Obviously, commas are a whole issue unto themselves, but there are certain uses of a comma that are “for sure” uses. Here’s one.
One of the uses of a comma is to add what’s called “parenthetical information” to a sentence. This is information that’s nice to know, but is not necessary to the sentence. In fact, if that information was taken out, you’d still have a workable sentence.
One thing that people have questions about is the use of someone’s name. Is someone’s name parenthetical or not? Well, here’s the deal.
I have one dog. Her name is Grace. So when I talk about “my dog, Grace,” I don’t need to say her name. Because I have one dog, Grace’s name can be taken completely out of this sentence and there’s no confusion:
My dog, Grace, and I are going hiking this weekend.
My dog and I are going hiking this weekend.
Generally speaking, when material is enclosed in a pair (got to be at least a pair when they are in the middle of a sentence) of commas, that information could be completely removed and you’d still have a workable, unambiguous sentence.
If, however, I had three dogs, then I’d want to identify which one was going with me:
My dog Grace and I are going hiking.
See? No commas. You’ve got to be unambiguous.
Here’s a wrinkle. If all three dogs were going hiking, then I could say this:
My dogs, Grace, Penny, and Annie, are going hiking with me this weekend.
Removing their names results in a workable sentence:
My dogs are going hiking with me this weekend.
Wait a minute. The purpose of punctuation is to help your reader understand what you’re trying to say. Are you trying to say that your dogs and Grace, Penny, and Annie (whoever they may be) are going hiking? No. In this circumstance, you use dashes for clarity. The material inside the dashes is called an appositive phrase. Like this:
My dogs—Grace, Penny, and Annie—are going hiking with me this weekend.
So, let’s look at this sentence, which I just got in an email:
I’ve teamed up again with Celebrity Agent and 4X EMMY Award Winning Director, Nick Nanton, to publish a new book featuring some of my top clients and fans.
Okay, the first thing I see is a lot of puffery with the unnecessary capitalization. The words “celebrity,” “agent,” “award,” “winning,” and “director”—none of those words are proper nouns. None of them should be capitalized. I also don’t like 4X. It’s not correct. “Four-time” is what I’d say.
Also, I went to www.Emmys.com and discovered that the correct use of its trademarked name is not in caps; it’s an Emmy Award or the Emmys. Since “award” is coupled with “Emmy,” you’d capitalize it because now “award” is part of a proper noun phrase.
So, back to the issue at hand: commas. Here’s my question: is the name of Mr. Nanton parenthetical or not? Can you remove his name and have a workable sentence? Nope, you can’t. You need his name. It must be there. Those commas are wrong.
Now, if you’d said “a celebrity agent, etc., etc.”—emphasis here on the indefinite article “a”—then yes, you could take out his name because you haven’t been specific, so commas would have been fine. If you’d said “a celebrity agent,” but…you didn’t.
Do you need a comma after Mr. Nanton’s name and “to”? Well, let’s see. Boiling the sentence down to its simplest components, it would look like this:
I’ve teamed up again with Nick Nanton to publish a new book featuring some of my top clients and fans.
I’d say no commas at all, like this:
I’ve teamed up again with celebrity agent and four-time Emmy Award-winning director Nick Nanton to publish a new book featuring some of my top clients and fans.
Not to sound snarky (and I might as well tell you that I was “invited” by the author of this missive (yeah, with 600 of his nearest and dearest) to be “featured”), but here’s someone who doesn’t know basic punctuation rules telling me that he might feature me in his new book. Wow! Be still my heart!
Everybody, it seems, is a best-selling author. And the thing that’s crazy is that his book probably will be a best seller!
Just because you say you’re a best-selling author doesn’t mean you can write. This guy can’t write his way out of a paper sack. That’s okay. For my purposes, he’s a gold mine.
I’ve teamed up again with Celebrity Agent and 4X EMMY Award Winning Director, Nick Nanton, to publish a new book featuring some of my top clients and fans.
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