June 24 2011
1. Origin of the comma
The most common punctuation mark in the Russian language is the comma.
This word is found in the 15th century.
There is an opinion that the word “comma” was formed from the verbs “to hook”, “to touch”, “to stab”.
But V.I. Dal thinks differently: he connects this word with the verbs “wrist”, “comma”, “stammer”, that is, “stop”, “delay”.
2. Comma functions
In Russian, the comma is used in writing:
A) for SEPARATION (separation)
Definitions
A pale light, similar to water slightly diluted with blue, flooded the eastern part of the horizon.
Favorite faces, dead and alive, come to mind...
It is impossible for a young man in love not to spill the beans.
Women, with long rakes in their hands, wander into the field.
Applications
My brother Petya, wonderful.
A renowned intelligence officer, Stepanov remained a quiet and modest young man.
Daria Mikhailovna’s daughter, Alekseevna, might not have been liked at first glance.
He reminded me of my son, Borka.
Participial phrases
The detachment, which set out early in the morning, had already covered four miles.
Circumstances
However, due to lack of time, we will not deviate from the subject of the lecture.
Every summer dawn, Gerasim, despite his blindness, went to the field to catch quails.
Participle phrases and single participles
The steamer, slapping its wheels, dragged cargo barges past.
Having made some noise, the river calmed down.
The shelves move, swaying and sparkling.
Additions
There was no other furniture here, except for a small table with a mirror.
I really liked it, except for some details.
Clarifications
Now, in late autumn, the box stands there alone in the empty rooms.
He shook his curls and looked up self-confidently, almost defiantly.
We were met by a young guy, about twenty, tall and handsome.
She looked with fear at her grandfather's hands, covered in brown, clay-colored, old-age freckles.
Explanations
At that time, exactly a year ago, I was still collaborating on magazines.
It was Alexander Timofeevich, or simply Sasha, a guest who came from Moscow.
I finally reached a large village with a stone church in a new style, that is, with columns, and a spacious manor house
Requests
Silver road, where are you calling me?
Well, brother Grushnitsky, it’s a pity that I missed!
Where are you going, my precious one?
Interjections
Alas, I have wasted a lot of my life on various amusements!
How I love the sea, oh, how I love the sea!
Introductory words and sentences
Looks like yours made a lot of noise there.
True, he had some weaknesses.
I think you are used to these pictures.
B) for SEPARATION
Between parts of a complex, complex or complex non-conjunctive sentence
[All faces frowned], and [an angry grunt was heard in the silence].
[It seemed to me] (that my father was looking at me mockingly and incredulously).
[The day was gray], [the sky hung low].
When listing homogeneous members
At this time, a swallow quickly flew into the colonnade, descended, almost touched the face of the copper statue with its sharp wing and disappeared.
3. Interesting facts
A) We all know the famous story with the sentence “Execution cannot be pardoned.” The placement of the comma here depends on the person.
B) When a sign is omitted or placed incorrectly, it can lead to serious distortions in meaning.
One “punctuation” anecdote tells about a traveler who, in a moment of danger, promised to “put up a golden statue holding a pike.” But when the danger had passed, he did not want to fork out money for a gold statue, and he gave the order: “Put up a statue holding a golden pike.” So, without breaking his promise with a single word, he greatly reduced his expenses by moving the comma.
C) The number of commas and other symbols is decreasing and decreasing; compared to Pushkin’s time, there are already half as many of them. All this is connected with the general process of understanding and standardizing the written text, which would be convenient to “grab on the fly” and immediately understand its meaning.
Judge for yourself whether it was easy to read such a text at the beginning of the 20th century: “In Moscow, one can often see, not without amazement, how whole crowds of beggars receive food or some other alms near the houses of rich people... Such life, perhaps, frees them, as they rather temptingly put it, from mental sorrows and frustrations, but in reality, drowning their worries, they drown themselves...”
Truly, as it is said in the ancient alphabet, “a comma makes a perfect speech,” and “sometimes one comma breaks all the music” (these are the words of Ivan Bunin).
Need a cheat sheet? Then save - » Why do we need commas? . Literary essays!Many of us are not friendly with punctuation. It is difficult for such people to remember the rules for placing commas, so they either skip these punctuation marks or overfill the text with them. Of course, we all wanted there to be fewer commas - after all, it’s easier not to think about where to put it correctly.
