Talk:Comma

Clarifying "Ellipsis" section

Looking at the original link cited in the "Ellipsis" section and the manual (pg. 379 in the PDF version) that the reference cites at the bottom of its page, I feel a more accurate title for the section would be "Elliptical clauses in parallel structure." The current title and subsequent description encourages a conflation of this comma usage with the actual ellipsis punctuation, and this feels misleading as the two are typically not interchangeable. "Grammatical ellipsis" also feels slightly inaccurate due to a qualifying aspect of this usage. An updated description with this qualifier appears below:

"Commas may be used to indicate that a word, or a group of words, has been omitted, particularly when more than one clause features the same verb:

-The cat was white; the dog, brown. (Here the comma replaces the latter was.)

-Mary will search the barn; Thomas, the pasture. (Here the comma replaces the latter will search.)"

With the exception of verbs, I could find no other common use of grammatical ellipsis where this comma usage would be reasonable; thus, I feel the qualifying phrase is relevant. However, with the understanding that I have not experienced the exhaustive breadth of English literature, I did not feel confident in precluding other words or phrases altogether.

Additionally, I'll note that what brought me to this article and section is the question of how these sentences are punctuated when the conjunctions between the independent clauses are not omitted; so, that might be useful information to track down as well. 68.57.254.128 (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on November 5, 2025

~2025-31563-08 (talk) 19:23, November 5, 2025 (UTC-08:00)

For the comma, it is required to have statements for the fullwidth comma (， ) & the required source comma (，). For ⟨，⟩, or Source comma, is used in Chinese & western Japanese. For (Japanese: 三星 Hepburn: Sansin) /saɰ̃siŋ/, The "si" in sin is pronounced /si/.

Semi-protected edit request

Given that it within the section "Use in English", the paragraph beginning "In some languages, such as German and Polish,..." is obviously out of place. Please delete. ~2026-31706-91 (talk) 12:33, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

 Done I considered moving it to the "Languages other than English" section but decided to delete it as it's unsourced. Day Creature (talk) 17:13, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you ~2026-31706-91 (talk) 19:12, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Separation of clauses - where's the anti-comma source?

"Some style guides prescribe that two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) must be separated by a comma placed before the conjunction."

That sentence seems to imply that there exist style guides that do *not* prescribe a comma for independent clauses, but I haven't turned up any in my searching. Shouldn't there be a citation for that? (12 and 13 are in favour of the comma)

...Especially since it later says "The above guidance is not universally accepted or applied." - although maybe that sentence was only meant to apply to the part where those guides say to omit the comma for dependent and short clauses. I'm not sure. Inahc (talk) 05:09, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. To link full clauses is such a basic use of commas that I can't understand how any style guide would recommend against it. The article is quite wooly as a whole, and it's compounded by the fact that it's locked for edits, making it harder to address these oddities. ~2026-38600-46 (talk) 21:08, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

also, the entire section is duplicated in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_(grammar)#Separation_of_clauses Inahc (talk) 03:45, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Pause comment

As the article is locked, I am unable to address the following sentence in the lede: "In spoken language, a common rule of thumb is that the function of a comma is generally performed by a pause." The source, however, is a dead link and should be flagged as such. At the same time, it's odd to have this sentence in the lede, since the point it raises is never addressed in the article proper. The issue is also contentious: not everyone agrees with the pause method of determining when to use a comma, and since the debate is never even mentioned in the article, what's the point of having this in the lede? I'd delete the sentence.~2026-38600-46 (talk) 13:04, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

i agree with your analysis and have deleted the offending paragraph. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:15, 8 July 2026 (UTC)