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I thought the answer was yes. Threads on this site in indicate the answer is yes....but then I frequently see constructions like this on news sites from writers I'd assume would be implementing language's best practices. Here is an example I came across while reading in article in CNN this morning:

"The country is notoriously difficult to get information on and its sanctions-hit economy is said to operate on a number of different levels, including a black market, with the government not even releasing official trade statistics."

I've seen this on many, many occasions. Either my understanding of independent clauses isn't correct or there's some rule I'm not aware of. While browsing for an answer in existing threads, I saw the concept of connecting clauses brought up a few times. Some respondents said that you don't need a comma before 'and' if the next complete idea is hinged on the same verb as the preceding one? Or something like that. I didn't entirely understand but wonder if this is an example of that.

Thanks you for your time.

Danielle
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  • It's debatable whether using a comma or not in this situation has much to do with "language's best practices." Comma usage is about style most of the time, which usually means conforming to one style guide or another. A problem with placing a comma before and is that it results in one sentence having four commas, which to some does not represent "language's best practices." – Arm the good guys in America Aug 06 '17 at 13:03
  • Ah, okay. I was under the impression that a comma to join two independent clauses with a conjunction was as mandatory as capitalizing the first word of a sentence. I didn't know you could just opt to not use one in that instance for stylistic purposes. Is the writer's freedom to omit the comma because of the number of commas in the sentences? Would this still have been acceptable if the sentence ended with the word 'level'? Thank you. – Danielle Aug 06 '17 at 13:20
  • Haven't you bothered to read the original? / Here, the overuse of commas can be rectified by offsetting the parenthetical with brackets instead: ... levels ( including a black market) with ... – Edwin Ashworth Aug 06 '17 at 13:28
  • I did. The logic for the explanation given in that thread was that the second clause in the sentence was short and clear, so the comma wasn't necessary since it was only two words long. That isn't applicable to the sentence I posted about. – Danielle Aug 06 '17 at 13:33
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    I'd agree that that's almost always a workable rule. / Decisions on when to use a comma include 'don't use too many in a sentence or parsing will become difficult' and 'insert commas in acceptable places where the string is too long for easy parsing / reading aloud'. Here, it's hard to do both. I'd use: << The country is notoriously difficult to get information on – its sanctions-hit economy is said to operate on a number of different levels (including a black market) with the government not even releasing official trade statistics. >> – Edwin Ashworth Aug 06 '17 at 13:38
  • The comma rule you talk about may be mandatory to some grammar teacher or English teacher. I agree with you the other answer talks about two short clauses (in which case you don't even need a conjunction: The dog barked, the cat sneezed). Punctuation "rules" should be about clarity. Use enough punctuation to avoid ambiguity and slowing down the reader. One can often rewrite unwieldy sentences. But in journalism one often wants to pack a lot of information into one sentence, without using parentheses. So what is a reporter or editor to do? – Arm the good guys in America Aug 06 '17 at 13:51
  • A writer or editor has to do something. In this case he apparently chose not to have a fourth comma in the same sentence. Is the sentence readable as it is? To me that's a yes and so it does not break the primary rule of punctuation: use punctuation to aid in reading. – Arm the good guys in America Aug 06 '17 at 13:52
  • Is it possible that the example is more a line for a quickly spoken script than flawless writing for reading? Also, as Ashworth hints, the second clause serves as a drill-down from the first, calling for punctuation smarter than the comma and more breaking (Oh!) than connecting (and) the clauses—all brought to you be the em dash. – Yosef Baskin Aug 06 '17 at 13:54

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