Writing Skills: When to use commas with FOR, AND, BUT, OR, YET, SO, NOR

Fanboy and Comma girl, a love story. By Mr. E. Hi. I'm James from engVid. And you're probably

wondering: What the hell am I talking about? Fanboy and Comma... Comma Girl, okay? She's

a superhero, and our boy loves her. In case you don't know what a fanboy is because you

may not follow comics or movies as religiously as these guys do, I've got a definition for

you. So let's just read: What is a "fanboy"? A person who is loyal to a game, person, or

company, regardless if it sucks or not. That's not quite true, but what they are talking

about is that fanboys love their products. If they love Apple, it is the best the universe

has ever produced. And if Apple does something wrong, help them, somebody help them because

they will be angry. But generally put, they just love their products so much, they let

everybody know about them. Anybody with ears that will listen or who cannot escape from

them. All right?

So how does this have anything to do with English and grammar? Well, this is a grammar

lesson, and I find sometimes grammar can be incredibly boring, so let's make it a little

bit fun. So we created a love story by Mr. E. Now, let's start off with comma. Because

what is this lesson about? It's how, well, conjunctions, which I'm going to get to, work

with commas and sentences. Some of you might have problems with them, I mean, some of you

might even go: "Conjunctions, what are they?" So I'm going to talk about the most common

conjunctions, and I'm going to talk about comma usage. Okay? We're going to do a quick

lesson, here, and I'll make it fun. You ready?

So the first thing we should talk about is a comma. What is a comma? It's a punctuation

mark. When you have sentences, there's a time to take a breath or to complete it. Okay?

Now, periods, you may know, end sentences or ends thoughts. A comma sometimes gives

us a breath or it gives us a pause between parts of a sentence, or gives you time to

catch your breath, or get part of an idea. Okay? We also use it for lists. There's Frank,

okay? Frank, Billy, John, Susie, you know, lists. Lists of things. Knives, forks, scissors,

dah, dah, dah, and you'll have comma, comma, comma, separating them, keeping them individual.

And finally, we can also... Well, there's more uses, but these are general. We can use

them for numbers, large numbers. You know this, we can say 1,000, there'll be a comma

to indicate 1,000, and two commas to indicate 1,000,000. So largers... Numbers larger than

1,000, you'll have commas somewhere. All right? That's basically what the comma is used for.

Three different uses.

So, what are fanboys? Well, I told you they're excited about everything, right? Well, there's

a little bit more than that. They're conjunctions. If we look here, I wrote "conjunction", and

I put exactly what a conjunction is. It means to join something together. In this case,

when we have usually conjunctions, we join two ideas together. If we use a conjunction

with a comma, normally you're going to have clauses, and the clauses will be balanced

or equal. Okay? Later on we'll go into all of that, but that's what's going to happen

when we have usually a comma and a conjunction.

You know, there are clauses being used and they're balanced.

But: "What are the conjunctions?" you might ask. Well, let's start off with... These are

the basic ones. There are more, but these are the most common ones, and we use this

acronym which is a word made up from the first letter of each word so you have something

that's easy to remember, and I chose FANBOYS. And in a second, I'll reveal why. "For", it

gives you a reason. Why did they do this? Okay? "And" ideas that go together. Remember

I just said clauses that come together? I'll explain a clause in a second or two. "Nor"

it's also ideas that go together, but they're negative. Right? So if "and" is two things

that are positive, "nor" is negative. "But" is for contrasting, so: "I like this, but

I don't want this." Or an exception: "You can go, but your friend can't go." Right?

Exceptions. "Or", it gives you a choice. You can go for this, or you can go for that, or

you can go for that. "Or", right? You can have this or that. "Yet" is similar to "but",

and "so" gives you a result. We were tired, so we went home. Okay?

Now, I do want to go back up to here, because see, we've taken this and I've made an acronym.

"Fanboys are loyal and follow their object of affection". Object of affection is love,

things they love. Okay? Now, I'm giving you a small hint on how the grammar works. You'll

have a comma, then the conjunction. Right? Comma Girl, that's our superhero, and Fanboys.

