Practice Makes Perfect

You should use a comma to separate two independent clauses combined as a compound sen-

tence. They are most often combined with these conjunctions: and, but, for, not, or, so, and yet. An

independent clause is one that has a subject and predicate and makes sense when it stands

alone. Some examples:

DeWitt is baking a cake, and Allison is preparing the roast.

Do you want to go to a movie, or should we just stay home?

It began to rain hard, yet they continued on the hike.

You should separate exclamations and common expressions from the rest of the sentence with a

comma:

Oh, I can’t believe you said that!

No, I don’t live in Germany anymore.

Yes, you can go outside now.

Well, you really look beautiful tonight.

By the way, my mother is coming for a visit.

A comma is required to separate the day of the week from the date, and the day of the month

from the year. The comma is omitted if only the month and year are given.

He arrived here on Monday, June 1st.

My birthday is January 8, 1989.

The war ended in May 1945.

A decimal pointlooks like a period. In some languages, a decimal amount is separated by a

comma: 6,25 or 95,75. But in American English, a decimal amount is separated by a period (a

decimal point): 6.25 or 95.75.

In long numbers, amounts of thousands are separated by a comma in English. In other lan-

guages, they are often separated by a decimal point or by leaving a space:

English Numbers Numbers in Other Languages

1,550,600 1.550.600 or 1 550 600

22,000,000 22.000.000 or 22 000 000

Rewrite each sentence and place commas where they are needed.

1. Ms. Muti please have a seat in my office.


2. She bought chicken ham bread and butter.


3. By the way your mother called about an hour ago.

exercise 12-2

70 Practice Makes Perfect: English Grammar for ESL Learners

04 (062-076) Units 10-13 11/3/04 1:41 PM Page 70