Re: Comma rules and the imperative

[Doug Nickerson <Doug_Nickerson -at- ONSETCOMP -dot- COM>]

That is a struggle. I'd feel ok about omitting the comma, though.
If I needed justification beyond how the sentence 'sounds', I'd invoke an
abstract rule about
being concise, or making prose more direct. That is, you don't need the
comma
for clarity, so it could probably be safely omitted.

Actually there is a rule about 'omit needless commas.' I've seen it in
college
outlines of grammar--which outlines imply that too many commas is as much
a sign
of amateurish writing as is too few.

As far as your grammar analysis, the only part I don't buy is your notion
of the second clause not being independent. I'd like to hear the hard and
fast on this, but if the first part has the implied subject you, so does
the second clause (which you point out). So
the second clause is as independent-sounding as the second, ain't it? In
short I don't know. :-)


Doug Nickerson
Bourne, MA.
Programmer/author/person
doug_nickerson -at- onsetcomp -dot- com

norton -at- MEGSINET -dot- NET,Internet writes:
>Here's a troublesome question I'd like
>to get some feedback on:
>
>In the sentence, "Type a new filename, and
>click OK," is it grammatically correct to
>include or omit the comma before the "and"?
>
>We often use the imperative voice (or is
>it a "tense") when we write instructions.
>The sentence subject, in the imperative,
>is an implied "you" as in, "Choose Save
>from the File menu."

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