ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the comma splice. A member of the lesser

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known group The Splice Girls.

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How should you change the highlighted portion below, if at all?

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Uncle Charles swept up the glass from the broken car. Window he was furious.

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Looks like Uncle Charles has a few anger management issues.

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It also looks like we have a case here of two independent clauses that are incorrectly

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divided.

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We can take choice (A) out of contention right from the get-go. Placing a period between

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"car" and "window" doesn't make any sense and just sounds weird, to boot.

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In this case, "car" is clearly an adjective that is trying to describe the noun "window."

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Putting a period between the two is total craziness.

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Plus, starting the second sentence off with, "Window he..." is just plain gobbledygook.

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The two intended independent clauses here are, "Uncle Charles swept up the glass from

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the broken car window," and "he was furious."

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Choices (B), (C), and (D) all seem to agree, because each one places a punctuation mark

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between "window" and "he."

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Their solidarity doesn't last very long, though, because they disagree with each other as to

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which kind of punctuation should be used.

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Choice (B) actually pulls a big no-no by trying to connect the two independent clauses with

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nothing but a comma.

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This typical grammatical mistake is called a "comma splice," and it"s to be avoided at

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all costs.

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We find ourselves in a bit more of a gray area with choice (D).

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Colons can be used to connect two independent clauses. So it's not like (D) is totally and

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completely incorrect.

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However, when we use a colon to connect two independent clauses, we're signaling that

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the second clause is an explanation of the other.

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Even though the two clauses are technically independent, it should feel like one needs

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the other.

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Choice (C) is the correct answer because it uses a period to separate our two independent

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clauses, allowing each of them to stand on their own.

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P.S. We're taking up a collection to get Uncle Charles some anger management classes, if

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anyone's interested...

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