Why commas are needed

The culture of speech and spelling includes the correct placement of punctuation marks, which include commas. In addition, correctly placed commas help convey the exact meaning laid down by the author in the text.

In the study of spelling, punctuation marks in general and commas in particular occupy an important place. Pay attention to the fact that very often, depending on the arrangement of punctuation marks, the intonations of the pronounced text and even its meaning change. Using commas, the author identifies intonational-semantic segments. These include introductory phrases, separate members of a sentence, treatment, homogeneous members of a sentence, as well as simple sentences that make up the complex. Using a simple example, let’s look at how different positions of commas in the text can change the original meaning of the sentence to the opposite. An example is a short, but very entertaining phrase: “You can’t have mercy on execution” from the famous cartoon. In the example, there are no commas. First, let's see what meaning the phrase will take if you put a comma after the first word: "Execute, you must not have mercy." Now notice how the meaning of the phrase is substantially transformed when the comma is after the second word: "You can’t execute, have mercy." By comparing these examples, it is easy to conclude that the meaning of the sentence directly depends on where the comma is. That is, the comma is able to show the reader what word should be emphasized and how to use the intonation coloring to correctly convey the meaning. We will use another example: “She probably still drinks coffee and cookies in the morning” (Fadeev). Commas highlighting the introductory word "probably" indicate that this section of the sentence is not related to the information in the text. The highlighted segment should be pronounced quieter and faster than the rest of the sentence. From the above examples, it becomes clear how important the role of commas is, conveying the structure of the sentence, its meaning and intonation.