There are a lot of comma rules, so now we'll take a look at more stinking commas. People find commas tricky, but I like to think of them as patterns you can recognize. Today's examples are inspired by a pesky skunk living under the house, and not even commas stink as bad as that.
We could smell the skunk all week long, yet we never actually saw it.
At night the entire house reeked, so I had to sleep over at a friend's house.
We hired a trapper, but the skunk avoided getting caught.
After a few days the smell went away, and we figure the little guy moved out.
A comma separates two complete sentences in each of these examples, and it comes right before what we call a conjunction (yet/so/but/and). Without the comma/conjunction you can read each side out loud, and each forms a complete thought. However, the comma/conjunction helps the sentences flow and shows the relationship between the information (especially in the third example), so don't be shy about using this technique. By the way, every sentence in this post has used a comma/conjunction until now. Did you notice?
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