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Now I'm defending my work devoted to one interesting comma, found by me personally, which I first thought was simply wrong, but then I fell in love with it, and I still am.

I need your assessment of what I think is correct about that "super" comma.

▪︎ Essential clauses cannot, as you know, be divided with commas, but this comma is put with them at the end, thereby it lets us know when the auxiliary, which is divided from its subject by a long essential clause, begins(it should help with reading); however, this comma is optional and doesn't have to be used.

Example: The cat running across the street over there[,] seems mysterious.

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1 Answer 1

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Your example is grammatically incorrect because the comma separates the subject of the verb from the verb itself.

  • The cat seems mysterious.

You cannot put a comma between cat and seems. The additional clause "running across the street over there" does not change that.

There may be a subtle pause or inflection at that point when reading/saying that sentence, but that is what is inserted to aid understanding. To make it a comma when writing such a sentence is not correct1.

1 This sentence is a case in point. There may be a subtle pause before the word is, but you can't put a comma there.

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  • But we can, for example, separate the subject from the predicate with a non-essential-information clause, for instance: My cat, which is highly beloved by me, is so magical. Why can't we do the same in my case?
    – user470503
    Commented Dec 28, 2022 at 18:06
  • @Винни-мыслитель Because you have only one comma. And as the "running across the street over there" is a restrictive clause, it's not non-essential information so you can't set it off with two commas. I could add that to the answer I suppose.
    – Andrew Leach
    Commented Dec 28, 2022 at 18:14
  • I can't separate it with two commas, but I can separate it with one, which is according to my presumption, right?
    – user470503
    Commented Dec 29, 2022 at 3:43
  • No, one comma is wrong: you cannot separate the subject from the verb, as the answer says. Two commas are wrong: it's a restrictive clause which can't be offset with commas. You can't use any commas in that sentence.
    – Andrew Leach
    Commented Dec 29, 2022 at 8:13

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