Dan wrote to me recently about two commas in my first posting. I’ve probably spent more time in my copyediting career discussing commas than anything else, except perhaps hyphens. And in my time editing at the Geographic our style on both has changed. (More about hyphens in a later posting.)

There are instances where a comma would be dead wrong—between subject and verb, for instance. There are other instances, such as in lists and with appositions, where commas are necessary. And then there are all the in-between situations, in which the use of commas depends on a writer’s style or on the need for a pause or on rhythm and consistency. (I never could understand the accusations of one of my all-time favorite editors that my fellow copyeditor and I kept reversing each other. “You put a comma in; she takes it out!” he’d say, suggesting that we might even have a quota on commas.) 

For decades the magazine’s philosophy on commas was to keep them to a minimum. We consistently eliminated them after short introductory phrases, around the year when giving just the month and year, between two predicates having the same subject. We were united in our attack on commas, stripping only the most necessary out of copy, although we always kept the final serial comma. Then over the years, writers started inserting more commas where they felt the need for a pause or to break up a long sentence. At the same time, our minimalist united front weakened through retirements and death. Later an editor came on board who absolutely adored commas.

So, in recent years commas have proliferated in the pages of National Geographic. They can be found after the shortest of introductory phrases, between two long and involved predicates, even taking the place of semicolons between two short, closely related independent clauses. Now, however, the magazine is restructuring its copyediting staff and has a new copydesk director. He will, no doubt, establish his own comma style.

So back to Dan and his comment. He is right that I did not need a comma in one place and could have inserted one in another. I agree wholeheartedly that a comma after “moment” would have helped prevent misreading in the sentence “At the moment, I’m about to give in. . . .” I do not agree, though, that the comma in the other sentence is wrong: “. . . and now here I am blogging, about grammar and punctuation and word usage.” I wanted to emphasize the act of blogging not the subject of my blogs, and using a comma did that for my ear. It’s not wrong, is it?

All of you out there, what do you think?

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