But this is only one point of view. Imagine if there were no commas at all. The story would turn out like in the cartoon “Land of Unlearned Lessons.” The hero, having found himself in a magical land, had to correctly put punctuation marks in the sentence, thereby deciding the fate of the unknown poor fellow.
Comma Functions
Of course, through a cartoon, children understand more easily why do we need commas . However, in adult life, the absence of commas would confuse everyone: long sentences would lose their meaning, and short ones would become monosyllabic, chopped off, and lose intonation and emotional coloring.
To put it cleverly, in the text, commas highlight constructions and simple sentences within complex ones, separate enumerations, isolate definitions, circumstances, introductory words and interjections, and also use them to distinguish direct and indirect speech.
If we talk about the comma in the context of its semantic purpose, then this punctuation mark gives the sentence intonation, with the help of which significant parts of the text can be “colored” with various emotional shades.
When separating semantic blocks of a sentence, a comma not only separates them, but connects them, filling both the individual parts and the sentence itself with a certain meaning. This function of punctuation is well illustrated by the missing comma examples, in which the meaning of phrases depends on where the comma appears. A correctly placed punctuation mark gives the text not only a specific, but also an understandable meaning.
One extra comma in the text, as Ivan Bunin said, “...disturbs the whole music,” distorting the understanding of the text and complicating its perception.
If we consider all the functions of a comma, we can accurately answer the question “ Why are commas needed? ?. They, commas, like no other punctuation mark, help convey the meaning of any written speech.
How do commas work?
Commas in oral speech are needed to reflect the peculiarities of its intonation. If at the end of any spoken phrase we clearly pause, we put a period in the letter. When listing objects or actions, we take a short pause; in written speech, homogeneous parts of the sentence are separated by commas. So, a comma in oral and written speech is needed in order to give the text the necessary intonation and emotional coloring.
In modern punctuation, the functions of the comma have changed slightly - in addition to intonation, the comma began to express the syntactic structure of the text. Separating text with commas, in addition to isolation and enumeration, helps to structure it, breaking more complex sentences into simpler ones. This allows you not only to easily visually perceive the text, but also to correctly understand it, as the author wanted. So, the second function of a comma is to help in the perception of text.
Just as beauty can change the world, so a comma can radically change the meaning of a sentence (remember examples with a missing comma). It is this function of the comma that is the most unconditional.
Commas in punctuation
The comma is a written punctuation mark that is used in many languages.
Why are commas needed? in Russian? In punctuation of the Russian language, commas are used to highlight parts of speech: some definitions and circumstances, addresses, clarifications, introductory words or sentences, interjections. Commas separate compound, compound and complex non-union sentences, homogeneous members of a sentence when listing; separate direct and indirect speech.
Commas in mathematics
In addition to punctuation when writing, commas are used in mathematics, acting as a decimal separator for the integer and fractional parts of a real number in the decimal number system. In some countries, mainly English-speaking, the role of a comma is played by a dot, and in Arabic countries - the mommayeh symbol, the graphic code of which corresponds to the character set - U+066B .
Commas in computer science
Commas are widely used in programming languages when listing array elements, function arguments, and other similar elements.
Unicode is a standard (system) for universal encoding of graphic characters in most written languages, which is used for computer processing of text data. Unicode is a set of graphic text elements - numbers, letters, punctuation marks, among which there is also a comma, the code of which corresponds to the character combination 0x002C.
Commas separate tabular data in CSV text format.
Commas in culture
In children's counting rhymes you can often find lines about commas - “Dot, dot, comma...”. In addition, the comma often became the heroine of children's cartoons - “The Adventures of the Comma and the Period” and “In the Land of Unlearned Lessons.”
It is difficult to assess the role of commas. They are used in oral and written speech, mathematics, computer science and even culture. Why is punctuation needed? Chekhov noted that commas, like other punctuation marks, “...serve as notes when reading,” Bunin - that an extra comma can disrupt the whole music, and the ancient alphabet claims that a comma gives perfection to speech. It is useless to argue with statements that have “conquered” time.
A comma is a punctuation mark. This is a small but very important sign. To understand how important commas are, it is enough to recall the example “execute cannot be pardoned.” The meaning of what is written largely depends on where the comma is placed. You could write a whole essay on why commas are needed, but we will talk about specific cases and examples.
