The fact that the local newspaper didn’t print James J. Kilpatrick’s weekly column, “The Writer’s Art,” isn’t going to stop me from giving you a weekly grammar dosage. I will give you the brief lesson I gave on the drive down to Palm Beach today.

I’ll start with a simple rule: because never takes a comma. For example: I went to the store because I needed milk.

Because is not a conjunction. You can remember the conjunctions by remembering FANBOYS - for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

They take commas when they’re between two independent clauses, which has a subject and verb. For example: I went to the store, and I got milk.

Conjunctions don’t take commas if there is a dependent clause. For example: I went to the store and got milk.

Lastly, neither requires nor, and either requires or. For example: Neither milk nor eggs will work. Either milk or egg will work.

Note previous grammar tips from “The Writer’s Art:” “Grammar tips: avoiding redundant tautologies,” “Grammar tips: sentence basics, not so basic,” “Grammar tips: concision editing, often misused words,” and “Grammar tips: referent pronouns made easy.”

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)