Sure, commas should be used when grammatically necessary, but a period before a newline is not going to make a big difference one way or the other in terms of cognitive load.
All this about a missing period and nothing about the consistently missing commas. In fact I would say leaving off punctuation on one line paragraphs would be more consistent.
Commas do follow rules, they are just hard to explicitly lay out. Usually they are used to separate clauses. For example, in some cases you need to use a semicolon instead of a comma to avoid the “comma splice” (though outside of formal writing this comes off as pretentious).
If you use commas only to denote when you’d pause when speaking, your writing can come off as juvenile or uneducated. It’s not just a signaling thing. It is jarring to read a sentence with them misplaced.
Sure, but that’s not what the linked article discusses. It specifically states that commas are mandatory on each line. Not that the rule for commas is relaxed. And what I’m arguing is that requiring commas on each line is pushing the syntax in the wrong direction.
Your argument rests on the assumption that the serial comma is demonstrably preferable, that it is foolish not to use it in all cases. It is possible that the authors of this advice are better placed to asses whether their audience is comfortable with nuance and context. It is how Australians learn to read and write.
I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice.
> I think if you write a sentence that's highly dependent on the reader paying careful attention to where an easy-to-miss comma is, ... it's just a bad sentence.
Consider the function of the comma in "Time to eat, Grandma" vs "Time to eat Grandma".
No, whether you want commas depends on the sentence. Most good writers wouldn't punctuate that sentence as you did. Too halting for such a short sentence.
But this is not the point here, is it? The point is that any abbreviation with periods in it could appear in the middle of a sentence.
Commas can be used to indicate a pause in speech. Read it that way and the sentence doesn't necessarily sound incorrect (the obvious purpose being to put emphasis on the word "Now")
I don't see anything wrong with the so-called "12-year-old" line.
The arc doesn't look particularly unsightly to me. It's clearly a personal preference and I can see why you wouldn't like it but your mistake is in assuming everything you dislike is automatically in poor taste.
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