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Surfer Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

comma

Hello, ..

In the following sentence:

The concept was modelled on the observation that in the real world, eco-systems are made-up of many other interacting subsystems.

Can the comma be removed?

Thank you.
  

Top answer

No, it shouldn't be removed. ) Of course, when the reader reaches "are," s/he is going to stop, confused. Your reader will have to go back and reread the sentence, realizing that a comma after "world" would have prevented the misread.

— Englishmaven

  • No, it shouldn't be removed.
  • ) Of course, when the reader reaches "are," s/he is going to stop, confused.
  • Your reader will have to go back and reread the sentence, realizing that a comma after "world" would have prevented the misread.
  • You don't want to do that to your reader.
  • The concept was modeled on the observation that in the real world eco-systems are made-up of many other interacting subsystems.
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3 Answers
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No, it shouldn't be removed. You don't want "real world" to be misread as "real-world." If you remove the comma, and someone reads the words as "real-world," that reader would think that "real-world" describes "eco-systems" (as opposed to a theoretical or hypothetical eco-system, for example.) Of course, when the reader reaches "are," s/he is going to stop, confused. Your reader will have to go ba
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can’t we have make up without the hyphen
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Thank you, Englishmaven. But that's what it is actually, real-world.

Maybe the choice of a two-word noun there stirred the blurriness. Say we replaced the real world with reality - would it then still be wrong to remove the comma?

The concept was modeled on the observation that in reality, eco-systems are made-up of many other interacting subsystems.
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