't want to use two semicolons in a sentence like this, but I'm not quite sure whether writing the following would be considered acceptable:

Life at sea, living on a tiny sailboat, is tough; but the sea provides a lot of free food, and so I don't mind the lack of luxury.

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  • There are not three independent clauses there.
    – Lambie
    Aug 5 at 16:27
  • There is nothing wrong with your original version.
    – Hot Licks
    Aug 5 at 16:45
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    The first one is fine, with just commas separating the three clauses.
    – BillJ
    Aug 5 at 17:16
  • You provide a reason to avoid semicolons ("I've heard you don't want to use two semicolons in a sentence like this") but no reason to include them. I wonder, then, why you ask whether there should be semicolons. What would be your justification or reasoning?
    – MarcInManhattan
    Aug 5 at 23:38

1 Answer 1

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You can simplify the sentence by omitting 'living'. IMO the sentence can be written with a single comma.

Life at sea on a tiny sailboat is tough, but the sea provides a lot of free food and I don't mind the lack of luxury.

I also omitted the 'so' because getting food from the sea doesn't equate with comfort.

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2
  • I just still do not understand when to say "close". This is really an editing question. Personally, I like to edit but the "site" doesn't. So what's a body to do?
    – Lambie
    Aug 5 at 16:27
  • Good editing here.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Aug 5 at 16:47

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