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Fire1 Posted 6 years ago
Grammar

Is it okay to add a comma if context is clear?

Mr. Lincoln likens that bond of the Federal

Constitution, joining Free and Slave States together, to a house divided against itself, and says that it is contrary to the law of God, and cannot stand.

(Excerpted from https://examgroup.org/sat-reading/reading-comprehension/practice-test-1)


I have something to ask on the part "that it is

contrary to the law of God, and cannot stand".


As far as I know, when the subject is the same for two verbs, there shouldn't be a comma before the conjunction "and", but as you see, there is a comma between "the law of God" and "and cannot stand".


I think it's wrong to add a comma in there, but sometimes is it okay to add a comma if context is clear?

As you see, it's obvious "is" and "cannot stand" are all the verbs of "it", which is referring to "a house".

  

Top answer

fire1 As far as I know, when the subject is the same for two verbs, there shouldn't be a comma before the conjunction "and" This is the "textbook" rule. , or sometimes for no particular reason.

— GPY

  • fire1 As far as I know, when the subject is the same for two verbs, there shouldn't be a comma before the conjunction "and" This is the "textbook" rule.
  • , or sometimes for no particular reason.
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2 Answers
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fire1As far as I know, when the subject is the same for two verbs, there shouldn't be a comma before the conjunction "and"

This is the "textbook" rule. In reality this rule is widely ignored, even by competent writers, when writers feel that a comma will help flow, phrasing, emphasis, readability etc., or sometimes for no particular reason.

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There are 33 excerpts at the link. I didn't want to go through all of them to find this one, but I looked at a couple, and one was from 1895. This "Lincoln" one seems to be at least that old. They used to use a lot more commas than we do now, many of which would be just plain wrong today.

fire1I think it's wrong to add a comma in there, but sometimes is it okay to a
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