The Haynes manual for Heathrow Airport is launched

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• Luke says:

  4 May4 May 08:28

  Just wondering and not being critical but do you use too many commas?

  • Brian says:

    4 May4 May 08:55

    It seems to me that Raffles uses them correctly. As a rule of thumb, commas are used where there would be a slight pause in spoken language. Try reading the text out loud, and you’ll see what I mean. The fact that commas have fallen by the wayside recently, so that you get texts without them, doesn’t mean that this is correct.

    • Rob says:

      4 May4 May 09:15

      Exactly. Over 40s probably use more than you young uns …..!

      • Luke says:

        4 May4 May 10:15

        The writing is great I’m not denying it. I just have never seen so many commas in all my life in print or on screen. Thanks for the clarifications and not burning me at the stake.

        • James Ward says:

          4 May4 May 10:27

          Luke, I think you meant:

          “The writing is great; I’m not denying it. I just have never seen so many commas in all my life — in print or on screen. Thanks for the clarifications, and for not burning me at the stake.”

          😉

        • squills says:

          4 May4 May 10:36

          Just weaning my 11-year-old off ‘[comma], and’ as he has his SATS in a few days’ time 😉

          Not always a mistake but the comma in ‘[comma], and’ and ‘[comma], but’ can usually be omitted – and your sentence will read better for it lol

        • Rob says:

          4 May4 May 14:47

          I would without doubt have put something between ‘great’ and ‘I’m’, which is frankly appalling 🙂 Kids today etc.

          I would have left the last sentence as you wrote it, although I would have added the ‘for’. Kids today etc.

          Honestly can’t decide if I would have added a comma to the 2nd sentence or not!

        • Chris C says:

          4 May4 May 11:05

          Commas can also be used to separate out information that could be taken out yet leave the sentence understandable.

          So the original sentence

          “Haynes, the book brand best known for its car maintenance manuals, has gone under the hood of a far bigger beast – Heathrow Airport!”

          Could have been written as

          “Haynes has gone under the hood of a far bigger beast – Heathrow Airport!”

          Though this makes the assumption that everyone knows the sort of books Haynes produce rather than being a generic book publisher.

  • James Ward says:

    4 May4 May 09:04

    Rob’s use of commas is pretty much perfect, as far as I can tell:

    http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/comma

    In fact, some people would even add an extra one: an “Oxford comma” before the final item of the list in para two.

    One of the things I really appreciate about HFP is the quality of the writing. Far better grammar than many travel blogs.

    • squills says:

      4 May4 May 09:23

      I think I’d have switched that last ‘which’ to ‘who’ 😉

  • whiskerxx says:

    4 May4 May 10:09

    Luke – who was wondering? Did you mean “! was”?

• squills says:

  4 May4 May 08:39

  Only 2 left at Amazon.

• Andrew says:

  4 May4 May 15:13

  Maybe someone should send a copy to the team at Berlin-Brandenburg.

• John says:

  4 May4 May 16:01

  You should probably not bring this book through TSA checkpoints.

  Regarding the comma issue: I find that commas are increasingly being used where one should properly be using a fullstop or a semi-colon, because using a comma creates a run-on sentence (that is what I was taught, at least). This phenomenon is especially pervasive in the English used in my business e-mails, so much so that I find myself using commas incorrectly now.

  • James Ward says:

    4 May4 May 16:13

    lol

    I see what you did there, it was very funny.

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