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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

conjunctive adverb and comma

Hi,
I think there are many conjunctive adverbs and some are noted here. But what baffles me the use of a comma before certain conjunctive adverbs and tag what looks to be parenthetical phrases. I feel only certain conjunctive adverbs are allowed? to have such a structure, whereas most of them don't. Why is that?
Some tidbits from the New York Times Search:
1. ... no longer self-supporting, hence the decision to end it.
2. Here in Denver, for example, ridership was up 8 percent ...
3. ... could lead to a less-stringent step, namely requiring selllers to ...
4. ...admitted that the collaboration unforeseen events, namely a sudden gaping hole in the main-stage season.
5. ... make a decision on what to do with Rivers and thus, challenged ...
If you look at no. 5, it has the conjunction 'an' and 'thus' comes after it. I feel most, if not all, conjunctive adverbs can acustom themselves to this type of structure, but no. 1 though 4 seem to have one more way to avail themselves apart from most other conjunctive adverbs. Why it that? What do I habve to do to learn to punctuate and write properly?
  

Top answer

#5 looks wrong to me. The others look fine as far as the punctuation is concerned (though #4 seems to have suffered from some kind of transcription error). You can tell that I don't really understand the question!

  • #5 looks wrong to me.
  • The others look fine as far as the punctuation is concerned (though #4 seems to have suffered from some kind of transcription error).
  • You can tell that I don't really understand the question!
  • Edit: In fact, the original version of #5 seems to be "Eventually, an impatient stewardess demanded authorities make a decision on what to do with Rivers and, thus challenged, put him back on the plane" which looks correct to me punctuation-wise (parenthetical), though I don't actually understand what the sentence is supposed to mean and I think it might be structurally flawed in some other way.
  • I also realised later that the punctuation you wrote for #5, though it looks unlikely in the fragment you quoted, could be correct as it stands if the surrounding parts of the sentence are filled in appropriately.
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3 Answers
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#5 looks wrong to me.

The others look fine as far as the punctuation is concerned (though #4 seems to have suffered from some kind of transcription error).

You can tell that I don't really understand the question!

Edit: In fact, the original version of #5 seems to be "Eventually, an impatient stewardess demanded authorities make a decision on what to do with River
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Thank you so much.

I think you can add the conjunction 'and' to it to no. 1 and my argument is that that seems to be the typical case with conjunctive adverbs, not the practice of not putting a comma before conjunctive adverbs used below, ie, for example and namely.

1. ... no longer self-supporting, hence the decision to end it.
2cNo. 1 could be like this.
1. ... no longe
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I'm sorry ... it's my fault I'm sure, but I don't understand the question. I hope that someone else will be able to help you!

All I can offer is that the following forms, and others similar, don't look right to me:

... no longer self-supporting and in addition, it seems unlikely that it will ever be self-sufficient

... no longer self-supporting and thus, the d

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