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Question

I also have a lot of different cooking utensils.or should it be: I also, have a lot of different cooking utensils?

Nona the brit · Accepted Answer

It could depend on your meaning.

The first means that you have a lot of utensils as well as other things that you have.

The second means that you have a lot of untensils as well as another person who has a lot of utensils.

Elduende_ph · Answer

Hi Nona,

You're right about what is meant in the second sentence, where a comma was used.

However, I'd like to expand the explanation for other non-native English speakers like myself. Let's put a context to the second sentence. The second sentence where the comma was used requires the presence, or the idea, of another person, for it to make sense. Let's add another sentence to allow the full sense of the sentence under discussion to unfold.

"Patricia has a lot of different cooking utensils. I also, have a lot of different cooking utensils."

So the comma is used to help tell us that the "I" just like Patricia, also has a lot of different cooking utensils.

That said, let me say that the punctuation question here reminds me of something we took up in writing class, about how adding a comma to a sentence can result in some funny or even horrible meanings.

For example:

"What's that on the road ahead?"

The question is fairly innocuous, quite harmless, even boring.

But if you added a comma this way:

"What's that on the road, ahead?"

Now try SAYING THE QUESTION ALOUD, pausing where the comma is placed.

It would SOUND like "What's that on the road, a head?"

Our class had a laugh over that lesson, although when I thought about it later, the prospect of finding someone's head on the road is quite unnerving.

Nice name, Nona The Brit.

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