To comma or not to comma

[itisally]

I am teaching a basic writing class this term , and while I have the credentials to do so, it has been a while.

We were reviewing punctuation and I put the following sentence on the board. It was meant to be an example of quoting someone that is quoting someone else.

Joey said, “Yesterday Jane said, ‘No way!’, but I think we can.”

The question that came up was whether or not there should be a comma after yesterday.

My impulse is no, but I can’t, for the life of me, give an explanation as to why. If it is a preposition (and I am inclined to say it is) then it should have one.

Anyone have a better answer for me?
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[MNOWAX]

I'm no English major( in fact, people claim I don't be knowing much of the English language) But From the sound of it it seems like there is no comma there.
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[JDTAY]

Who is Yesterday Jane? Does she have a sister?
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Prohibit nothing. Disclose everything.

[MNOWAX]

I think joey doesn't talk right
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[Pablo]

I voted no just for the simple fact that it adds nothing. It's impossible to misinterpret the sentence even without the comma. I suppose there could be someone named Yesterday Jane, but if her (his?) parents were that twisted, she might just as likely be named Yesterday, Jane. Sometimes a comma just provides a place to hesitate, but after only one word? Nah.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Zag]

Yesterday is not a preposition, it's an adverb (describing an aspect of Jane saying something). A simple adverb should never be set off by a comma.

An adverbial phrase might be set off by a comma, depending on ... Well, I couldn't really figure out what it depends on, other than feel. I can not think of any examples where you would do so when it follows the subject and verb, but I can't say for sure they don't exist. Here are two examples where the adverbial phrase precedes the (implied) noun and the verb. I'd put in the comma on both of them, but I'm not quite prepared to say that you always put one in these cases.

As fast as you can, run to the store and buy me a lottery ticket.

In screeching tones, the sisters ordered Cinderella about.

[Pablo]

Quote:
Yesterday is not a preposition, it's an adverb (describing an aspect of Jane saying something). A simple adverb should never be set off by a comma.


So why didn't you use a semicolon instead of a comma after "preposition"?

(Uh-oh.... is it ok to end a sentence with a preposition?)
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Jack_Ian]

I would use a comma in this case. I imagine how it is said and if there is a pause while saying it, then I include a comma. In this case though I think it's optional.

joey said yesterday jane said no way but I think we can

If you imagine it being said without pauses, it could have many interpretations. For example,
Joey said yesterday, Jane said "No way!", but I think we can.
Pauses are used during speech to delineate in a way that removes ambiguity and the commas perform the same function.
If you write what Joey said as a sentence...
Yesterday, Jane said "No way!"
Then the comma is optional, so that would mean it's optional within the quote. Unless, of course, Yesterday Jane's sister is hot.

[Quailman]

Sometimes commas are structural and not to indicate pauses, as in the one following "said."

I voted no.

[raekuul]

Question: Why not write it Joey said "Jane said 'no way!' yesterday, but I think we can."?

[itisally*]

Raekuul, I could say it that way. In the future I might just to avoid the confusion.

I have always struggled with commas for the very reasons that Quailman and Jack_Ian point out. Sometimes it is a pause and sometimes it is just required. And to create more confusion, sometimes it is just there for clarification.

[Pablo]

[Zag]

[Scurra]

[Coyote]

Okay, so what if the sample sentence in the opening post had said this:

Joey said, "June Thomas said, 'Summer will be arriving soon!'"

Would any of the people who voted No the first time change their vote here? Why or why not?

My personal view is that Rules of Grammar shouldn't be treated like Laws of Physics. RoG provide a useful template for communicating ideas, because if I'm trying to put some idea down in writing, I need the readers to be following the same template in order to understand me.
But when you get down to the finer points like if and where to put commas, things get a bit more slippery, for the simple reason that RoG are not like Laws of Physics. The RoG are just a tool to facilitate communication, a tool that I've occasionally tossed aside when I thought I could communicate a thought better without it.

