Posts Tagged: commas

DTEB, “Humility: The Best Policy”

On March 22, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Little things often suggest bigger truths. For example, . . .

. . . I was doing my gratitude list and threw in a comma before the word “but”. My grammar checker flagged the comma. I was a blend of irritated and curious. What was wrong with putting a comma there? My grammar checker was wrong on this one!

Or so I thought.

I checked with Professor Google. Curiosity triumphed over my irritation. From my first hit, I learned that I should only put a comma before the word “but” when it joins two independent clauses.

Here was my original sentence, edited to preserve the privacy of the one for whom I was grateful”

“_________________ had a bad wreck, but is doing well now (or at least better).”

But then, I said to myself—still irritated and wanting to justify my grammatical self—that these two clauses were independent. In fact, now I was even more irritated.

And then it hit me: No, they were not two independent, stand-alone clauses. There is no subject in the second half of the sentence. Therefore, this clause is not independent. I threw in the little word “he” and my grammar checker’s two blue lines magically disappeared. Poof!

Things wax very ironic here. I am a teacher. I am not just interested in good content when I read my students’ papers. I correct my students’ grammar frequently. One of my major emphases is that every sentence needs to have a subject and a verb. I don’t like subjects that are merely “understood”, yet not expressed. It is too easy to misunderstand when something is (supposedly) understood. And here I was, doing the very thing that I correct in my students’ papers.

So, I not only learned something about grammar. I also learned something about me. I learned—again—that I get irritated (and irritation gets me) by what I think I know but don’t. And why is that? I lack one of the cardinal virtues: humility. And naturally, a lack of humility makes me irritated. It also makes me more judgmental of others. What I think I know but don’t may not be so bad in and of itself. In fact, it probably doesn’t amount to anything. However, it can lead to other bad things like pride, irritation, and judgmentalism. Or rather, what I don’t know but think I know can reveal the pride, irritation, and judgmentalism that are already there.

What a lot of unwelcome insight a little comma can generate!

, , , ,
Follow on Feedly