The comma is used to highlight and separate parts, highlight one or more elements, and arrange intonation. When reading, a comma can be understood as a short pause. She orients and guides a person.
Why are commas needed in text?
Let's continue our discussion of why commas are needed, with examples and rules for placing commas. For example, commas are used to separate homogeneous members of a sentence if there is no conjunction between them: “Mom bought bread, butter, cheese and cookies at the store.” Without commas, such a listing would visually merge into one stream of words.
Commas are also used to highlight circumstances: “The task was completed despite the difficulties.” To highlight participial and participial phrases: “The children returned home, having had plenty of fun on the street.”
Why are commas needed in written communication?
A comma must be used to highlight requests: “Dear Olga Leonidovna, yesterday I received your letter.” Now there are a few real-life examples in which the absence or presence of a comma after an address changes the meaning: “The idiot threw out important documents!” If there is no comma after the word “idiot”, it means that we are talking about some idiot who has seriously messed up, but if there is a comma after the word “idiot”, then the interlocutor is called an idiot, and apparently it was he who screwed up.
A comma is used to highlight interjections: “Oh, this is so unexpected!”, so the semantic load on the interjection increases. If you read such a sentence without a comma, you get the feeling that this is a joke or sarcasm. This is why commas are needed in writing, especially if you communicate with your interlocutor through correspondence. If you place commas incorrectly, you may be misunderstood.
Commas are needed to highlight clarifications: “Expect a call tomorrow evening, after 18.00.” This way we draw a person’s attention to the clarification itself, and it will be more difficult to miss and not notice. To highlight the introductory words: “Undoubtedly, a small miracle happened that day.” In such a sentence, if you remove the comma, the meaning can also change, the emphasis can shift to the words “on that day”, to the word “happened” or to the word “small”, and each time the meaning of what is written will change.
Now let's talk about why commas are needed in complex, compound and compound sentences. Commas are used to separate simple sentences as part of a complex sentence: “It was hot outside and there was warm rain” and a complex sentence: “She calmed down when she found out that there was no reason to worry” and a complex non-union sentence: “The grass is turning green, the sun is getting warmer , thoughts don’t come to mind.” Now let’s look at examples of how the structure of a complex sentence is disrupted if there are no commas in it: “The sun was shining in the air, there was warmth in the air, and swallows were flying beautifully.” When reading, you may get very strange simple sentences: the sun will shine in the air and the warmth will waft beautifully. Finally, commas are used to separate direct and indirect speech: “She said I looked like an idiot.”
Thus, commas help divide the whole into parts, help highlight one or more elements and semantic parts with a certain intonation.
Attention, TODAY only!
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In Russian, the comma is used in writing:
When transferring;
-to highlight:
participial phrases and participial phrases,
appeals,
clarifications,
interjections,
introductory words;
-between parts of a complex, complex or complex non-union sentence;
-between direct speech and indirect speech, if indirect speech comes after direct speech, and direct speech itself does not end with the signs “!” And "?"; in this case, a dash is always placed after the comma (if it is present).
In numerical notation according to the Russian standard, a comma separates the integer and fractional parts of a number.
Other languages may have different rules for using commas.
In programming languages and some other programs, the comma is also very often used, mainly when listing, for example, function parameters.
As it is said in the ancient alphabet, “a comma makes a perfect speech,” and “sometimes one comma breaks the whole music” (these are the words of Ivan Bunin).
Where there is a comma, there you need to stutter with attention and the rhythm of the phrase. In Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin” there are the words: “But, however, the warrior lives!” - the introductory word is highlighted with commas and, accordingly, is pronounced with a pause, because the introduction of an extra word is emotionally necessary here and requires a tense stop in pronunciation. It is worth removing the conjunction but at the beginning of the sentence - and the word however immediately replaces it in the meaning of the adversative conjunction but: “However, the warrior lives!” In this case, a comma is not needed. By the way, using a comma after however at the beginning of a sentence is a massive mistake of many people writing in our time. It happens that you read a book, and there on every page: “however, he did not come...” and the like.