[MatthewV]

I think the important part about RoG is that different usage of punctuation will result in different meanings. There isn't a correct way to punctuate a sentence. Just non-standard usage will result in people being confused about you are trying to say. If you write your paper like an e. e. cummings poem, no one will take you seriously!

[wordcross]

Coyote's on the right track about grammar not being like physics. But it has less to do with being able to make due without, and more to do with the way that language changes and evolves. Rules that used to be hard and fast become less important as usage develops new patterns. And conversely, rules that used to be little more than stylistic preference become part of the accepted rules of grammar.

You can see examples of this when it comes to things like ending sentences with prepositions, beginning sentences with conjunctions, or even splitting infinitives. Grade-school grammarians might cringe at the idea, but most college-level and/or professional writing don't bother to correct for these. Many times avoiding an ending preposition even makes the sentence structure more confusing to the average reader.

The rules for comma usage have varied enough over time and political boundaries that trying to find out the "correct" usage is sometimes more a matter of whom you ask than any standard.
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Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

[MatthewV]

Which, is, why, I, use, a comma, after almost, every, word. It, reads, like I am, stuttering, or have, the, hiccups.

[raekuul]

Is it bad that I imagined that in William Shatner's voice?

[Coyote*]

For Shatner, you'd, need...some boldface type, and, an occasional...ellipsis.

[itisally]

I suddenly feel like there are quantum rules of grammar. Its diffrent on a small scale.
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[raekuul]

That's because English is a quantum language. When you're writing narrative and technical, you follow some specific rules. Once you get into dialogue, though, it's anything goes as long as you're consistent.

Incidentally, what are the phonetic rules for -ant and -ent? I know part of speech has something to do with it...

[Scurra]

One of the other problems we have (in the UK at least) is that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a concerted attempt to try and make English grammar conform with Latin grammar rules.
Obviously this didn't work, but it has led to some long-lasting "rules" which aren't rules at all.

I have long thought that English is like a lot of other subjects you learn in school - each time you go up a "level" you basically discover that what you were taught previously was, if not wrong exactly, then perhaps more unhelpful than anything else. And the higher you go, the more you discover that you really don't know anything!
Yes, it's important for young children to learn that a sentence should always have a verb. But it's equally important to learn later that that can be broken, and later still how to do it effectively.
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[raekuul]

What, they were their Germanic heritage trying to sever?

The problem with English is that it's a living language, which ends up presenting the Dialect problem. It's perfectly acceptable for me to say "You all are overthinking the problem here," because my dialect region uses the phrase "You all" as the second person plural. However, my dialect region is odd in that we don't use the contraction "y'all" in that place - which means that, for me and anybody who learns English primarily from me, there is a case where a contraction is wrong but the words that the contraction is made from is not.

[Paladin]

There are few circumstances where there is clearly a right and wrong with regard to language. An important consideration would be what you are trying to achieve with the quote. Keep in mind I was a Literature major and have written both fiction and scientific papers; to me, language is something I change like my clothes depending on the occasion.

If Joey's interpretation of what Jane said is important, then you can intentionally employ disregard for the rules of language to convey his misunderstanding, or to simulate how Joey might have spoken. Dickens often intentionally misspelled and played with punctuation to convey how something was said, and he could pull a decent story together.

Consider:
Joey said, “Theotherday Jane said, ‘No way!’, but I think we can.”

This is clearly bad English but it may be good writing. You know not only what he said, but you also have an insight into how he said it.

My verdict? Either could work, but I need to know the context to know which is better. Applying strict interpretation of the rules of English as I understand them, I vote for the comma.

PS. Hi everyone!

[Scurra]

[Zag]

Fun with punctuation! (This ends "apostrophe, question mark, single quote, double quote.")

The professor complained, "My brother has terrible diction! Just yesterday he asked me, 'ain't you comin'?'"

It's not quote up there with "What did you bring that book I don't want to be read to out of up for?" but I am amused nonetheless. I guess it doesn't take much.

[Quailman]

The Paladin????

That's not much of an update from someone who's been absent for so long. E-mail me, if you don't mind (your e-mail seems to have changed from what I had).