And I made this video because I am a fanboy. You should have known this by the other Batman

videos. I've done 50 million of them. Time to go to work. And in saying that, if I can

get this shirt off... We'll be back...

[Snaps] All right, let's go. So we talked about Fanboy is following mysterious Comma

Girl, right? So let's get back to our story. I explained some things, but we didn't put

it together. I mean, why call it a love story? I'm going to tie the love story into the grammar

to make it clear for you, all right? Because now you know what Fanboy means, and it's an

acronym, you know what a comma is supposed to do. And I think I mentioned it before,

and I just want to make sure I hit it again, I told you that those were three uses, when

we talk about numbers, we talk about giving pause, or doing lists. That's three. There's

seven or more things you can use commas for, and those are just three I threw out at you,

because we want to keep this lesson simple. Right?

So, let's go to our idea, here. So: How is it a love story? How do we know it's a love

story? Well, we talk about "coordinating conjunctions". I told you what a conjunction was, right?

"Con" and "junc", meaning together. And "coordinating" means order, so it creates an order. Right?

When two complete ideas are joined... And: What do you mean by complete idea? Think of

a subject and a verb. Right? We have to have a subject and a verb to complete a sentence.

When you have a phrase, for instance, you just have, you know, like a subject, so you'll

have: "A fat cat". It doesn't really go anywhere, it's doing anything. It's just about the fat

cat. All right? So we need a complete idea, like: "He lives here", right? So, when two

complete ideas are joined by conjunction... Right? We have two different ideas and we

put them together, we need a comma. But, in doing so, we have to make sure they're balanced.

That means both must be complete ideas. Right? So: "He loves ice cream, and he loves Coca-Cola."

Now, in that case, to be honest, when you use "and", a lot of the times the comma is

optional. Don't tell anybody that, because the lesson is that you have to use it. But,

we can use it for... Well, we have examples over here, and some down here. We'll go to

them now, but we can see how we have to have first a comma, then the conjunction. And this

is what the love story is, because whenever we have this balance and this harmony... Think

of "harmony", and I'm sure you can hear angels, and little fluttering of doves. Okay? Comma

Girl is followed by these fanboys wherever she goes; "for", "and", "but", "nor", yeah?

"Yet", and "so" are following her everywhere. And you'll see here, this... This Comma Girl,

running away, like: "You're stalking me!" And "and", and "so", and "yet", are going:

"But we love you, Comma Girl. We love you. We have to follow." And that's what you have

to do when you have two balanced sentences joined by a conjunction. What you want to

do is put your comma down, the first idea, and then put your conjunction, and then put

the second idea. Remember they must be balanced, subject and verb, complete ideas. Let's get

some adva... Some... Ah. Examples. Examples. Right? So, the first one: "Mr. E went to the store",

as you can see, "Mr. E went to the store" is a complete idea. Okay?

"He bought a bicycle", that's a complete idea. "He bought a bicycle." What did he do?

He bought a bicycle.

But seeing as we're doing a conjunction and comma lesson, we're going to slip that comma

in, and there's little Comma Girl. So: "Mr. E went to the store, and he bought a bicycle."

Remember we said "and" is when we want to do in addition? He went to the store, in addition,

he bought a bicycle.

Next: "Tia moved to a new city", okay? Complete idea. Comma Girl, and then we have "so" there:

"so she got a new apartment". Okay? "She got a new apartment" is a complete idea.

"She got a new apartment". "So" is a result because if you live in one place and you go to a new

place, you can't live in the same place, you got to get a new place. "So she got a new apartment".

The result is that, and there's Comma Girl and our conjunction. All right?

And third... E, I know you wrote this. Every time he leaves, something goes on the board.

This wasn't "James" to start off with, but we'll say it's James. "James is a stupid man

for leaving this on the board"-Comma Girl-",

yet, he married a smart woman". "He married a smart woman"

a complete idea. "James is a stupid man"-I didn't say that-also, a complete

idea. We have "yet" as the conjunction, and there's Comma Girl, once again, being followed

by her fanboy. All right? It's a great relationship. It always works, it always happens. Always,

always, always, as you can tell. Believe me, it always happens.