A comma is absolutely necessary (where it separates sentences, that is, different parts of thought as part of a common whole), it is desirable (for homogeneous definitions) or it is optional (emphasis for clarifications and comparisons). This is how it is with the word however, which can be a conjunction (and then it is not set off by a comma), can be an introductory word (and then it is necessarily set off by commas), but can also be an interjection (and then it is up to you to put a comma or not).
The question “why do we need commas in sentences?” rather rhetorical, since the answer to it is obvious. Not a single text, unless, of course, it is chopped with an ax, can do without a comma: the most used and most interesting punctuation mark.
The comma is closest to conversational intonation: it is like a graphic image of an emotionally charged conversation. And if you still ask me: “Why are commas needed in sentences?”, I will answer without hesitation: to convey the true meaning of the words.
Execution cannot be pardoned
The phrase has been attributed to various Russian tsars, starting with Peter I , although it appeared quite late and perhaps dates back to Western sources. Thus, the resolution “It is impossible to pardon. Exile to Siberia" (eng. " Pardon impossible. To be sent to Siberia ") - cited in a newspaper column by the American journalist R. Ripley ( Robert Ripley ) "Believe it or not." This is how Alexander would answer III on a petition for pardon, but Empress Maria Feodorovna moved the point.
An early legend of this kind is also known - the story of a letter from Queen Isabella of England to the jailer of her husband Edward II , killed in 1327: " Edvardum occidere nolite timere bonum est ”(possible translation from Latin: “Do not dare to show fear to kill Edward”).
For The expression became most widely known among Soviet viewers after the animated film “In the Land of Unlearned Lessons” (directed by Yuri Prytkov, 1969), in which the life of the main character depended on how he placed punctuation marks in this sentence.
Essay template
Why are commas needed?
Commas, like other punctuation marks, help to understand the structure of a sentence, and therefore the meaning of what is written.
Commas can separate parts of a complex sentence or homogeneous members from each other, or they can highlight isolated members or words that are grammatically unrelated to the sentence. So, for example, in the sentence: (":"), commas separate (homogeneous members of the sentence), and in the sentence: (":"), commas separate (introductory words, addresses, isolated members)
Without a doubt, commas are very important punctuation marks, without which the meaning of the sentence would not be clear. Just remember the textbook phrase: “You can’t execute, you can have mercy.”
Essay example.
It is impossible to do without commas in writing. They help you understand the meaning of what is written, choose the correct intonation, and highlight a word or phrase.
For many centuries they have been telling a tale about how a person’s life depended on a comma. A certain ruler imposed a resolution: “Execution cannot be pardoned,” and forgot to add a comma. So the life of the prisoner turned out to be dependent on the comma.
In text, the comma performs various functions. For example, consider the sentences from the text by E. Veltistov: “When Seryozhka thinks about who he should be, his thoughts begin to jump around in disarray...” - the sign highlights simple sentences as part of a complex one; “Dad, how did you know that you want to be a designer?” - appeal is highlighted; “It seems that I can think or not think...” - the introductory word stands out; “If I want to, I won’t be either a mathematician or an engineer,” the homogeneous members are divided.
The rules of punctuation are simple; there are no more than a dozen of them for the comma. However, language is complicated when these requirements are not met.
Why do we need commas in writing, as well as other punctuation marks? The question of why commas are needed in writing and who invented them occupies every schoolchild, especially when he gets a “C” for dictation precisely because he did not place these insidious little hooks and squiggles correctly! It’s a shame, isn’t it, when even the most difficult words are written without errors, and one incorrectly placed comma reduces the grade by half a point.
But experts in the field of linguistics have their own view on the question: “Why are commas needed in writing?”, because they know that this punctuation mark can change the character of the entire sentence, just remember the already legendary “Execution cannot be pardoned!”
On the other side, Regular commas show the reader where in a sentence they should pause a little to make its meaning clear., especially when it comes to complex and compound sentences.
But famous writers, it should be noted, do not always “agree” with the generally accepted rules of punctuation, so they decide for themselves why commas, an exclamation mark or a question mark are needed in a letter, and place punctuation marks themselves, highlighting the most necessary speech patterns in their opinion or emphasizing the importance of the thought expressed.
You see how important a role commas play, making the style of our sentences more figurative and brighter, allowing us to construct long sentences without getting confused in them. As for the rules for their use, they are not as complicated as it seems at first glance and you can even put commas intuitively, mentally breaking sentences into their component logical parts.
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