Remember: don't say "always", because as soon as you say "always", you are wrong. What?

I didn't finish reading in red, like blood. "However, even the best relationships can break up."

What do you mean? Comma Girl and Fanboy won't be together forever?

"No. If the conjunction joins a complete sentence with a sentence fragment, no comma is needed."

Let me redo that for you again in English. You see, if the conjunction joins a complete

sentence and a sentence fragment, which is like a phrase, it might be: "A fat cat", "a

big car", these are not complete ideas, then you don't need a comma. Comma Girl and Fanboy

will break up. [Cries]. It's true. Comma Boy... Fanboy is like: "We don't need you, man. I'm

a conjunction alone. Alone with my thoughts and myself, just joining two things together.

And Comma Girl, I kiss you off. I'm a Fanboy. This hurts. I'm going to be alone." So, here's

an idea or now here's... Here is a complete sentence, and you'll notice I got Batman in

again. All right? "Mr. E is going to buy a Batman", comic, okay? I didn't put that in

there. I was running out of room, trying to save space and save the planet. Okay? So he's

going to buy a comic, he's going to buy a Batman comic. That's a complete idea. "Or

a Superman comic". "A Superman comic" is not an idea; it's a thing. Okay? So we're joining...

And I'll put "comic" because I know there are those purists there. I know it doesn't

look like much, don't worry, it's just "comic", because I don't want you going on engVid, going:

"You didn't write 'comic'. It's not a complete idea." Okay? So:

"A Batman comic or a Superman comic".

This is not a complete idea, so you don't need a comma. Notice how

it's unbalanced? We looked up here, we said: "If it's balanced with a conjunction, comma."

Down here, we say: "No comma", why? A complete sentence is an idea, it's heavy by itself.

The sentence fragment is too light. It doesn't balance it out. It just flows away. Okay?

Now, I hope you like that explanation and my shirt. And the... It's an E true story.

It's true. It happened. Fanboy, Comma Girl.

Anyway, test. Quick test, as you know. How about the first one we're going to look at?

"Mr. E likes to eat hamburgers and pepperoni pizza." Comma, no comma?

No, tricked you.

"Pepperoni pizza", man, it's just describing a pizza. It's not a sentence. It's just a...

It's a pepperoni pizza. It's very good, mind you, but sorry, no relationship.

Comma Girl and Fanboys are out right now.

Let's see if we're going to go for our next swing at bat, what happens?

"James has not been to Barcelona nor has he lived in London.",

"James has not been to Barcelona", I could put a period. That's an idea.

"He has lived in"... "Nor has he lived in Barcelona". Hmm. Hmm, "he has not",

"nor has he lived in Barcelona". Yes, has he lived

in Barcelona? He's lived in London. Oh... I guess I could do this, right?

Hey, you're good. Give you time, you can figure these things out.

What about the last one? This is a tough one. "Alena likes ice cream but it gives her gas.",

"Alena likes ice cream"... "What is gas?" you say? Sorry, excuse me I had a lil', little

gas, little gas. Woof, woof. Sorry. Okay: "She likes ice cream but it gives her gas".

What does that mean? Well, that's an idea, "it gives her gas", that's an idea, and we

have, I said this is a conjunction. Where does the conjunction go? It goes here. Ah,

sucker. Tricked you. Remember: our conjunctive boys love to follow our beautiful Comma Girl.

Right? So it has to go before. Right?

Hey, almost tricked you, but you're too smart for me. I know.

Why do I know this?

Because you go to engVid. What do I say? You know, www.eng as in English,

vid as in video.com (www.engvid.com), where you will go, I know, because you want to do

the real quiz. Right? Make sure you get 10 out of 10 on that. I also want to thank you

once again for joining us for our little lessons and our little play. Play on words and play

with the t-shirts. Great having you, and I'll see you soon. Okay? Chow.